Voom treats Charter Members Poorly

[jjmmd2003]

They cancel the ability of Charter Members to go to lease after letting other Charter Members do so & without any notice to us!! Reasonable policy would be to let us know & then implement at end of month. This way they try & force Charter's to stay & keep your money!!
They know that most members will want most all of the plus packs--we signed up for as much HD as possible---so they gaive you a free plus pack which is worthless unless you only want a part of what they have available. Note that if you want the all (VaVaVoom) plan do they offer Charter members $14.90 off that rate-No!! So really they don't offer Charter members much of anything & now cancel out the lease policy!! You can see that as Charter members you can't expect much so I can't see that changing in the future!! Note that when they started to offer the installs at $399 or less did they refund our money then? No----instead offered a lesser credit in the future. Clearly they plan to keep our moneys by making it harder to get it back rather than providing goos services and reasons to stay. VOOM has taken a MAJOR step down in my mind. The Charter Members were all big supporters of VOOM & I have gotten many folks signed up or interested but now I will let them know how they are treating their original members!
VOOM should
1. Cancel out their unilateral no change to lease policy or change its implementation to end of month or 2 weeks away to allow Charter Members to switch if they were planning to.
2. Give charter members something more meaningful such as $14.90 off VaVaVOOM rather than just 1 free plus pack which means little to most subscribers
3. Fix charter members prices as set rather than increase them at end of year.
Here's a few thoughts that would entice Charter Members to stay rather than forcing them to stay as they are now doing. Seems like they would worry more about keeping the subscribers that they have now rather than just how they can keep our money!

 

[Sean Mota]

I completly agree with you on this one. It seems like a non-sensical decision to do this. Too bad. I really thought that this company was going to take care of the people that gave them support from the beginning. Not just money but all the hours that we have gone through with bad bugs, few programming, and our feedback to them. This is clear stabbing on the back and I mean it. I am very dissapointed.

Update: I posted my dissatisfaction at Yahoo group yesterday about this and only one person has responded with the same dissastifaction. It would seem like every VOOM subscriber should stay together on this one because even if you are not affected by thiis; it tells them that if they can get away with this one, later on, they can get away with anything and it will affect you regardless of your status as a customer.

 

[vurbano]

didnt charter members get a 300 dollar credit? so it cost then 750-300 = 450 right? and no rental fees right? and 15 bucks off on vavavoom? What is there to complain about? if you bought one reciever you are saving 10+15= 25 bucks a month. In a year thats 300 bucks. Most places lock you in to a one year contract. So after a year, you paid 750-300-300= 150? I paid D* 370 bucks for my fire hazard hughes e86 HD reciever and it is not anywhere as adanced as that motorola box. And stuck with a one year contract.It runs hot enough to make an egg fry. Stop whining.

 

[eschu97611]

didnt charter members get a 300 dollar credit? so it cost then 750-300 = 450 right? and no rental fees right? and 15 bucks off on vavavoom? What is there to complain about? if you bought one reciever you are saving 10+15= 25 bucks a month. In a year thats 300 bucks. Most places lock you in to a one year contract. So after a year, you paid 750-300-300= 150? I paid D* 370 bucks for my fire hazard hughes e86 HD reciever and it is not anywhere as adanced as that motorola box. And stuck with a one year contract.It runs hot enough to make an egg fry. Stop whining.

15.00 off Va Va Voom?-where do you get that from?-if you have 1 receiver it is a no brainer to switch to lease, even with the 500.00 hdtv rebate I qualified for-9.50 per month for equipment, 79.90(until 01/05 then 89.90) for Va VA Voom and the freedom to dump the box when the dvr comes out and not have to wait for Voom to "grant" you some kind of credit for your box-we see how they are treating chaters now-what makes anyone think they will be generous when the dvr arries in the summer? Why get stuck with a doorstop if you don't have to?

 

[Sean Mota]

didnt charter members get a 300 dollar credit? so it cost then 750-300 = 450 right? and no rental fees right? and 15 bucks off on vavavoom? What is there to complain about? if you bought one reciever you are saving 10+15= 25 bucks a month. In a year thats 300 bucks. Most places lock you in to a one year contract. So after a year, you paid 750-300-300= 150? I paid D* 370 bucks for my fire hazard hughes e86 HD reciever and it is not anywhere as adanced as that motorola box. And stuck with a one year contract.It runs hot enough to make an egg fry. Stop whining.

There's no whining here and you have missed the point! The principle of the matter is what is clear at hand. The money does not matter but the change in policy at will without notifying anybody. If something was going to be done why the heck not wait until 4/30 and everything will be fine.

Listen if you don't see something wrong here, I do not know what to say. It is principle and accountability. If we cannot let this company know that they are accountable by what they said "all charters members have until 4/30 to change to lease program without deinstallation" then we might as well never do business with a company like this.

 

[Mr. Biggles]

To ‘shoot yourself in the foot’ is a 20th century expression meaning to foolishly harm/damage one’s own cause/chances by mistake.

The V* motto? Sure hope not for their sake.

 

[eschu97611]

There's no whining here and you have missed the point! The principle of the matter is what is clear at hand. The money does not matter but the change in policy at will without notifying anybody. If something was going to be done why the heck not wait until 4/30 and everything will be fine.

Listen if you don't see something wrong here, I do not what to say. It is principle and accountability. If we cannot let this company that they are accountable by what they said "all charters members have until 4/30 to change to lease program without deinstallation" then we might as well never do business with a company like this.

