Comcast Cable Bait & Switch - Sales Tactic #8
October 24, 2007
This post is part of the Sales Tactics Revealed series. Make sure you check out the other Sales Tactics.
Have you read my post on How 5 Minutes Can Save You $120? If so, beware the advice I gave because it may come back to bite you!
How 5 Minutes Can Cost You $180
Comcast just pulled a version of bait and switch on me today; don’t fall into the same trap. I didn’t give the details in my original post, but I was able to drop my cable bill $20 a month for 6 months by upgrading from Expanded Basic to Digital Cable. What I didn’t know is that I was actually setting myself up to lose money in the long run.
Comcast Baits the Trap
At the time Comcast offered several tiers of service: Limited Basic, Extended Basic, and Digital Cable. I felt I was paying more money for cable than I needed to be. We receive many, many channels we don’t watch and wanted something in between the Limited & Extended Basic plans in terms of channels available and rates. They didn’t offer such a package and wouldn’t give me a discount on Extended Basic but did make the offer to drop $20 a month from my current bill if I upgraded for “free trial” of Digital Cable. I wasn’t really interested in Digital Cable but wanted the discount so I agreed to the deal. I specifically asked the phone rep if I could switch back to Extended Basic after the 6 months ended and he assured me that I could.
The Trap is Sprung
My six months has ended so my cable bill jumped back up, not to the Extended Basic rate but the even higher Digital Cable rate. I took in my digital box today to cancel Digital Cable and revert back to Extended Basic and they informed me that was no longer an option. Comcast is phasing out Extended Basic and slowly moving channels over to Digital Cable in preparation for a 2009 change to all digital broadcasting.
Comcast’s Bait & Switch
Comcast knew what they were doing six months ago when they baited me into changing over to Digital Cable. They knew Extended Basic was going away and that I wouldn’t be able to change back to the service when my promotion ended.
I’m not sure what angers me more, the fact the phone rep lied to me last spring or the horrible customer service they offered when delivering the news today. Their only response to my protests about being lied to was:
“We apologize an uninformed associate gave you the wrong information but we can’t help you. We’re not allowing anyone to transfer to Extended Basic”.
A company that values their customers and discovers that one of their employees misled a customer will take the necessary action and correct the wrong in the eyes of the customer. The fact that Comcast isn’t willing to do that leads me to believe they knew exactly what they were doing when they made the offer and intentionally lied to me in order to convert me over to Digital Cable.
Financial Implications
Now I’m faced with the option of paying an extra $15 a month for Digital Cable ($180 annual increase) or looking for an alternative. For whatever reason, Comcast is the only cable option in my part of the city so I’ll have to research the Dish network or DIRECTV. Be aware of this tactic since Comcast seems to be heavily promoting the Digital Cable route. As I stood in line today I heard the reps try and push the digital box on many other customers. You’ve been warned : )
Or, you could just do without cable and save even more money than you had been saving by doing without.
All of a sudden you will have more free time on your hands and fewer bills…
Two things. First, saying Comcast has bad customer service is like saying the tide will come in. It’s a sure thing. But you (and every other Comcast customer) already knows that.
Second, I think you give them too much credit for planning ahead. My experience has been that companies make money in spite of themselves. I seriously doubt a lowly CSR knew corporate’s plans.
Do you not have the Digital Basic package in your area? That’s what we have, which is the exact same price/channel lineup as the old Extended Cable (analog) package was. It’s not the Digital Cable you probably got, which has tons of extra channels.
Like you, we were also told by Comcast that they are trying to get everyone over to a digital package (we did it to get HD channels), but surely they can’t force you to get an expensive package with a bunch of worthless channels. So ask about Digital Basic!
What!!!! I was literally just about to call comcast this week to downgrade my parent’s digital package to expanded basic. They haven’t even used their box for the past year but we’ve been paying extra for it.
Ugh! Comcast is horrible. I just switched to ATT/yahoo for their internet services, which is about 50% cheaper and feels just as fast. I found dish network to be a low priced and viable alternative but my parents “need” their Chinese channels. Those channels are costing us $30 a month extra!
Comcast stinks, I’ll have to call them up today and see what they say. First I have to find those boxes lol I hope I didn’t lose them.
Thanks for posting this! When we bought our house and transferred our cable the rep tried soooo hard to get me to upgrade to digital - I didn’t because I was afraid I’d forget to cancel in time (I was less organized then) and… whew.
Man, I would be ticked off.
It’s rare, by the way, for there to be multiple options for cable in the same area unless you are in a highly populated area. Even then, many companies essentially have legal monopolies. The reason usually stems from the amount of cables municipalities allow to be strung through their jurisdictions. It can get pretty corrupt.
Blaine, 4 letters: ESPN : )
KMC, you may be right but i still think Comcast planned this initiative and even if the CSR didn’t know the plans they knew they were supposed to push the Digital Cable plan.
jodie, thanks I’ll have to check out the Digital Basic package.
Money Socket, I hope you didn’t lose them, they’ll charge you for them. However, I did turn mine in without a power cord without a fee.
Patrick, I agree, only having one cable company is messed up. It kills competition since there’s only one option.
The unfortunate thing is most of these cable companies are virtual monopoly in their region. Beside going to satellite, I have no other option either. Please keep us updated.
Thats not true, its just a hard sales tactic. Take the box back in cancel service and then call them back to get basic cable. They will hook you up without a problem. I would complain to a manager. I just got basic cable two weeks ago without a problem.
get the dish
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We had something like this happen with Adelphia a few years ago. I guess their customer service people went to work at Comcast after the buy out.
We’ve been very happy with DirecTV since then. The only hitch is bad weather can knock out the satellite connection.
Qwest did the same thing to me. I had a phone package that included the dial tone (I guess this is not free with the phone line) and an extra service, which I used for Caller ID.
I received notice to upgrade to another package with call waiting caller ID, I was told it would actually be less in the long run.
Next month I got my bill, it was more, I called to get back on my old plan and it had suddenly been discontinued. Even after complaining up the phone tree, writing a letter, and contacting the PUC, nothing changed.
I hate Qwest.
As someone who used to work in tech support, I think it’s pretty likely the rep was telling the truth about not being able to switch you back. The system we used to manage customer information did not give us (regular reps, supervisors, *anyone*) the ability to add people to plans that had been retired. The only thing we could do for them was put them on the nearest possible current plan (usually more expensive) and, if the plan change was due to us *mistakenly* removing them from the legacy plan, add special discount features to make the plan comparable to the one they’d had before.
Go with Dish.
Comcast IS the devil.
I have extended basic and I keep getting these voice mails from Comcast telling me that such and such channel will no longer be available after such and such date and that I have to get a digital something or other, which, of course cost more money. My bill is already $56 a month for the basic. First they called and said the TV Guide Channel was being eliminated. Then they called and said CNN and something else was being eliminated. Then they called, last week, and said the Hallmark Channel (one of my favorites) was being eliminated. I am so psssst. Being FORCED to pay more for something I do not want. I intend to get a satallite dish, now. If I am going to pay more money, I am going to have a different service. Which is best…Direct or Dish???
I so-oooo prefer direct tv over dish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dish suuuuucckksssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they have NOOOOOOOOOOO customer service; and have you on hold FOREVER
would NEVER recommend them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
direct tv is SUPERB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
currently have comcast; they too suck!!!!!!!
You are right, I have comcast but you do not have a contract with them so you can always cancel and go back to whatever you want.