**UPDATE on 10/22** “How to get cheaper cable TV in O.C., part 2″
I’ll get right to the point: Call and ask for it.
That’s what my colleague Nancy “Fast Food Maven” Luna did over the weekend. After reading my post on Time Warner Cable last week (see “Time Warner Cable plans more channels in O.C. despite fines“), she complained to me about her $170/month bill for TV, Internet and telephone. I suggested she ditch the phone service and just use her cell phone, or opt for a cheaper alternative such as an Internet phone like Vonage (which I use for $25/month).
Before making any change, she called Time Warner for a detailed explanation on every charge that appeared on her monthly statement.
“Of course, every crazy fee was fine. Then, I said: You guys are way too expensive, and I can find cheaper phone service elsewhere. Is there anything you can do for me? Are you running any specials? She says, ‘ Let me check.’ Then the next thing I know, she gets back on the line, and knocks $40 a month off my bill,” Nancy told me.
And no, Nancy says she wasn’t mean or nasty and she didn’t threaten to leave. She asked why they were offering this and the Time Warner employee said, “We don’t want to lose you as a customer. So we want to help.”
The new price — which saves Nancy $480 a year — is good for a year. I guess Nancy will have to call back next year to get the price relowered.
Now, I’ve definitely heard about successfully calling in to get jacked-up DSL fees lowered, as well as discounts on newspaper subscriptions. But cable TV companies haven’t been known for this (and trust me, my husband tried it several years ago, with no luck.)
However, we’re in a different TV-watching era. Cable TV providers must realize there is growing competition now from not only satellite TV companies but Internet TV, like AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS TV (read “What TV service has most satisfied customers? (Hint: Not cable)“).
And after Time Warner’s customer-service fiasco last year following its acquisition of local Comcast and Adelphia customers, the company could use more love from customers. I recently visited the Time Warner office in Anaheim and will report on it later this week. They seem amenable to fixing the bad feelings and improving service.
So, if you’ve got a complaint, send it my way or leave a comment because Time Warner is reading this blog. Does anyone else have a tale about their attempt to get a lower cable bill?
**If you do want to leave a comment** It would help me to know how much you are paying for cable. Knowing that someone pays $70 for basic cable is outrageous. Every instance helps me when I talk to the president of the OC Time Warner operation.
By the way, here’s the phone for Time Warner Cable: 1-888-TW-CABLE (or 1-888-892-2253). Try your luck with other TV services in O.C. and find phone numbers at “Guide to paid-TV services in OC.”
Because of reader interest, I’ve decided to focus more on local TV services. Bookmark this blog and check back often.
**UPDATE on 10/22** ”How to get cheaper cable TV in O.C., part 2″
Related:
- Time Warner Cable plans more channels in O.C. despite fines
- Verizon FiOS TV heavily targeting apartments, condos in O.C. and more
- Cox wants to give back to O.C.’s women-owned businesses
- DirecTV offers extremely local weather reports
- AT&T TV coming to Circuit City and Wal-Mart
- Cox adds two Hindi-language channels in O.C.
- 50% more coupons available for digital TV converter box program
- Time Warner offers local city council interviews on demand
- What TV service has most satisfied customers? (Hint: Not cable)
- Guide to paid-TV services in OC
Maybe you have been too busy to read these recent stories on ocregister.com. Check out these trends…
- A doggone difficult time for people with dogs to rent
- Food Network star thrills fans at Williams-Sonoma
- Economic upheaval shocks business owners
- Irvine recession proof, but Newport at risk?
- KDOC pulls plug on ‘Daybreak OC’ newscast
- Billionaire Samueli’s sentencing delayed until August
- Economic recovery plan — plastic surgery
- O.C. rent increases becoming a rarity
- Sam’s Club offers cheap membership fee for holidays
- Time Warner Cable plans more channels in O.C. despite fines
Tamara 'the Gadgetress' Chuang
I’m just like the reader above, I’m paying $147 per for phone, cable, and internet and I’m going to make the call as soon as I post this comment.
I was paying $140 per month for phone/cable and internet. Made the call, was nice and my monthly fee was lowered to $99 per month. Very nice and codial, valued me as a customer……..I’ll stay with TW
Cable is a luxury? thank goodness some politicians disagree with that statement. and are pushing for a la carte or over air packs offered by cable companies just for a few bucks a months. because they believe even those on a low income have a right to watch TV.
Diabla - you are showing your snooty OC colors. Go back to your country club and leave real conversation to the adults.
