Wasn't BSG "So Say We All?"

/shows self out.

@Darrone: "To paraphrase Battlestar Galactica..."

par⋅a⋅phrase
1. a restatement of a text or passage giving the meaning in another form, as for clearness; rewording.
2. the act or process of restating or rewording.
[dictionary.reference.com]

Being a cable guy I hear this all the time. I don't get it. Why is this a 'trap'? When you sign up for service it clearly states the length of the promotion (most of the time 6, 12, 24 months). Companies need new customers and they offer promos to get people to sign up. Of course they expect people to pay full price after your promo expires.

Satellite companies do the same thing plus they have contracts. I checked Dish Network website and most of the time they have premium movie channels added to the packet (cannot be unchecked) with '3 months free' and no final price after the promo is up.

No company will call you and tell you "Your promo is about to expire, would you like to extend your promotion?". That's just stupid.

The company I work for does not extend any promotions 99% of the time. You have to either have no service or pay at full price for at least 3 months to be eligible for a promo discount (and only if you get all 3 services).

If you play the game you can save a lot of money, but you need to keep track of your promotions and call in and try to get a better deal. Nothing wrong with that! But expecting someone to call you and remind you of this is just stupid.

@AgitatedDot: It is somewhat of a trap because usually the ad doesn't tell you what you will pay after the promo ends. It's also annoying that reasonable pricing is only available on a "special offer" basis, but that apparently is how capitalism works.

I think consumers are used to the cell phone model. I sign up for a 2 year at&t contract and after 2 years I don't expect my bill to increase because my contract is up, so people don't expect their utility bills to increase after a year "promo" when they are signing a contract.

This just happened to me with Mediacom here in Arizona. We had internet and cable through them for $73/mo when suddenly the bill jumped to $122/mo. I called them and they said there was nothing they could do about it and the promotional rate had expired. I asked to cancel everything and suddenly they could offer me $80/mo for the same services with a 1-year commitment.

@AgitatedDot: I have to disagree slightly with this. I had a similar issue with Cox - I signed up via their website to get cable and internet at my apartment, and was given little to no information about what I would be charged. I got so used to that beautiful $40 bill, when suddenly it was $100. My roommate and I dug through every piece of paperwork we were given, and nothing stated what our eventual rate would be. Because of this, we had assumed it wasn't a promo offer. We called, and lo and behold, it was, but nothing we had seen or received (I double-checked the website) clearly stated this.

I still don't understand why people refuse to honor their commitments. If one signs up for a promotional rate and that rate expires and they're boosted to the normal rate why do they feel they're entitled to another discount. If the company refused to honor the lower rate these people would scream but heaven forbid they put up with the raise and pay it as the terms of the contract state.

@katstermonster: I've recently made changes to my cable service as well because after our promo ran out we were paying entirely too much. Thank goodness we weren't under any contract and I was able to downgrade services, but having researched other options (DISH, directTV, etc) I was very frustrated with the difficulty of finding out what the standard rates would be. Usually I had to click through about three screens to get them or search through line after line of fine print.

@AllanG54:

I see no reason to assert that this person, or anyone else, is making a presumption of entitlement to a lower rate. She called before the promotion ran out, asked for a lower rate again, and got it.

If the company had declined her request, she could either have chosen to continue service with them at the higher rate, or chosen to switch to a different company.

I see no problem here.

End the promotion crap.

If you can sell it to ANY customer for X as a promotion then X should the price for ALL customers all the time.

@AgitatedDot: Comcast tried to do that to me. I said well then cancel the account. A mont later I got a "please come back" mailer and got my promo rate again. All it took was a month without cable. Totally worth it.

@AllanG54: It's called negotiating, it's part of capitalism

@StanTheManDean: If you don't want companies to run promotions, vote with your dollar and deal with other companies.

@secret_curse:

Trust me I have and always will. Others should join me.

@morlo: Of course they don't tell you what the price will be one year from now. They all say things like "standard rates" or "normal pricing" because standard rates change with time.

@AgitatedDot:

I don't think it is stupid. I think companies should call you to tell you the promotion is ending. That is one robo-call I would be glad to get.

Damnit. Comcast gave me a promo in May or June, and I don't remember if it's six months or a year ...

@squinko:
Neither 1 nor 2 seem to apply here. The meanings were completely different.

Here's the thing though, credit card companies, banks, credit unions, satelite, dsl, all these companies offer teaser rates. The cable companies are nice enough in that they don't require you to sign a contract. Satelite companies do. So lets say with your cable company you're given a 1-year "teaser" rate but you're on month-to-month, when it ends you have the option of calling and bitching. When you sign a 2-year contract with Dish but your promo is for one year, your stuck.

