20 Minutes Can Save $180 & Tips for Receiving Better Customer Service
May 6th, 2008
A few months ago, I received a letter from our ISP Charter Communications. The good news was that everyone in our area who subscribes to their High Speed Internet was getting upgraded to the 5 Meg service and we would be surfing [I forget how many] times faster than dial-up. The bad news was that this was going to cost us yet anther $10.00 per month - an astronomical $57.99 per month. But the letter indicated that we had no other options, and our area being quite remote - we can’t get Verizon DSL here - we had no choice but to take it or go with our local wireless service which is much slower, costs more, and comes with a $200 set-up fee. Since we rely on the internet for all of our business, dial-up is out of the question. So we bit the bullet and took it. And I cringed every time I paid our Charter bill these last few months.
But this morning, I went to the Charter site for an entirely different purpose: checking out the options on one of the most un-frugal things there are - cable TV. I know I shouldn’t be doing that because nobody really needs cable, but I recently got hooked on a few shows that I’ve discovered on Hulu (House M.D., The Office and Battlestar Galactica) and am itching to see the re-runs of all the past seasons I’ve missed. Of course, I was just looking, with no intention to buy because when it comes down to it, it really is a terrible waste of money. But anyways, when I clicked on Add/Upgrade Services, I saw that there were 3 High Speed Internet promotional plans available to my area - $19.99, $24.99, and $44.99 a month. I decided to get on customer service chat for some clarification on the plans available to my area, and 20 minutes later I had saved $180.
