Holy cow!! I just got off the phone with a CSR and I'm left flabbergasted. I had been prepaying for my programming for the past several years in order to save a month's cost since they only bill you for 11 months if you prepay. It was worth it to me. When I was up for renewal a few months ago I was in the throes of deciding whether or not to go to D*, mostly because of the HD situation at that time so I switched to mo/mo billing. I wasn't about to pay $650 for a 6000 receiver w/8vsb and it seemed they were dragging their feet in regards to what the future would hold as far as programming and new receivers were concerned. As we all know, E* then started making announcements related to these issues and also offered the "deal" on the 6000's. So, I decided to stay and now that things are coming together I figured I'd go back to prepaying to get the savings. One note, in the interim I changed my programming. I dropped SHO and the distant nets and added the HD pack and HBO/MAX value pack to go along with my existing AT150. No problem, right? Wrong. Get this:
AT150 473 p/yr
HBO 154 p/yr
Max 132 p/yr
Total 759 p/yr
However, staying with mo/mo billing my cost would be 59.99 p/mo X 12 = $719.88 p/yr, a difference of $39.12.
Are they insane? They want to charge me about $40 more to let them have my money a year in advance. What kind of moron would come up with this kind of marketing scheme. The CSR was perfectly willing to let this happen until I asked for a breakdown of charges when something about the numbers struck me as sounding fishy. Amazing. I realize that the value Paks' fine print says they're available monthly but come on, this is nutso. You'd think they'd give you a break rather than charge more for prepaying. On a brighter note, they did allow me to prepay the HD Pak, saving $9.99 p/yr![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
AT150 473 p/yr
HBO 154 p/yr
Max 132 p/yr
Total 759 p/yr
However, staying with mo/mo billing my cost would be 59.99 p/mo X 12 = $719.88 p/yr, a difference of $39.12.
Are they insane? They want to charge me about $40 more to let them have my money a year in advance. What kind of moron would come up with this kind of marketing scheme. The CSR was perfectly willing to let this happen until I asked for a breakdown of charges when something about the numbers struck me as sounding fishy. Amazing. I realize that the value Paks' fine print says they're available monthly but come on, this is nutso. You'd think they'd give you a break rather than charge more for prepaying. On a brighter note, they did allow me to prepay the HD Pak, saving $9.99 p/yr