I used to do sales for the cable company, we were required to tell the customer up front what the regular rate is then offer the promotional rate. 90% of the customers who call back and complain about their bill going up complain they were never informed it was a promotion or what the flate rate was. We would pull the call from when they first signed up and sure enough they were quoted it, it's called "selective listening," or "selective memory." We would love to sell a customer the full price for our services, we wanted people to see the full value for the service they were getting. On the occassion they signed up on the flat rate they would call two months later irate that they weren't offered a promotion because their neighbor is paying half of what they're on and getting more.

The thing is if the company puts people on back to back offers, people are going to associate the value with that cost. The company might as well lower their prices to match the promos, if they did that then they wouldnt make any profit and every company/industry who once offered introductory rates would no longer be in business.

Here's another take on it. You buy a new car from X Car Dealer, 3 weeks later you drive by that car lot and see the exact same car for $1500 less. Are you going to storm in to the office and demand $1500 back? Well, you can, but you are going to get laughed at. The prices fluctuate all the time. Just because I see 0% financing advertised for a new Honda doesn't mean I can get it on a Honda I bought last month.

@StanTheManDean: You do know you don't -have- to sign up on the promotional rate right? You can just sign up for service at the regular rate and that way your bill wont go up in 3,6,9,12 months. Problem solved.

@bones11:
I share Stan's frustration. I understand that the companies do this to lure new customers, but as someone who has been a Cox customer for over 10 years it is frustrating to me that to get the best pricing I either have to call and threaten to switch to satellite, or cancel and wait for them to beg me to come back.

How about something like one month free for long term customers, something so you don't have to play that stupid game with them?

It's a promotion, which means that after it's over, you won't get the same rate you were paying before. She shouldn't expect to get a new promo after her old promo expired. She' lucky she got $20 off a month.

@AllanG54: If I know that my promo rate is going to end, I'll call and review my services and see what I want to drop to keep my bill where I want it. That's not entitlement, that's being conscious of my spending.
I have no problem with taking those premium channels for free for 3 months and turning them off again when the promo ends. They're worth $0 to me. They're not worth $30/month, or whatever it is that Comcast is charging these days for HBO.

@Sudonum: I put in a lot of a time with Sprint and one thing I realized was that new customers mattered way more than existing customers because all our best commissions came on generating new lines of service/new accounts.

We didn't get any commission/bonuses for helping people out with their bills. In one instance, I gave a customer who was ready to cancel the Sprint executive care number, which I only knew about because of this site.

As it turns out his problem finally was solved and he stayed with us. But did I get a bonus? A thank you? A "hey, good job" ? Nope, I got a warning from my manager not to give that number out anymore and start focusing more on sales and less on customer service.

@dragonfire81:
Well considering I'm also a long term Sprint/Nextel customer I do appreciate the little things the Sprint is starting to do to keep me happy (S/P, free ring tones every month, discount coupons for accessories). I know this probably has more to do with retention than anything else, since Sprint is (was?) bleeding customers like a hemophiliac. And even though I hardly ever take advantage of the offers, at least their trying.

Unfortunately Cox is not doing anything for it's long term customers, possibly because there isn't any competition except for satellite. So once a year whenever the wife starts bitching about the phone/internet/cable bill I call Cox up and say the magic words "Switch to satellite" and they knock a few bucks off my bill for a couple months. It's a stupid game, and one that I don't play with any other service providers/utilities.

If Cox and other cable companies can still make a profit from their low ball offers (and they must otherwise why wouldn't they require a long term contract to recoup the losses) then why can't they cut their long term customers a break?

@AllanG54: There's no refusal to honor commitments here - I commit to a one year contract with TELECOM. I get a great rate, go me! The year is up, my contract is up, my rate is up - TELECOM does not want to give me a rate I am ok with paying. That's fine, I am now free to cancel TELECOM's service, as I have honored my obligation of paying for one year of service with them.

@StanTheManDean: Except that many times that is intended to lure customers at a less profitable/break even rate, and then hoping they'll choose to stick around rather than do without or hassle with switching. And it's certainly easier to retain customers when you get them - but more often than not, promotional rates aren't as good once you're in service. Better than full price, but not as good as if you had no service...

@Colonel Jack O'Neill: She didn't - she knew her promo was ending, and she took action. Also, she scaled back service, so I'm not sure "lucky" factors.

@Murph1908: Yup. The proper word in this case would be misquote, not paraphrase.