Unemployment sucks. This is the reason I was home that fateful morning this chaotic situation started. You see, for the past few days I kept seeing this commercial for caller id on the TV. WOW! Caller id on the TV? I wouldn’t even have to reach over the arm of the couch for the phone. This is genius. I saw Nobel Prize winning stuff here. This was the lazy persons dream. All of my information comes across my screen; I don’t even have to move my neck! I wanted it, and I want it now. A soon as my wife approves.
The next morning, after telling my wife about it and getting no objections, I made up my mind to call the cable guys when I got around to it that day. They must have microphones in those receivers because guess who came up on the caller id first thing that morning? Sweet Grace and her beautiful little S.C. twang, stumbling over a pitch for caller id on TV. She was clearly new and it made me feel good to hear her voice stand up with confidence when I said yes, I want to hear more. She then informed me that I had to get the phone service to get the caller id on my TV.
No prob.
All we needed to do now is make sure I wasn’t going to pay more than I was already paying. Let’s hear the numbers. Since I already had TV and internet with them the addition of phone service should make a nice discounted bundle, plus I get to keep my number the same. Grace gave me the final numbers complete with tax. It looks like I was going to be saving 4 bucks. I like the sound of that, but let’s make sure that grace is sure. So I asked to know what the breakdown of each service with the taxes separate. It took her a few minutes and one “could you hold on please” but she came back with all the math right. It all sounded good, so I did the voice contract stuff and I was set up for installation.
Things I found out in September 08′:
· Installation Technicians don’t know or care about the conversation you had with the sales people. If the order say’s your installation isn’t free, it will not be free. You will have to pay him, in correct form, before he starts.
· You lease most of the equipment you have, the only thing you own is a monthly fee for it.
· You should make sure you have all the add-on services you need that used to be free from your previous provider, before it gets installed. Because once it’s installed you might add these essential services (Voicemail, Caller ID, etc.) and discover your bill will now be $25 higher than what Grace said.
· Just because you live in America, the greatest country on earth, does not mean you will not get ripped off and then penalized for trying to undo the rip-off.
· Let me explain: With their contract, if you cancel or simply drop one of their services, you have to sign a new contract for the one’s you keep. The only problem is it will be at the “current” rate, which is always more than it was 1 minute ago. If I would have stayed with them I would have ended up paying $50 more per month for two services than I would have paid for three.
· You can get TV on your computer and then hook your computer to your TV.
Find out how by the end of September I lost my phone number and any friends I might have made at the cable company due to the F bombs I couldn’t hold back any longer. Bye-Bye cable.
I was tired of cable having a stronghold on me, so now I get satellite TV on my computer
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