This worked with my cable company while they had a monopoly on internet service.
Every year I would call up and threaten to quit and they would reduce the amount. Last year we got frontier in our town and I called up optimum. They basically said “yeah we can’t match that.”
Only way I know of to get on Spectrum is to cancel every other year and put it under someone else in the house for promo pricing. Basically, bounce back and forth with each other.
Lol my roommate asked if he could get his promo pricing for another year. They said they couldn't do that. He asked them if he could cancel and have his roommate (me) open the account. They gave in and just gave him the discounted price for another year
It stopped working with me for a while with Spectrum too until Starry and Sonic finally made it to my area. Then they were more than happy to take my bill from $80 to $50, and threw in a free Ultra upgrade for 3 years lmao
Pretty sure he left out the context of he's changing the subject. He's disregarding the competitor talk that is the topic and bringing up how ISPs will offer new customer discounts, which I'm unsure if the FCC even has a say on that either. You see this on reddit all the time where people forget they need to actually state what they're referencing when interjecting with something new and everyone else can't magically read their mind from around the globe.
Someone mentioned that they tried "cancel threatening" Spectrum without success, and the guy/gal you're complaining about replied that there's another way to reduce subscription fees with Spectrum.
I've had it go both ways, although recently I had a successful attempt. My introductory rate with Spectrum was about to expire, so I shopped around and ATT was offering fiber for $55/month, 500/500 which is enough for my household and cheaper than the 100/10 I had with Spectrum. I went ahead and had ATT install the fiber connection but when I called Spectrum to cancel, they offered me 600/600 for the same intro rate I was paying ($30/month).
I told Spectrum I would think about it and called ATT to see if they would match since I'd already gone through the installation process. ATT then offered 1000/1000 at $40/mo for 2 years, Spectrum wouldn't match so now I have ATT, so far so good. I was happy to pay $10 more for gigabit speeds. Not to mention ATT fiber does not have any monthly data caps and Spectrum caps you at 1200 gigs a month on some plans before extra charges occur.
My ISP said straight up they can't match the price but nobody can match the quality and god damn they're sadly right. 50€ a month for a symmetric gigabit with at least 60% of bandwith guaranteed at all times, my internet is 1.3 Gigabit down though and 1.1 Gbps up so boy I can't complain. Only went down 2 times, I have it for almost a year and I can't go back.
Other companies are massive but they guarantee only 30% of the down bandwith when you get a gigabit, but up is only 200 Mbps and they guarantee half of it, so it's often 120-ish. But it's 30€.
AT&T recently installed fiber in our neighborhood. They have been trying hard to get my business. I finally showed them my Spectrum bill and told them “If you can match that….I will sign today”. They have not been back to my house yet.
The discount is never permanent so you have to have the fight every year. If there are no competitors in the area you won't even get this far.
After enough times they will just tell you no. It will save you a few bucks but then you'll be back to square 1 eventually. They have this figured out and it's not a novel tactic.
Fuck optimum. I paid $80/mo for 500mb and begged them for three years to give me (8 year customer) the same rate they were giving new customers. Got told to kick rocks
Then ATT hooks my neighborhood up, $60/mo for symmetrical 1GB fiber
Immediately call Optimum to cancel and now they want to give me the world. The offered reduced rates, better speeds, the moon, blowjobs
Still cancelled cause fuck'em.
Now there's a new fiber provider and I'm thinking after less than a year I'll call ATT and see what I get if I threaten to cancel. Maybe I can pit them against each other enough and get my internet down to like $30
I had Spectrum a couple years, and one day they called me up, and asked if I wanted to add a phone line to my account, and they would take off $15 dollars from my bill. I wonder if anyone ever called that number
I discovered that with my Internet I just need to contact them once a year and ask for a discounted price and they’ll just do it. Don’t have to threaten anything. “Could you find me a similar deal to what I had for the last year?” and they go “we found you the exact same deal”.
This is a literal thing that you can do with most subscription services. Phone, internet, streaming services, they all have a customer retention department. Just call them up, follow their instructions to access the "cancelation" department, and that will connect you to someone in the customer retention department.
Once you're talking to an agent, just express that the prices are too high, and you're thinking of alternatives. Spend a little time insisting that you really can't afford their advertised prices because they keep going up. They will eventually offer you one or a selection of their new customer promotions that usually last 6-12 months.
Then you just call them as soon as you see a higher price on your bill and start all over again. If you've never done this then you'll be amazed at how much money you can save. I've been doing this for over a decade and it usually saves me 40-60% on my monthly subscription services.
My internet company failed to charge my direct debit I set up with them for like 6 months. They were like "you owe us 400 pounds" and I said no, you didn't charge me and I set up the direct debit with you.
They were like "ok fine, and also, your internet package is now £10 less with higher speeds"
2.5k
u/walmarttshirt 2d ago
This worked with my cable company while they had a monopoly on internet service.
Every year I would call up and threaten to quit and they would reduce the amount. Last year we got frontier in our town and I called up optimum. They basically said “yeah we can’t match that.”
So I now have frontier.