I received a letter from Time Warner Cable regarding my cable / internet monthly bill. I pay approximately $130/month for my cable / internet services, and that includes the additional sports package with the NFL Network. I don’t need their digital phone (I already have a cell phone, and people can reach me that way), and I’m on one of their “promotional” rates for service.
Which, upon reading the letter from Time Warner Cable, I discovered that my “promotional rate” was about to end.
Wow.
So let me get this straight. I started at $130, they jacked me up to $167, then they immediately lowered my rate to $145, and they’re telling me I saved money?
Does this make ANY SENSE TO YOU?
Me neither.
Guess what. Time to call Time Warner Cable and ask what’s going on.
And after navigating through Time Warner Cable’s computer-controlled voice operating system, I eventually spoke to someone named Crystal. “How can I help you today, sir?” she asked.
I explained to Crystal that I received this notice, and that my rates were suddenly going up.
“Oh, Mr. Miller, your rates aren’t going up,” she said.
Really.
“No sir, you’re still going to pay less than the regular rate. You’re paying $130 a month, which is less than the full rate for your services of $167 a month. So when your new promotional rate starts at $145 a month, you’re saving money.”
Is this the same logic in which 7 x 13 = 28?
Okay…
“Well, Mr. Miller, let me see what we can do for you. Can you tell me what television shows you like to watch?”
Yep. A mixture of network and cable programs, some sports, maybe even a marathon of Forensic Files or How It’s Made or Food Factory.
“I see that you don’t have HBO or Showtime.”
Don’t need it. Anything I want to watch on those channels, I can simply wait until they’re available on Apple TV and order them a la carte.
“But don’t you want to watch HBO programs when they air? Don’t you want to find out what happens on Game of Thrones or True Detective?”
Yep. And I’m comfortable waiting until they appear on Apple TV.
“Well, we can offer you our movie package, which includes several channels of HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel and Cinemax, and it’s a promotional rate for 12 months and your bill would only be $148 a month.”
Okay… maybe Crystal hasn’t got her hearing aids working today. I’m not interested in a plan that will raise my cable bill. Try again.
“What Internet speed do you currently have?”
I have the advanced Internet speed. I can download movies from Apple TV, I can watch YouTube clips, I’m good here.
“Well, we can offer you our fastest Internet service, with a promotional package that will cost you only $150 a month. Would you like to sign up? You can play online games with this high speed service.”
Somehow, I think the promotional rates here are getting closer to paying retail price rather than wholesale price.
Again, did Crystal not pay attention in math class? Does it go all the way back to her getting confused by this?
“Look,” I said. “I’m not interested in promotional rates that will already raise my bill today… and then again twelve months from now. Why can’t I just stay at the rate I’m at?”
“That’s why they’re called promotional rates, sir. They’re not designed to last forever.”
And for twenty minutes, I battled with this customer service representative. And I had one goal in mind. If I add no services to this bill, then my monthly bill must remain the same. It doesn’t need to go up $15/month and have Time Warner tell me that I’m saving money. In an effort to keep this blog within the boundaries of good taste, I think the old adage is something like, “Don’t throw charcoal briquets at me and tell me that it’s soot-covered hail.”
The battle continued. En garde. Parry. Dodge. Spin. Thrust. I don’t want to say I’m feeling like an underdog, but it’s like I’m facing the Three Musketeers and all I am is…
And finally, just when I thought it would reach a stalemate…
I heard those magic words from Crystal.
“Okay, let me get a hold of my supervisor and see what I can do.”
She put me on hold.
Five minutes later… “Mr. Miller, I checked with my supervisor, and he agreed that you can have the promotional rate for your bill of $130 per month for another twelve months. Have a nice day, and thank you for calling Time Warner Cable.”
Touche.
So now my bill remains where it is. No increase. And certainly no increase that Time Warner Cable tells me is considered a savings.
I swear, one of these days Time Warner Cable’s going to cheeze me off so much, I’ll write a scathing blog post about their deleterious actions.
Oh wait. I just did. Hee.
Chuck The Writer 
You need to go to the time warner store in Colonie Center and have a chat about your bill. I did and it worked. Phone calls do no good.
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Ummm Dave, he kept the same promotional rate for another 12 months. Apparently the phone call DID work. Perhaps go back and read the last few paragraphs.
Good job Chuck.
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We need the city of albany to create a municipal broadband utility.
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Or update some anti-trust laws and enforce them to break up monopolies like Time Warner rather than going in reverse to allow the merger of Time Warner and Comcast into an even larger behemoth of a communications monopoly.
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Your phone call with TW went exactly the same(almost word for word) when my husband called to keep the original $130.00 promotional rate. The TW rep asked the exact same questions and insisted that we would save money. My husband was on the phone with her for 35 minutes. He came off that phone call (FINALLY)with the our original promotional rate of $130.00 AFTER she put my husband on hold to check with her supervisor!
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I believe we have their internet service – $29 (?).
I have DISH. I’ll never have anything but DISH. I believe it’s approx $95 a month (no HBO/ST/Max).
I’ve had cable (even times when it was free). Nothing but DISH will do. Such a cool company.
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the promotional rates are just that and once that period ends they jack it up to the regular rates. You have to play the game, either bargain for them to keep it low or switch to another provider to keep the rates low. It sucks and we need more regulation and competition to keep these rates reasonable.
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That’s the biggest part of the problem. For most people, there is no other provider to switch to. Sure, you can go with Dish or just stream everything from the internet, but unless you’re one of the few privileged ones to live in an area with FiOS access, you still have no choice but to rely on Time Warner for internet. Plus, as DanCF said below, once you reduce your services, they actually jack up your rates even more, so anyone who tries to cancel Time Warner’s cable service for an alternative of Dish or streaming will have the privilege of paying Time Warner three times as much for standalone internet service than previously. It’s ludicrous that in this day and age they are seriously going to allow Comcast to merge with Time Warner and make the problem exponentially worse rather than promote competition.
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I can’t stand Time Warner. I hate all this “promotional rate” crap. I actually lowered my services and my rate went up. I wish there was more competition for cable services in this area. It all seems like such a rip off.
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Great post, Chuck. We just get the Internet service, no cable TV, and paying something like $67 a month. That’s the problem with monopolies — no one else to turn to.
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They must have slowed down your internet cause I’m getting blank screens on the YouTube vids…:) Also, I’m 99% sure that she didn’t talk with her supervisor. Realizing she wouldn’t get any commission bonus on the upsell, she just did what you wanted anyway. I’m going to have to go through this pretty soon as well.
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