Frustration with 2-year deals
- Thread starter hofferb
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You could probably opt out completely of the free months of premiums and insurance. (However, on the offers section of the online account, you should be able to select "Do Not Continue" for it to go off.)
I think the original poster makes a good point. Regardless of the reasons and the justifications for it, lengthy contracts for services that require you to pay a monthly bill are rarely customer friendly. For a long time, the fact that cable has generally been a contract-less proposition has been a big advantage for it. Unfortunately, cable is starting to get into the contract game, but often the discount is either for the life of the contract or the first year is a big discount followed by a lesser discount for the second year, and no regular price until you're off-contract and have the option of switching.
In general, it's to the customer's advantage to be able to switch whenever he/she wants. That gives the customer some leverage to ask for better deals, and hold the provider's feet to the fire a little bit in terms of providing a quality service, because the customer can always threaten to switch providers or go without entirely. With a contract, they've sort of got you. Plus, contracts often come with credit checks, and either rejections or very disadvantageous terms to those who don't have credit scores the company likes.
Also, I don't feel like the option of paying full price for equipment and the regular price for programming, as some in this thread recommend, is really a good work-around for most people, or the original poster. He stated he can't afford or doesn't want to pay the regular price in the second year, why would he want to pay that price both years plus an equipment fee? It's like someone complaining that the price of hamburgers is at a place is too high, and telling him he can pay more if he wants to- it's the exact opposite of a solution.
My advice to the original poster is, if you're happy with cable and can afford it, keep it. Dish has a lot of catches and provisos, and the contract thing. I only got involved because I really needed that first year price break, and cable refused to give me anything promo wise (even though in the press they say something like 60% of their customers are on promotional rates), as it's prices rose beyond what I could handle. But I could give you a long litany of things that went wrong with Dish, beginning with the initial phone call when they told me I'd have to pay $99 to install and my first month's payment upfront, and not be able to get HD- despite their promo offering free install and free HD for life- and continuing less than two months later when they raised my bill $5 despite my the first year rate being shown big and in bold on their flyers. I could go on, but I've got better things to do.
Suffice is to say, I'd be wary of switching unless it's something you absolutely need to do for financial reasons, or cable is not providing you a specific channel you want, or the cable service in your area is bad (Keeps cutting out, too much time spent dealing with CSRs, whatever).
In general, it's to the customer's advantage to be able to switch whenever he/she wants. That gives the customer some leverage to ask for better deals, and hold the provider's feet to the fire a little bit in terms of providing a quality service, because the customer can always threaten to switch providers or go without entirely. With a contract, they've sort of got you. Plus, contracts often come with credit checks, and either rejections or very disadvantageous terms to those who don't have credit scores the company likes.
Also, I don't feel like the option of paying full price for equipment and the regular price for programming, as some in this thread recommend, is really a good work-around for most people, or the original poster. He stated he can't afford or doesn't want to pay the regular price in the second year, why would he want to pay that price both years plus an equipment fee? It's like someone complaining that the price of hamburgers is at a place is too high, and telling him he can pay more if he wants to- it's the exact opposite of a solution.
My advice to the original poster is, if you're happy with cable and can afford it, keep it. Dish has a lot of catches and provisos, and the contract thing. I only got involved because I really needed that first year price break, and cable refused to give me anything promo wise (even though in the press they say something like 60% of their customers are on promotional rates), as it's prices rose beyond what I could handle. But I could give you a long litany of things that went wrong with Dish, beginning with the initial phone call when they told me I'd have to pay $99 to install and my first month's payment upfront, and not be able to get HD- despite their promo offering free install and free HD for life- and continuing less than two months later when they raised my bill $5 despite my the first year rate being shown big and in bold on their flyers. I could go on, but I've got better things to do.
Suffice is to say, I'd be wary of switching unless it's something you absolutely need to do for financial reasons, or cable is not providing you a specific channel you want, or the cable service in your area is bad (Keeps cutting out, too much time spent dealing with CSRs, whatever).
