Have you ever wondered about all the “special” deals that the Sat TV people and cable people and cell phone services give to “new customers”? It has turned into a race to keep swapping accounts with all these suppliers, changing names, addresses, etc. just so you can be a “new subscriber” all the time. Loyalty means nothing to most of them.
I just spent 2 hours dealing with DIRECTV, trying to get a better rate for my sat TV. That of course was after the horrible ordeal of just trying to get to a “real person” at AT&T That stupid IVR (Interactive Voice Response).
I must say that Direct TV is not as bad about that (machine operator routing) as AT&T. I spent 15 minutes with them (AT&T) first trying to get a real person and gave up and went to the Direct TV problem first.
When I started out with Direct TV (in this new house), I had 3 receivers, one DVR and we paid maybe $60 a month for the ‘”plus” service. That “new customer” deal was only good for 1 year but the contract is for 2 years. So you get sucked in to pay a low rate for half and a way too high rate for the second half of the contract. The Cell phone services do the same things during upgrades and you can get my recent cell phone adventure here. If you’re a new customer to any of these, you can get a free phone, but if you’re an existing customer you have to pay a lot more for the phone if you need to upgrade. I think these services are a racket. They should set a rate and it should be the same for all. Then get new customers by providing superior service not gimmicks to sucker you.
During my 2 hours ordeal on the phone today, I talked to two different real people at Direct TV and 3 at ATT. The first one at ATT
had no clue what I wanted, the second said I couldn’t do that so after my 1hour plus at Direct TV getting them to give me “preferred” customer pricing, which did lower my bill some but not to the “new subscriber” rate, I had them give me a different number to ATT that hopefully would get me to someone that understood the “bundle” process and give me another, small, discount for putting my Direct TV on the ATT bill. That took another 40 minutes as it was not as simple as put it in and link the accounts and your done. the guy had to repeat my account numbers over 10 times and I would assume that was because he was having to enter then into that many different places to get the linking done. Along with my address, phone numbers, etc.… It almost got to the point that I was contemplating going back to regular TV off the antenna. It has to be cheaper? Besides all that, what the hell do we do with all those extra channels other than set and flip the channel on the remote.
Yes, I remember the days when we only had 3 or 4 channels total and you had to get up to change them on the TV itself. I also remember the sign off of the TV channel at about midnight.
Now we have 210 channels some in HD and can record them to play when ever we want to watch not when they are broadcast. In some ways the shows back then had a bit more meaning –
and with the limited selection we were not so stuck to the chair in front of the TV. We also had a lot fewer “obese” people because we were out doing things that were more physical and not just being “dumbed” up by watching non-reality – reality shows. Not all new things are better for you. – WD0AJG