What If You Already Know Both Devils, And They Both Suck?

I need to go take a shower, I think, because I just agreed to give more business to Comcast.

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I opened my Comcast bill this morning and saw that it had gone up by about twenty bucks (one of the disadvantages of paying bills by auto-pay is that these sorts of things can happen without noticing, if you're not paying attention, which I often am not). So I called customer service and found out that the promotional deal I had, whereby I was getting HBO for free as well as a discount on my digital service, had expired. Not surprising, seeing how it was a two-year deal and we moved here about two years ago.

So I started talking to the sales rep about what he could do to lower my bill, since honestly we were pretty much at the high end of what we could justify for cost of television, and another 20 bucks would have put us on the road to Dish Network. The rep started pitching me the Comcast Triple Play (cable, phone and Internet) deal, which I had been interested in but had not paid too much attention to because the Comcast web site said it was for new customers only.

My rep, Dan (at extension 98Z), assured me that this was not the case. As much as I hate Comcast (and honestly, with the exception of the MLB Extra Innings BS earlier this year, they hadn't done anything to me specifically -- I basically hate them due to my daily reading of The Consumerist), the idea of getting all three services from one company was appealing, and even more appealing was the ability to extricate myself from my current phone & Internet provider, Verizon. Again, Verizon hadn't done anything to me specifically, but they had done plenty to plenty of other people, and I hated them in sympathy.

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We went over what I currently had (number of TVs, HD, DVR, etc.) and came up with a price that, when you compared it to what I was currently paying for cable (through Comcast) and phone and Internet (through Verizon), was about fifty bucks a month cheaper. Not a bad deal, especially because it included more premium channels than what I currently get. Plus, I had the MLB Extra Innings package, and if I had switched to Dish, I would have lost that for the rest of the year.

I went over exactly how much everything would cost, what I would get as far as phone service, Internet, thanked him for his time, and hung up. Of course I had to talk this over with D-Jo, and once I did and we agreed to make the change I called him back.

This is where things start to go my way. I dial, someone answers, and I ask for extension 98Z. "That's me," the guy says, which is interesting because when he answered the phone, he didn't say his name was Dan. No big deal -- I used to work in phone sales and we used to make up names all the time. it's an easy way to track leads.

Anyway, I tell him I just spoke to him and wasnt to sign up for the Triple Play deal. "No problem," he says. I go through my personal info again so he can pull up my account. "And which offer did you want to go with?" he asks. I decide, for one of the few times in my life, to keep my mouth shut, and it works out well. The next thing he saus is, "was it $129 a month?"

As a matter of fact, it wasn't -- he had, not 10 minutes before, quoted me $159 a month, which is a little higher than the $99 a month Comcast advertises, but I figured what with the multiple TVs and the HD and stuff that I wasn't going to get the $99 deal. But I like $129 better than $159!

"Yes it was," I tell him. And then I go down the list of everything we talked about before, to make sure that, at this price, I'm still going to get everything we talked about earlier. He agrees, starts the sale process, and I start thinking about the additional $30/month Comcast just put in my pocket. I know that salesmen for these sorts of companies are allowed to reduce prices as they see fit, and of course the second thing that goes through my mind (after "Thirty bucks! Score!") is that I should have said that we agreed on $99/month.

But I'm not greedy. And besides, we'll see if it all works out as well as it seems. I'm planning on any number of hidden fees, startup costs, equipment rental charges, and whatnot to show up on my bill, not to mention the fact that I figure there is absolutely no way the installer will actually show up when he's supposed to (if he doesn't, there's a theoretical $20 credit waiting for me). And I'd say the chances of my phone and/or Internet being off for some portion of the next two weeks (Between now and when the install is scheduled to happen) are about 50/50. But hey, I'll be paying $90/month less than I did this month. Beers are on me!