I do nothing and......

[Leon]

Does anyone ever find themselves making tons of phone calls, concerning increased charges, when they do absolutely nothing and all of their normal monthly bills seem to increase? It just pisses me off to no end. Today I got my Direct TV bill and it went up for no reason, again. I called them....argued and continue to swear I am going to find another service.....but the wife doesn't want me to. It seems like all of our bills just go up and there is no explanation. Just thought I would use this forum for venting

[teetwoohsix]

Well Leon, there was an article in The Review Journal (local newspaper) about how both satelite & cable providers were raising their rates- that they had to pass the rate hike on to the customers !!

I have all of my services through cable, and for quite a while, they were charging me for 1 3-way phone call per month. My wife and I do not ever make three way calls. When I first noticed it, and contacted them, they claimed that this happens when I hang up and dial another call too fast

They also said they have no way to block the three way calls thing. So, each month I'd call them to have them remove it- it felt so petty for $1.99 or whatever it was, but it was the principle. Imagine if they do it to 1 million people each month, and say, only 50% notice it !!

Finally, I had enough of it- called them and told them I was tired of this (blah blah blah) and to my suprise- they guy tells me "I'll just go ahead and block the 3-way calls" !!!

Thanks for letting me rant with you

Sincerely, Clayton

[dstraate]

The only way to avoid them jacking your rates is to quit altogether. I finally got an old antennae and hooked it up. I get the networks and about a dozen religious channels. But hey, when I say "Nothing good is on" at least I know I'm not paying for it. I get the World Series, Super Bowl, Sunday Night Football, the only channel I truly miss is ESPN. Oh well, it increases my card budget

[barrysloate]

Our cable bill just passed $100 a month (Time Warner Cable of NYC) but that includes HBO. That means we spend $1200 a year to watch TV! Can't live with it, can't live without it. Everybody is strapped today but the cost of everything is going up.

[GoldenAge50s]

Here in RI we have Cox Cable. I have my internet & TV (everything but CineMax) w/ them & I pay $171.72 per month!

[mark evans]

And, unfortunately, the problem isn't limited to tv bills. As a retiree on a fixed income, the rising cost of living has caused me to pick up a teaching job, which all in all is probably not a bad thing.

Mark

[novakjr]

I think I pay around $90 a month for the digital expanded tier(or whatever it's called) without the movie channels and my internet through Time Warner. I did get a letter the other day saying that prices would be going up, but it didn't say when or how much. It just said, I'd notice it in my bill when it happens. I don't really like the idea of being surprised with the hike whenever it ends up happening.

[Leon]

I just read my new Verizon bill. They are charging me for the taxes they pay and also charging me taxes on my bill. I need that kind of billing situation.....I am sure they are regulated but it struck me as funny....

[Vol]

a fella who calls me up on the phone yesterday, while I was babysitting my niece. I don't usually pick up calls I do not recognize, just let them leave a message. But I had my hands full! So, I just picked up the phone and say hello... It takes a couple of seconds for him to answer, so I figure I am dealing with a telemarketer. Oh Lord! I'm stuck.

He says, "Hello Mr. Lane." I say, "Hi."
Next he says, "Can I get your address or last four of your social security number to verify that you are Mr. Lane?"

I asked, "Exactly who am I speaking with?"
He said, "I need your social or address to tell you." lol.

I said, "I just want to know what company you represent, you called me!"
He says. "It is against Federal Law for me to tell you without verifying.."

I just hung up the phone. I have no clue what that was about!! Breaking Federal Law!

[barrysloate]

Anybody who asks for your SS# without identifying himself is a scammer. And that is a pretty outrageous phone call.

[Leon]

I had a guy call me yesterday saying he was with AT&T. He seemed like a very high pressure sales guy (unlike a real AT&T person). He said he would be able to get me a discount on my per minute cost for long distance. I told him I get unlimited long distance for free. He told me he could get me discounts on a per minute basis. I said "what the heck, are you really with AT&T?". He said some kind of crap like he was calling on their behalf....He could tell I knew the jig was up and he hung up. That was a weird one too. I am quite sure he was trying to slam me into another long distance service. What an idiot he was!! I laughed when he hung up.

