Well, it happened- the moment we have all been waiting for. Well, at least the moment I was waiting for. Well, not really waiting, more like expecting. But not quite expecting, it was a surprise.... but I was prepared.
Yep, you guessed it: the great [Cable Company] 'nami of 2017 has arrived!
In this area we have two cable (and phone and high- speed internet) services, Cox and Verizon (Fios). And in the modern world, for some really bad reason, companies in general reward 'new' customers and penalize old, loyal customers by jacking up the prices for existing customers and giving relatively large discounts to new customers. A couple of years ago I finally got tired of the prices charged by my provider, Cox (although perfectly happy with the service) as well as the bombardment of offers from Verizon, and jumped services. I did call Cox and tell them to 'sharpen their pencil' (Easy Boys!) 'cause I was looking at Verizon but I did not yet fully understand how it works now (see above- reward and punish the wrong people). So I went over to Verizon and have also been perfectly satisfied with their service, just like Cox, at least overall. Well yesterday my Verizon bill shot up almost $100 / month (!!) without warning and..... yep, this in the 25th month of the new service when I 'fall out' of the original package. Just for chuckles, I did call Verizon and they did whittle the price down a little but not nearly as much as Cox will, where I am yet again a virgin and a 'new' customer (apparently virginal status is bestowed on old customers after 90 days, unlike fiance's, which I understand takes one full year.... but I digress). Understanding how the game is played is a huge advantage because it saves time, questions, potential arguments, etc. and we can cut right to the chase: they could not quite match my current Verizon price but they COULD include a gift card (read: money flowing back toward me, read: reduced cost over the next 24 months) which was large enough to cover the difference and just a tad more. So I get newer, faster and better service (the new remotes are voice activated and I cannot wait until I have them 'cause making my own coffee is tedious) for the same price, at least for 24 months, from a new (new? really??) company that now has to come to my house and "install" their service rather than just continuing along with the 'old' company which would have made much better financial sense for all of us. Sigh. It is not my world, I just live here so the best I can do is to play the game as well as possible. But I do think this method of getting 'new' customers is a really foolish and very inefficient method that public vendors seem to be using en masse these days.
Next, insurance! Yep, my old, gray- haired self will become a virgin driver, home- owner and motorcycle rider for the next lucky contestant in this really dumb game of 'Let's get new customers by poaching them from the competition and the entire industry losing a LOT of money in all the additional work of switching'.
So if my posts look different, it is because they will be coming down a different wire.....
Brian, a loyal Cox customer starting this Saturday!
