Cutting back on bills
 

Although I hate Paul Harvey, I'm too lazy to reach my arm over 12 inches and switch the radio to iPod and avoid him. Anywhoo, the other day they were talking about a guy that saved money on cable, phone, etc. by calling a renegotiating his pricing on said services. Just for shits and grins I called my cable company (Comcast) and told them that times are tight at the job, sales are slow, etc. Then I told them that I was going to call DishNetwork and DirectTV but I didn't really want to go through the hassel. I bottom-lined them and said, "What's the best you can do for me so that I don't have to do all this legwork?" Low and behold: They cut my rate by 30%!

I hate to be a n00b and be making a new thread, but I encourage TFPers to give it a shot. May the force be with you.

PM me if you have more questions.
BB

My car insurance company did that when I told them I was thinking about switching after getting one of those half-ass online premium estimates.

They also dropped the one ding I had on my record, too.

...

Fight the power!

I make my SO (he's the account holder) call Comcast every time our "special" runs out. The "special" is typically whatever promotional deal they have running for new customers at the time. We've been doing this for a while.

The last six-month deal just ran out. I think it's time for a phone call.

It works with many "special introductory" deals. Like some of you, I've also done it with Comcast, as well as my Verizon cell phone bills. I don't carry a balance on any credit cards, but some of my friends who do have also used this concept to continue the low introductory interest rates on outstanding balances.

Well I work for my local cable company, and we get people here on a Daily basis to cut rates adn bills. I do it all the time, but in Alaska our sales are booming. We havent felt the "hurt" yet.

I just did it with my cable company. They are increasing rates and I called to say I was switching to Direct TV and they gave me 10% off my TOTAL bill (internet, cable, and phone) for 6 months.

we have no way of doing that up here. In AK I work for GCI, and we supply about 70% of the state. We basically have a Monopoly here, but I am not complaining. hehe.

If someone comes to us and says, "hey I am going to dish, since you are too expensive." we usually say, "good riddence," bascially.

We have no incentives to offer them. I think the reason why, is because Dish sucks up here in the AK so when they leave, they ALWAYS come back. haha Sad but true.

I used to work for a cable company, and in general, we were happy to discount for people who called in and gave a story about times being tight, and planning to switch. A paying customer is better than no customer (as long as you are making some money).

A few things to make sure of, if you've missed payments, or are notorious for calling in all the time and screaming and yelling at support reps this will be documented on your account and the less likely it will be a rep will be willing to work with you.

If the economy continues like this for a while I could see shopping stateside becoming more like shopping in a market in a third-world country. Threaten to take your money to the store across the street and the prices will start dropping.

Coincidentally to this thread, yesterday I got a call from Verizon about an aggressive offer to switch to them from Comcast to get a great fiber optic FIOS TV package, plus high speed internet (I think they said faster than Comcast cable but I have to look into the details), includes all phone service, and all this would cost a bit less than I now pay for Comcast cable TV + internet. So I plan to go online today to compare all the features of Verizon vs. Comcast and then call Comcast asking for a counter-offer. Competition in this field is a good thing.

Not sure how it works in the USA but in the UK you can switch utility companies to get best deal on electricity. When I looked recently the difference between the cheapeast and most expensive tarrif worked out at nearly GBP£600 a year (aboout $870). My own saving when I switched supplier at Christmmas was about half that.
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PS: I know somone who always jokes and asks for "100% discount" when they buy anything. It's surprising how many times the salesman says..."Ha sorry I can only give you ..."

I wish we had more competition between utilities providers in the states.

We do the same thing as Snowy. Comcast (& most cable companies) are operating on pretty high profit margins, otherwise how could they afford the incentives to new customers? They have the same signals going out no matter how many peeps are hooked into them, so discounting a current customer is better than losing one.

We also got rid of out land phone line & kept only the cellular phones. That was a savings of $68 a month.

Ever since the system upgrade in December, Comcast beats Verizon FIOS in speed hands down with up to 50mbps guaranteed. With Verizon on the fine print no matter what you order they will only guarantee 1mbps. It all just depends on how much you want to pay for it per month though, more speed = more money.

I ran a comparison on prices from verizon with prices from comcast with no specials or anything thrown in and for a month to month with verzion without contract which is the same as comcast is all the time is no contracts, for 5mbps it's $51, 15mbs $61, 15mbps up and down $73 and 30mbps $160.00 and on all of that they will only guarantee that you get 1mbps no matter what you pay for.

With comcast with no specials or discounts and month to month you get as standard
12mpbs for $52, 16mbps $62, 22mpbs $72, 50mbps $119.00. And all of the speeds are guaranteed, with upload speeds ranging from at least 2mbps up to 15mbps. The prices are pretty much consistent with each other but the speeds are not, the closest would be the VZ 15mps and the Comcast 16mbps. Now if you add specials into it and everything that's an entirely different deal, but that's the layout for what I found for everyday pricing on both companies.

Oh and the Qwest fiber optic internet they advertise 20mbps, for months (I'm not sure if it's true anymore) it was not available in any of their markets but they were selling it to people to sign up when it was nonexistant.

I hate Comcast because every time you turn around they are adding a few dollars to your monthly bill - and they don't tell you, they just do it.

this works with most things, you can try your cellphone provider if you are no longer on contract, your landline (I keep one because cellphones are not very reliable or good as IMHO,) insurance, etc.

I even have some friends that went to SoHo boutiques and bought $200 handbags for $40, and $1,000 bags for pennies on the dollar. BestBuy and other major retailers have leeway... give it a shot, even maybe just get the extended warranty tossed in for free.

Bargains abound!

we went with FIOS this past year - internet, cable, phones - down here and it's great...

don't know if it's available up north yet but we'll be checking into it in may...