Agreed Sean-even though my lease switch on 04/01 went through already and it appears I was "grandfathered" in, I feel for all those who didn't make it throught the "switch window"-bad policy=loss of customers=less subs=out of business!!!!

 

[madpoet]

There's no whining here and you have missed the point! The principle of the matter is what is clear at hand. The money does not matter but the change in policy at will without notifying anybody. If something was going to be done why the heck not wait until 4/30 and everything will be fine.

Listen if you don't see something wrong here, I do not know what to say. It is principle and accountability. If we cannot let this company know that they are accountable by what they said "all charters members have until 4/30 to change to lease program without deinstallation" then we might as well never do business with a company like this.

I agree... but this is the same argument I tried to make when they screwed those of use who purchased the equipment in early March. I didn't get a whole lot of sympathy then, and they certainly changed the policy with no notice.

-MP

 

[rtt2]

You guys really never dealt with cablevision before?

Welcome to the horror of dealing with this company. The name may be different but the mentality is the same. I feel for you guys.

However I learned the hard way by being a Cablevision cable subscriber for many years - Never trust anything that company says or does; unless it is in writing. Even then be sure to read all CVs statements, bills, announcements, for changes. Especially for things like "offer may change at anytime without notice." The people at CV are slippery.

My bet is they were reading all this talk about people going to switch to leases on this board and decided to stop allowing it. If they had a mass influx of people switching they would have to send out a whole lot of cash that they don't particularly have.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html

 

[jjmmd2003]

Charters should cancel & get their $$ back

That would show VOOM that they can't continue to treat their core customers this badly & expect people to put up with it!
they know that the Charter folks have disposable income & having put up with the installs hassles many would not want a repeat. Fortunately the installs are getting better so we should de-install & the sign back up as lease members. Maybe by then they will be past their PD problems.
I really think what they are doing is wrong & we should stick together & get them to reverse their policy or see theit charter members & $1million leave their company!!

 

[vurbano]

They original poster said he could get15 buck off of a plus pak, not va va voom pardon the error. But the point is charter members did get a 300 dollar credit didnt they? and the service was free for them for how long? with the I left that out of the calculation so deduct how much? Overall charter members got a hell of a deal. D* charges you 370 for a hd reciever with no DVI and you get a one year contract for your trouble.

 

[eschu97611]

They original poster said he could get15 buck off of a plus pak, not va va voom pardon the error. But the point is charter members did get a 300 dollar credit didnt they? and the service was free for them for how long? with the I left that out of the calculation so deduct how much? Overall charter members got a hell of a deal. D* charges you 370 for a hd reciever with no DVI and you get a one year contract for your trouble.

The service was free when service was being "tested"-don't forget "betas" don't pay-service still being upgraded constantly and we are all paying now-as for the free months, I signed on in feb and got 6 weeks worth of free service(120.00 value)-still doesn't make sense to buy 1 unit when it is already an obsolete piece of equipment and we have no idea what Voom plans to do with credits when the dvr arrives-freedom to dump box is bliss I think-but to each his own.

 

[vurbano]

I was just trying to figure out what the real cost of the service would have been. I joined D* a month before voom came online . and 750 was just too much. But if you got OCtober - march? free? and a 300 dollar credit. what is that 6 months? x 80 = 480 plus 300 = 780? you would have made 30 bucks right? and own the reciever. No rental fees no mirroring charges. That would be sweet. AS far as the DVR goes you only need one in the house I hear and it will serve all tv's.

 

[bestspartan]

They original poster said he could get15 buck off of a plus pak, not va va voom pardon the error. But the point is charter members did get a 300 dollar credit didnt they? and the service was free for them for how long? with the I left that out of the calculation so deduct how much? Overall charter members got a hell of a deal. D* charges you 370 for a hd reciever with no DVI and you get a one year contract for your trouble.

Vurbano, what you don't account for is many of us charter members kept our other program providers (D*, E* or cable) during "free" Voom programing simply because Voom didn't have the level of sevice, quality and programing to be able to drop the other provider. It would have been "free" if we could have droped and stopped paying for our other providers.

SEAN, I am completely with you! Voom can't jerk around any customers like this, especially their very influencial early adapters. Strong marketers realize these are your most important customers because they tend to lead many others to your product/services if they are satisfied. Conversly, they will equally turn others away if not satisfied. Rarely do start ups, in competitive environments, succeed if they do not satisyfy the trend setting, early adaptors. This is not an opinion, but a proven fact many times over!

This bad decision may have been made by a bean counter and not a marketing exec. Someone at Voom needs to step in and override this very short sighted, unannounced switch in policy.

 

[vurbano]

Vurbano, what you don't account for is many of us charter members kept our other program providers (D*, E* or cable) during "free" Voom programing simply because Voom didn't have the level of sevice, quality and programing to be able to drop the other provider. It would have been "free" if we could have droped and stopped paying for our other providers.

SEAN, I am completely with you! Voom can't jerk around any customers like this, especially their very influencial early adapters. Strong marketers realize these are your most important customers because they tend to lead many others to your product/services if they are satisfied. Conversly, they will equally turn others away if not satisfied. Rarely do start ups, in competitive environments, succeed if they do not satisyfy the trend setting, early adaptors. This is not an opinion, but a proven fact many times over!

This bad decision may have been made by a bean counter and not a marketing exec. Someone at Voom needs to step in and override this very short sighted, unannounced switch in policy.

Voom stiil doesnt have the level of programming for me to tottaly drop D*. Does that mean they owe me a refund? Nope