Victory!

I called Comcast today and immediately asked to be connected to the retentions department. This is was a tip given to me by my brother. The retentions department is there to retain you as a customer. You can either give your sob story to a customer service rep, only to be transferred to retentions, or immediately ask to be transferred to them so you only have to deliver the sob story one time. I chose the latter.

I explained to the woman that my bill had been escalating steadily for several months now. This was the case. It seemed like each month one promotion would run out, or they'd raise a rate, leading to a very annoying $5 increase each month. This took the bill from $140 or so to $200 (this includes internet as well). In that time, we did add one DVR box, which costs $15 a month, but other than that, nothing had changed.

Let me quickly interject here and say that I am bound to some bizarre moral code, probably learned through Sesame Street. Even though I know Comcast makes a ridiculous profit off of me, I do not feel like I can ask them to charge me less than any rate that I ever paid. They are offering me a service, and I don't feel like I need to cheat them. I just feel like they shouldn't be cheating me. So I have absolutely no problem paying $140+$15 per month for exactly what we've been receiving. My brother's idea was to say, "I'll pay $99 and not a dollar more," but I am just not capable of doing that. It's the same reason why I can't steal music or movies or whatever. I feel like they provide a service, and that they should be compensated for it. End of sermon.

They connected me to a lady in the retention department, and I explained to her that I was frustrated with my rates slowly increasing, and that I had been paying $140 which I was cool with, but $200 I was decidedly less cool with. She put me on hold saying she was going to look into what to do. This took a minute or two, but when she came back she had good news. She said she could give me all of the premium channels, my sports package that I've been receiving, and the DVR service for $155, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I agreed, and she said the promotion would last for 6 months. This is what my brother said happened to him, only they never took away the promotion.

All told, the call took about 10 minutes, most of which I was on hold while the lady updated the system, etc. I would gladly wait 10 minutes to save $50 a month, or $600 a year. This was incredibly easy to do, and I would recommend it to anyone.