[barrysloate]

Leon- what really galls me is that Judy and I have made numerous attempts to get onto no call lists, and have done whatever we have been instructed to do to get them to stop. And yet they still keep coming, usually several times a week. And I never even let these guys go into their spiels. Once I say "hello" and there is like a two second gap before I hear a response, I know right away it's bad news. I usually hang up within a few seconds. I don't even want to listen to what these creeps have to say. I just hate these calls.

[Tsaiko]

I think the cable rates must have gone up across the board. About four months ago I had renegotiated my overall plan, tv w/HBO/cable/phone, to about $112, then this month it's $129. I think I did get a rate increase notice, but ignored it.
It's amazing how they nickel and dime you, $5 for phone modem $5 for the cable modem and $5 to keep your number unlisted. I use Charter, who has the best cable speeds and reliability in my area, but the phone absolutely sucks.

As for the do not call list, I'm on it, but I still continue to get calls. Mostly from construction/remodeling companies asking if I need any work done. After repeatedly asking them to not call, they still did. Finally, I told them that I was thinking about doing some remodeling and asked them if they could come out and give me an estimate. They asked about what type of remodeling I was thinking about doing and I told them I really needed to put a new roof on my barn. When they asked me to verify my address, I gave them a Montana address. They said, "you're not at the California address xyz" and I said, no we just kept our CA phone number when we moved.

I'm not sure that was a permanent fix, but I haven't heard from them in over a month, which is unusual.

Here's another price anomaly I ran into just yesterday, which might provide a chuckle. I need surgery and I have no health insurance, so I'm negotiating with my doctor, who ended up giving me a real good deal. I wanted to go over the complete list of costs so I knew exactly what was what and one item was $100 for crutches. I told them I had a set of crutches and they said, "good, then you can deduct $40 from the bill." I didn't even ask.....

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by Tsaiko

one item was $100 for crutches. I told them I had a set of crutches and they said, "good, then you can deduct $40 from the bill." I didn't even ask.....

That's really f***ed up. And people wonder why the medical industry in this country is such a mess.

Anyways, does anyone else get the random calls, that when you answer it says "please hold for the next available representative", with absolutely no reference to what the call is about or what company it's from? I usually, just hang up, but I'm pretty sure automated calls like that are illegal now. I remember reading something a while back where a guy was having a heart attack, and for some reason the people couldn't get the call to disconnect due to a glitch in the automated system. Anyways, I believe the guy died, and as a result a law was made to keep this from happening again.

[barrysloate]

Tsaiko- that's really funny. They assessed you the "$60 for not using the crutches" charge. Seems normal to me.

[Leon]

Nice story Tsaiko. One of my best friends is self employed so has a very high (maybe 5k-10k) deductible on his health insurance. He needed a knee surgery and went to see the doctor. Doctor told him it would be about 10k. (This is in the last year btw.) My friend asked him, ok how much if I just pay with cash. The doctor said $2500. This is not an uncommon scene. Ask around and you will see this kind of situation. I propose we scrap medical insurance and our costs might go down 50 percent or more. Yes, I know the insurance lobbyists would never let that happen but it's a nice thought.

[barrysloate]

Leon- how I wish we could all afford to not have medical insurance. I guess the best remedy is to stay healthy.

[teetwoohsix]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Leon- what really galls me is that Judy and I have made numerous attempts to get onto no call lists, and have done whatever we have been instructed to do to get them to stop. And yet they still keep coming, usually several times a week. And I never even let these guys go into their spiels. Once I say "hello" and there is like a two second gap before I hear a response, I know right away it's bad news. I usually hang up within a few seconds. I don't even want to listen to what these creeps have to say. I just hate these calls.

Barry- the reason you hear a two second gap is because some telemarketing companies (like collection agencies) use a dialer system-it dials about 100 #'s at a time, and the first one that picks up is what it puts up on the callers computer screen.......so while it is putting the information up on the screen, it takes a couple of seconds...........so the person who's calling has no idea who they are calling until the name & info pops up on the screen.

