Adrienne writes:

In April, my boyfriend and I moved to an area where Cox is the cable provider. When we moved, we signed up online for HD digital cable and internet. There was a problem with our apartment and on June 1 we had to move to another apartment building in the same complex. When we called Cox to have our service moved to the new address we were told that we would have to pay a $60 transfer of service fee. We were then informed that they had a package including HD cable, internet, and digital phone for $100 a month (versus the $105 we were paying), and that if we signed up for a one year contract they would also waive the transfer fee. We told the rep that we really didn’t need the phone service since we only use our cells and asked if that price included all the fees and taxes (which our $105 did). He assured us that it did so we added digital phone to our service to get the lower monthly rate. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

We got our first bill reflecting the new service in July and were understandably upset to see the total was $130, much higher than what we were quoted. Cox added services we didn’t authorize and weren’t even receiving including caller ID, a service assurance plan, and sports and movie tiers. We called Cox to get our bill corrected and were told they would have to research what packages were being offered when we signed up and that we should receive a call within 72 hours. No call came.

Two weeks passed (for some reason they didn’t have my name on the account and my boyfriend had to work overtime) and in that time we got our August bill. Not only were the incorrect charges still there, but they had added Starz to our bill too! We called again last night and after explaining our situation to three different people were informed that the price quoted in June was indeed incorrect and had the telephone service as well as the unauthorized fees and services removed from our bill. Cox told us that they would be correcting our bill and we would receive a call when it was viewable online.

Hopefully everything is now taken care of, but I just wanted to share this with you and your readers as a reminder to always check your bills!

Thanks,
Adrienne

The bill would also ban textbook makers from jacking up prices by bundling unnecessary CDs and other extras. Finally, schools would be required to publish a list of required books long before the start of classes so students could avail themselves of the free market and ferret out the cheapest prices.

Faculty should also be doing their part. Instead of assigning two expensive books and using just a few chapters of each, professors should order custom books with only the chapters they intend to assign.

Congress, though, should do what it can, because mounting textbook prices are one of a number of factors that are pushing higher education further out of reach of many young people.

That Textbook Costs How Much? $200? [NYT]
Make Textbooks Affordable [Campaign to Reduce College Textbook Costs]
H.R. 4137 - The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 [THOMAS]
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