I have been with Charter communications for the past 13 months, I know this because apparently when I singed up I was placed on a 12 month promotional price… Last month my monthly rate for TV, Phone, and Internet went from $110/month to $178/month..
As expected I canceled the phone service (something I never used anyway) and cut down the television service. However for basic (channels 1-70) and 2 DVR’s we were still looking at about $60/month just for TV.
Once they basically told me there was no chance I could get it any lower, I decided to cancel everything but the Internet. That’s basically the only thing I can’t imagine canceling at the moment.. However I was told by someone who probably Lost their job by now, that if I cancel for 30 days, I can come back and get new customer pricing, another $10 off my monthly rate for Internet currently.
In our search to replace the TV, my main two options were DirecTV and Dish Network.
My initial choice was DirecTV due to a friend having it currently, and really enjoys it. I placed an order for it, and due to credit restrictions I had to pay a $100 install fee to get the genie DVR. I felt a little uneasy about the whole paying them $100 to lease the equipment, but nevertheless I went ahead with the order.
The installer showed up and claimed that he could not get a clear shot to the sky, and that he would need to install a pole, which would cost an additional $75. At that point I was not willing to put anything more in to it, it simply wasn’t worth it to me.
I sent the installer on his way and decided to explore other options. I called DirecTV customer service shortly after the installer left, and instructed them of his plans to charge me more, and told them that it wasn’t worth it to me and to just cancel the Order. The customer service rep told me that if the issue was because of Line of sight, then the pole should have been a free install. The CSR went ahead and got me a new install date, and noted on my account that the install would be free. (Excluding the $100 I had already paid)
Considering we hadn’t even started service with DirecTV yet, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check in to dish network and see what they could offer me… Their hopper receiver claimed to offer twice as much hard drive space as the genie. When I placed the order under my moms name, it simply denied me the order without a reason. So I proceeded to place the order in to my name, when I got to the checkout process I’ve notice that the install fee was $600.00.
The Dish Network salesman tried as hard as he could to sell me their service, but obviously I’m going to go with the best deal. He even went so far to say that If I could find a family member who would let me put it in their name, in order to qualify for a free hopper, he would offer me some gift cards to give the family member for their trouble.
I know there’s only so much the salesman can do, and really I do not know the limitations if what he can do, but DirecTV was able to offer me all if their promotional pricing and their top of the line DVR for only a $100 install fee, dish network however could not offer me the hooper at all, could not offer me the iPad bonus, still expected me to sign up for a 24 month agreement, to get only a 2 tuner DVR, and still pay a $80 install fee. If I wanted to get the hopper I had to pay the full price of $299, plus the $80 install fee, and then I lost the pricing incentives for cheaper services for the first year as well.
The sales man said he would give me some time to think about it, But I haven’t gotten the callback yet.. I believe I’ll just tell him that if he cannot beat the DirecTV offer, then he obviously doesn’t want to sell it too bad.
So for now I am still on with the direc TV install on the 16th, will update if that changes
EDIT:
The second scheduled install was a success, no additional charge for the pole, and the Genie HR-44 was the one installed. We are pretty happy with our service, and are currently 2 Months in! We have already acquired 2 Referrals as well!
If you are interested in signing up under me, you will get a $100 account credit for doing so. Simply use my referral Link http://www.freewholehomedvr.com/
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