Couple things that are wrong in these comments. Someone stated that apartment complexes can’t ban satellite service, that isn’t true, they can ban dishes from being put up in their patios still. They just can’t have exclusive agreements with ONE company. Dishes are somewhat unsightly to people.
Also someone said that you HAVE to have internet service to get TWC digital phone, that is false. You can have any of their services you want, there are no stipulations that you must have one service to get the other (TV, Internet, Phone).
Just thought I would clear that up.
>Cable is a luxury.. so if you cant afford it you shouldnt have it… get a life! stop wasting your time indoors and go out some times<
1) Its not safe to go out (too many gang kids proweling the streets)
2) Got no money to go out
Cable is a luxury.. so if you cant afford it you shouldnt have it… get a life! stop wasting your time indoors and go out some times
It’s not just Orange County being overcharged. I live in Los Angeles (Ladera Heights), and I pay $70.00 a month too. Every other week or so including last night, the cable goes out, the picture is pixel, and choppey sound and picture, the lines gets so busy no customer service, they suggest sending a tech to your home almost over a week later, and appx. a $2-$3.00 credit for day. They are crazy, and monopolizing. It’s ridiculous!!!
I’m stuck in an apartment that wont allow Satellite (its in the lease agreement) The phone lines are very old and wont support higher speed for net and TV
No outside antennas either and most of the fixed income people who live here that cant afford cable get only a few digital channels with the “big joke” converter where as they use to get all channles with rabbit ears
I’m stuck with basic Totally Worthless Cable at $45 a month, I cant wait for the day they offer Ala-cart and you get to choose the channels you want, not Mexican, Religion and Home Shopping trash they offer now
[...] How to get cheaper cable TV from Time Warner Cable [...]
TWC CS is pretty bad. But then again all customer service anywhere you go in America is bad. The last time I called TWC when my cable went out about a week ago, I got the message” your approx wait time is 29 minutes”. WTH!! I called back and chose the menu option to add new service. Go figure, I got a CS rep in like 10 seconds. Goes to show that these companies put more focus on signing up new customers than servicing existing customers.
I pay 134.+ a month for basic cable, (with dvr of course) and internet…
I’m calling after work for a discount!!
There is several different companies now that are all competing against each other for the best prices. That is the wonderful thing about our day and age we are no longer forced to go with one internet, telephone, cable or satellite service and we are not forced to pay one price. We can look around and window shop for the best deal in town and for the provider that best fits our needs. I have found the website http://www.phonetvinternet.com very helpful in comparing prices and getting the service I need.
On a slightly different note, I’ve been a long-time COX subscriber (Basic + 1st iter TV & internet). Recently, I got a notice that my credit card was expiring soon, and to please update the information.
So I went to their website to update my credit card information. My attempt failed, as I got the error message that “Billing information cannot be updated due to a pending payment.” DUH!
So I e-mailed them, and their respnse was that I need to call them or mail them the information.
I have a better idea: either drop me, or send me a bill. Either one of which will cost you. Why should I be inconvenienced?
So now I have a snail-mailed bill in my bill pile, aka the “compost heap.”
I’m just waiting to see what they’ll offer me to sign up for automated billing again.
If you really want to lower your phone bill, forget vonage and cell phone, get magic jack, $45 one time charge for the entire year, then only $20 after that! Also might switch to TWC instead of AT&T because they will NOT left you order their high speed “MAX” service and FORCE you to buy a TV Package in order to get it.
since the Los Angeles area is one of TWC’s most competeive markets, Verizon, AT&T, DirecTV & AT&T, it will be willing to keep the rate the same after the first year.
Verizon FIOS has basic TV for $12.95/month, Internet $39.95, unlimited local-long distance home phone $19.95. Must have fiber installed of course.
Why are these cable companies still in business?
Maybe time to shop around.
Honestly though, you can not get better internet than a cable line. DSL is actually quite horrible if you want fast UP/DOWN rates, and being a serious gamer, or having a gamer in the household, this is quite critical. TWC also considers games such as World of Warcraft to be a torrent stream and will initiage packet shaping to disconnect you during peak hours. A friend of mine that works for Blizzard’s IT department said that this has always been an issue with TWC, whereas with Cox it is not. TWC, sadly, does have the best internet rate though, as I pay $39.99 for the Turbo at speeds I have benchmarked at 15.4MB download, and 979K upload. Whereas with Cox I was being charged $45 a month for what I benchmarked at 1.2MB download and 200K upload. With Cox we were paying a grand total of $77 a month (thanks to being friends with a regional manager) for a DVR unit, HBO/SHO/MAX/STARZ, phone, and internet, but sadly, our lease was up and we had to move into TWC’s monopoly zone. I am currently paying $97 a month for Internet ($39.99) and Cable ($58 with only showtime, and I get to watch TWC’s ads on their channel guide, yes they have ADS on their channel guide listing….)