Also, I believe these companies sell information back and forth to each other- I get emails from places trying to sell things to me, and I suspect they get the information (maybe bought it?) from places I've "unsubscribed" from......real seedy stuff.

Sincerely, Clayton

[pgellis]

Leon's original post made me look at my telephone bill a little closer when it arrived in the mail yesterday.

I am charged $31.48 this past month for "Taxes, Fees & Other Charges"

Such things as:

Federal Excise Tax
VES MA State Tax
Mass. State & Local Tax
911/Disability Access Fee Charge
Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge
VES Universal Service Fund Surcharge
Federal Universal Service Fee
Federal Subscriber Line


What an absolute joke!

[Tsaiko]

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice story Tsaiko. One of my best friends is self employed so has a very high (maybe 5k-10k) deductible on his health insurance. He needed a knee surgery and went to see the doctor. Doctor told him it would be about 10k. (This is in the last year btw.) My friend asked him, ok how much if I just pay with cash. The doctor said $2500. This is not an uncommon scene. Ask around and you will see this kind of situation. I propose we scrap medical insurance and our costs might go down 50 percent or more. Yes, I know the insurance lobbyists would never let that happen but it's a nice thought.

That's basically the same story as mine. I shopped around a lot for an MRI deal and ended up paying $770 for the MRI, including die pump and radiology read. At the same imaging center, I compared notes with another patient who had the exact same procedure with insurance. His bill indicated a total cost of $1500 with a 30% co-pay. I admit that the shopping process can be time consuming, but at my age I'd be spending about 8k a year with a 5k deductible, so that's 13k before insurance will pay anything. Nuts!!
I must get some sort of catastrophic policy, so I won't be wiped out if I have a major crisis, but for everything else, so far at least, I'm way, way ahead financially.
Personally I think it's wrong to make a profit from people being sick, but that's capitalism.

[barrysloate]

Thanks Clayton. I find the whole process of telemarketing despicable, and I am usually not even polite with these people. Often I just slam down the phone to get rid of them.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by pgellis

Leon's original post made me look at my telephone bill a little closer when it arrived in the mail yesterday.

I am charged $31.48 this past month for "Taxes, Fees & Other Charges"

Such things as:

Federal Excise Tax
VES MA State Tax
Mass. State & Local Tax
911/Disability Access Fee Charge
Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge
VES Universal Service Fund Surcharge
Federal Universal Service Fee
Federal Subscriber Line


What an absolute joke!

I especially like the "Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge". If I am not mistaking, and I could be, they are being taxed so are charging you for it? That almost sounds illegal but what do I know? I saw the same thing on my bill.....they all do it.

[teetwoohsix]

No problem Barry- one thing I did was buy a phone system that has a "call blocking feature".......so if the are dumb enough to call with their phone # displayed on the caller ID, I just block them. Some of them are slick though, they will call with an "unavailable" # or a "private" #. I think you can block those too, but my wife has relatives that call from blocked #'s, so she doesn't want me to block those

Clayton

[BBSD]

It was so funny when reading this post yesterday we get an a call from a TV Survey Co.

[barrysloate]

Clayton- I would definitely block the relatives.

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by Leon

Today I got my Direct TV bill and it went up for no reason, again.

Amen! Just dropped em.

[lharri3600]

well,
this in a common practice among the carriers. they know people for the most part don't check their bills. so, let's say 1 out of 1000 checks the bill. well that's 999 in the carriers pockets. it's called slamming in the industry. i've written letters to my states attroney general and to fcc in dc. well guess what, no action taken and they know about the practice. just put a gun in my back and say stick up!

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

Well Leon, there was an article in The Review Journal (local newspaper) about how both satelite & cable providers were raising their rates- that they had to pass the rate hike on to the customers !!

I have all of my services through cable, and for quite a while, they were charging me for 1 3-way phone call per month. My wife and I do not ever make three way calls. When I first noticed it, and contacted them, they claimed that this happens when I hang up and dial another call too fast

They also said they have no way to block the three way calls thing. So, each month I'd call them to have them remove it- it felt so petty for $1.99 or whatever it was, but it was the principle. Imagine if they do it to 1 million people each month, and say, only 50% notice it !!

