Thursday, April 1, 2010

Time Warner



A few months ago, in order to get some of my monthly costs under control, I went to Time Warner and exchanged the second DVR I had for a regular cable box and cancelled HBO which together saved me $21 per month. I tried pairing my bill down further but the packages are basically $130 for the channels you actually want or otherwise $29 for channels 2,4, 7 and 11 plus dial-up speed internet. They make it so difficult to save money because all these channels come in packages with unrelated channels, so I may not want the Hallmark channel but it happens to be bundled in with ESPN, I may opt out of the Oprah channel but that also would mean I lose CNN.


So after tightening my belt my Time Warner bill went from $130 to $109, so a nice $21 savings. Getting rid of the 2nd DVR box wasn't difficult as it served a TV which we go weeks without turning on but losing HBO was slightly more difficult as I fondly remember the shows of my youth including Dream On and First and 10 as well as favorites like the Sopranos, Carnival and Real Sport but I had gone months without even turning to channels 201-208 and I figured that I could try going without it for a while.

A few months later, I can happily say that I don't miss either service and the $21 monthly savings is nothing to sneeze at...nothing till I got a notice in the mail that my normal monthly service had increased in price and that I would be looking at a bill of $130 instead of the $109 I have been paying, an increase of $21 per month in fees. I was suspicious but didn't say much but I was mostly annoyed because there literally is no other option for me when it comes to cable-service since TimeWarner has a 100% monopoly on cable-service in my neighborhood, FIOS is not available and our building doesn't allow for satellite dishes so they have me over a wheel-barrel and I have no recourse.

I was annoyed especially because my $21 savings had vanished into thin-air but didn’t think much about it until a coworker told me that he recently returned a cablebox for a TV he wasn't using and saved $6 a month on his bill. Well not a week later, Time Warner called him to offer a package of Starz and Skinemax for...you guessed it, $6 per month.

My guess is that TimeWarner is instructing its local operators that they cannot lose revenue and that they have to figure a way to account for every penny which means jacking up rates, offering other services or adding hidden fees.

Time for Andrew Cuomo to look into this Soprano type Monopoly.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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