I got ride of TWC in April as soon as AT&T came in with U-Verse in my neighborhood. I get a much better picture in standard definitiion, and the HD picture blows TWC HD picture out of the water. I pay $89/mo for my TV and that includes everything except for HBO and Cinemax. Would I think of leaving and going back to TWC? Not a freaking chance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cox is a total rip off with their south county monopoly. read a book people. I only have internet service ($30/mo) and I use my cell phone and have no television. As RobNel mentioned, there is nothing good on TV that is worth wasting my time over. I would rather to stick to jogging, reading and spending time with family.
Yeah, I can’t wait for FIOS to be available in Costa Mesa. I’m torturing my family with the crappy antennae reception we receive in our neighborhood. I have AT&T for land line and DSL but I think it’s a rip off too. It’s like $85/month though that includes a little long distance.
I pay $65 for basic cable in Anaheim and I think it’s a total rip off. They claim they give you HD programming for free but it’s free over the airways. Why would they charge you more? I set-up my antenna on the roof and programmed my channels and It looks to be a cleaner pictures than T.W..
We moved from LA and wanted to transfer our service when we moved to OC. Turns out there had never been cable in our building and they would have to run cable. That took two weeks, then, “oh, we don’t put it in your house, that’s another team” and it was going to take another month. But they’d start billing us in the meantime.
We told them to go to aitchy double hockey sticks, went to Costco, and had DirecTV the next day. Called AT&T for DSL, which was installed in no time flat.
Forget it. They’re too bloated to be able to react to market conditions. I never knew how good it could be — I’ve never once had to call DirecTV, and only had to call AT&T once in two years. I pay $60 a month for DirecTV (no movie channels) and $20 to AT&T for DSL.
i just got time warner cable. in matter fact, they are installing it as I type. lol. I am paying 50/mo. for digital cable and a DVR box. not a bad deal. The rep was very helpful and polite when i called in my order, he waived the installation fee and the box fee. No complains.
All I know is that they won’t lower my Basic + stoopid 1st Tier charges….this means all I have is basic channels plus, ESPN, MTV, VH1, etc. which to me ARE basic channels in this day and age. I pay $65.00 a month and I think its ridiculous. I don’t even have any movie channels. As soon as I can, I’m going to switch to Verizon Fios.
I have Cox cable. What a rip off. I was given 2 months “free” digital which took 3 more phone calls to make free. In the meantime I got an offer from $10 off for 6 months that they refused to honor since I was already getting digital coverage, even though it was only for 2 months. It took another 10 minutes of wrangling before the representative honored my request to speak with a manager, You would think they would have wanted to make me a satisfied customer, but no, they would not cough up the $10 for the next six months. Like all these blood sucking cable companies, they recommended I call in for “specials” instead of actually offering a fair price every month. When I commented their prices were too high, the manager told me they were competitive. HA. There is no cable competition in Irvine. Dish definitely called my name after this fiasco.
We dropped TWC because of 1) their ever-increasing prices and 2) their horrible customer service. It would take far too long to get someone on the line who could answer the question. And on the times we had to call another time on the same question, we’d get a different answer. When we called to see what they could do with our pricing, they magically dropped it by $40 or $50, but since we could get the same or better service elsewhere for the same price, we swithced anyway. First we went to Dish, which was ok. But when AT&T started offering $200 in rewards to sign up to U-Verse, we dropped Dish. With U-Verse, we now get better TV incl HD and DVR, faster internet, and lower prices. We ultimately dropped AT&Ts land line for Vonage.
RobNel,
Do you live in the flatlands? We tried to do the whole “free HD TV” thing but it doesn’t work when you have anything larger than a sparrow in the way. *shrug*
Niyaz — Apartments aren’t allowed to ban satellite TV service anymore. I mentioned that last week in “Verizon FiOS TV heavily targeting apartments, condos.”
