Cable Companies Accuse Verizon Of Shady Practices To Prevent Customers From Leaving
from the so-we-hear-you're-leaving... dept
Comcast and Time Warner have complained to the FCC that Verizon is taking unfair advantage in preventing customers from dropping their phone service. The basic story is that the cable companies have been offering deals on various "bundles" of TV, internet and phone service, all over cable. When customers agree to switch, most want to keep their existing home phone number (which is allowed under number portability rules). The cable companies take care of that part, informing the phone company of the switch -- at which point (the cable companies say) Verizon calls up those customers and offers them cash discounts to stick around. While it's quite common for telcos (or other firms for that matter) to offer customers who cancel deals to stay, this is somewhat different. The customer hasn't called to cancel in this case. It's just because Verizon owns the telephone network that it finds out about the switch and then proactively contacts the customers. Given the FCC's extra friendly terms with the telcos rather than cable co's, anyone think this has a chance of getting anywhere?
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Filed Under: cable companies, fcc, number portability, telcos
Companies: comcast, time warner, verizon
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Re:
To use a poor analogy: say you eat out at a resturant reguarlly for a while. Then you sample food from somewhere else and decide to start eating their reguarly.
Resturant A finds out while talking to Resturant B about their regular customers that you started eating at B.
Resturant A then starts bugging you at home, offering you a "regular customer discount" that they didn't offer you when you WERE a regular.
Aside from being a little creepy, it's a little fishy.
I'm of two minds of this myself. On the one hand, its a gateway to a whole new legal mess involving privacy. It's just a baby step in the direction, but its moving the wrong way.
On the other hand it IS competition, but at the same time if the customer never told them they were switching . . .
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Re: Re:
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Now, do get me wrong, I think both the cable companies and the telco's are just greedy companies making us pay too much money for the internet, but the FCC's bias nature needs to stop....
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When that day comes, they will return in droves.
Cable knows it can't compete with fiber to the home hence their whining. Sounds kinda like the hard drive maker executive that said he wants to sue the SSD companies if they become to popular.
All this technological, artificial scarcity is killing me.
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there are some laws against this
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Re: there are some laws against this
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Cable companies must be in bed with the demoncraps. They are like mirror copies of themselves. Whine and cry all day long all the while doing EXACTLY what they accuse the other side of. We used to call it hypocrisy but today its called "news"...
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Competition
however we need competition against bg&e. the electric company is killing us. so much for de-regulation.
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HAHAHA! Pot. Kettle. It makes no difference!
I wouldn't be too surprised if these companies and services merge in the future.
Welcome to AtVerTiCoSprAdel.
Basic monthly services for "unlimited" TV, internet, and phone: $199
Price subject to change tomorrow and every day thereafter.
Thank you so much for being a wonderful customer.
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lol at this story
But nothing long term or that made up for the fact that DSL around here is much slower than cable.
I thought it was funny though.
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And just kind of an OT comment, you people talking about FIOS, have you seen the contract for that? The install fee, the monthly fees, the one or two year contract...... and if you move there is a fee for that too (100% re-installation and set up fee)! Router fees, modem fees... it is a disgrace. The grass is not as green as you think it is.
The FCC lost control years ago. The FCC is a joke. The service providers in our country are a joke. There isn't even capitalism anymore, its is all about who can pad the politician's pockets the most while gouging the citizens with shitty service. There is no market, there is no choice.
What are we ranked, like 30th in the world for quality of service? And I bet we pay the most...
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Re:
Huh? Although you do have to sign up for a one or two year contract to get the best deal, that's generally true with all providers. Other than that, the installation was free, they provided me with a free router (although I don't use it as my main router, since I already had a better one), and there is no "modem" involved with FIOS.
I pay exactly what they quoted me with no extra fees, taxes, "_____ recovery charge", etc.
I don't know of any other provider that can give you 15Mbps/15Mbps with 5 static IPs and no filtering, blocking, or limits to your use of the line for just $159/month. For speeds closer to cable (5Mbps/2Mbps), it's $69/month.
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I would have a problem with a Verizon rep calling up and saying if they switch to cable phone Verizon will pull the copper from your house. Course, they might do that too.
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My wife got fed up with it, blamed Cavalier, and called Verizon to reactivate our service. Believe it or not, but switching back actually took several days, and I had to get the FCC involved to force Verizon to turn us back on because they intended to leave us in limbo for daring to cancel their service.
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Jamil's guess is off-target. It's not illegal for a company to contact a current customer and offer a discount.
You could call this "shady" if they made the offer in bad faith (perhaps planning to revoke it after three months.) Lacking any such evidence, the only thing shady here is the yellow Techdirt headline.
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Wow
Additionally, its not the type of competition that benefits consumers. Customers may save a few dollars in the short term but they will lose all the benefits of innovation that comes with intense competition. If all it takes to kill the competition is cutting a few dollars off a bill with suspect marketing ploys, then it will have no incentive to innovate. And in order to make up the money lost from cutting price for a few customers, they'll probably just raise the price of, say, call waiting (as they've done many times before).
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All fair game
Now rather then whining give me a better deal then the telco does!!! Isn't the real issue the fact that they are unwilling to match or exceed the deal...
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