Finally, I had enough of it- called them and told them I was tired of this (blah blah blah) and to my suprise- they guy tells me "I'll just go ahead and block the 3-way calls" !!!

Thanks for letting me rant with you

Sincerely, Clayton

[Leon]

So I knew when I started this thread I was not going to just let this crap go. The first situation was some freaking Mcafee auto-renewal I was unaware of. I guess I signed up for it and forgot. Last year was $69.99 for 3 users and my auto renewal this year was $99.99 for the same thing. No problem. I called them this morning and canceled the auto renewal aspect of the issue and then also canceled my current one. Net savings- $99.99. I will use some free A/V software that is probably better anyway.

The next was my Dallas Morning News newspaper subscription. I only take it on the weekends anyway and last year it was $162. Well, for $3 a week I decided it was fine. Now, for this year I got a notice in the mail saying it is now $209 for the same subscription. That isn't worth it to me. So I called them and said that, in light of the increase in rates, I want to cancel the whole thing. They said, well, what if we give it to you for the same rate as last year? I said ok and please send me a new bill. Net savings about $45.

Whatever comes next, I will deal with the same way. I am sick and tired of everyone taking advantage of people that won't call and bitch. I don't mind paying a fair rate for stuff but all of the increases have got to go, one way or another. regards\

edited to add- On one of the very first posts, concerning Direct TV. I called back a few days later and told them I would take their $20 a month loyalty discount offer for the next 6 mos. Net savings $120. (they had it in the system already from my previous call when I was pissed and hung up...so, I decided to call back and take it ) ......and still no contract so if I want to change, with no penalty, I still can....

[teetwoohsix]

I seem to be getting more and more emails from places I've never heard of, so lately I've been "unsubscribing" from them (even though I've never "subscribed" to them).......and after I "unsubscribe" from them, within a few days I seem to get hit with even more emails from places I've never heard of.

I'm starting to get the feeling that when I unsubscribe from one either:

A) The place I unsubscribe from sells my email adress (or gives it away) or

B) The place I unsubscribe from sends me the emails from a different sending adress.

Either way, it is annoying and I don't know how to stop it. Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks-

Sincerely, Clayton

[Leon]

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

I seem to be getting more and more emails from places I've never heard of, so lately I've been "unsubscribing" from them (even though I've never "subscribed" to them).......and after I "unsubscribe" from them, within a few days I seem to get hit with even more emails from places I've never heard of.

I'm starting to get the feeling that when I unsubscribe from one either:

A) The place I unsubscribe from sells my email adress (or gives it away) or

B) The place I unsubscribe from sends me the emails from a different sending adress.

Either way, it is annoying and I don't know how to stop it. Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks-

Sincerely, Clayton

Just right click on their email and block them....you can also block lots of things/people that way.......I did it with the unknown hundreds of Vbulletin emails I was getting per day...yes per day, for the last few years. Finally about 2 months ago I wised up...went to my primary server (not my outlook) email and blocked it there. Now I get 0 emails from that source.

[teetwoohsix]

Thanks Leon I didn't know you could do that !!! There is still so much about computers that I don't know........I do appreciate the help !!

Sincerely, Clayton

[tiger8mush]

Originally Posted by sox1903wschamp

Amen! Just dropped em.

For a couple years, Direct TV would give me a discount to keep my inflated tv service under $50. When it went over $50, I'd call, get transferred 3 times asking them to terminate my service cuz I can't afford more than $50 and didn't want to give up channels cuz then it wouldn't be worth having tv anyway, and they'd usually give me discounts to keep the bill under $50.

Well a month ago even with the discounts my bill inched over $50. So I call them as usual and this time they wont' budge, so I cancelled my tv. My wife flips out and the kids (2 & 4 yrs old) will wither away w/o tv. Well for 3 weeks w/o tv we actually did well and started getting use to not having it when we got a "PLEASE COME BACK!" offer in the mail for $30/month for the same service, so we signed back up. I would've payed $50/month but they woudln't listen, so we're getting it for a year for $30 a month. And at the end of the year, I see myself cancelling and doing it all over again