What about those of us stuck in contracts? I have Verizon FiOS, and would like to toss the home phone considering that I’ve used it hmm, twice in the last 6 months? We have that bundle pack which supposidly saves us money, but when I’m paying for our cell service AND home phone which I found I don’t use, I’d like to be rid of the extra payment without all the cancellation charges. TIA for any help!!
this happend to me recently when i was fed up with paying so much for cox cable, internet and phone. so i cancelled the crazy DVR/HD cable i was getting. turns out they told me i couldn’t get HD local channels without that box, but surprise, i do. so that took the cable from like 90 to 50. i canceled my phone and internet with them and signed up for ATT which runs about 60/month for both services (dsl and home phone). So i was paying close to 150-160, and now i’m at about 110. They also take $15 off my monthly cell phone bill because I’ve bundled their services, but you have to ask for it when you sign up.
Always ask for bundle discounts. I’d install satellite, but they don’t allow it at my apartment complex, so i’m stuck with cable. Cox did call back with some super deal - and even said they would bring back and re-install everything for free - but by that point it was too late.
I didn’t want to take them back.
I just received this months bill form Time Warner it increased by 30.00!!!! I called and spoke with a rep and he said my promotions for my digital cable and roadrunner had run out. I also have the phone service which has another 6 months (supposedly). I asked him if there was anything he could do since my husband is already interested in changing to the AT&T package. He said there were no promotions and I could cancel some of my channels…..in my opinion this is terrible customer service. I have been with TW for over 25 years I see no reason to stay any longer. Time To Set Sail For AT&T.
My husband has been approached about the ATT package and is interested since Time Warner is always jacking up our prices
I don’t have any service. You all are wasting your money. Seriously, there is nothing good on TV!
I have a LCD digital flat screen TV with a digital antenna hooked up to the cable where my cable used to be and I get all LOCAl LA channels free plus all PBS channels free. All in perfect digital HD reception. The air waves are free. For movies I subscribe to NetFlix. I don’t pay those rip off cable and satelite fees. You are all stupid !
time warner is the worst. THE. WORST. I’ve wasted over 20+ hours trying to get all the old analog boxes changed to digital boxes. Talking on the phone with cust service, tech support, going into the office, etc. They are quite horrible.
I called Cox after I received an offer from AT&T for $100 a month for cable, internet and phone — which I have with Cox and was paying $180 a month. I told Cox about the offer from AT&T, said that we didn’t want to leave Cox but for $80 a month we would do it. The rep put me on hold, then came back and offered to lower my bill to $110 a month. Done!
I hope Time Warner is reading this! HBO, regular basic cable a variety tier and Howard TV they charge $100 a month?! I mean seriously, this is crazy! They wonder why people are jumping to Dish or Direct Tv…I mean, for 30 less you can get a ton of extra channels, AND half the channels will be an east coast feed and will have live content. Wake up Time Warner…when times are tough, cable TV is the first item to get tossed…
I recently changed over to AT&T, as they started offering Internet and TV (UVerse) services in Brea in the spring. It cut my bill by $40. When I called to cancel my TW service, they offered to cut my bill by $30 for the next 12 months. When i pressed to make the price changed permanent, they balked. Too little, too late.
They had been raising rates regularly, with no additional services or channels.
There is finally competition in the local cable TV markets, not this city-by-city monopoly that keeps rates high and service low.
Am i happy with my new service? You bet. I’m even happier saving money.
I recently got rid of my land line and using cell only. For internet Att offers a connection for internet only. My internet bill is $30 a month which includes the connection. So far so good.
I call Cox every 3-4 months and they give me a special or take money off just to keep me from cancelling my account.
Hi Harpo — One thing I did learn from Time Warner during a recent visit was that all their telephone boxes include batteries in case the power goes down. At the operations end, the company has back-up power generators as well. — Gadgetress
I regularly get ads from TWC touting their phone service, which requires high-speed ‘net service. I have the requisite bandwidth, but its reliability is a joke - there is NO way I’d trust my telephone service to TWC.
I brought this to the attention of a service rep (somewhere in the Phillipines, I’d guess!), who had the temerity to suggest I get a cell phone as backup.
I have been doing this for a couple of years. Every six months or so you can call and ask about specials that you see, even if they say ‘for new subscribers only.’ Or compare to a competing service. Or just look at the packages on their web site- plenty of people are already subscribing to the same services but never asked for the package. BTW of course you can do the same with the OC Register! Overall I don’t like this pricing tactic, it’s a negative compared to simply charging everyone the best price. However if that’s how the game is played, I’ll play.