I'm an awesome negotiator

It only took two weeks for the cable company to realize I mean business.


Either that, or they're pinheads.


Definitely one or the other.


So tell us your story about beating The Man.


So, the cable company that provides service to my area is a well-known company that, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call "CordSight." I've had feuds with their customer service people before, because they tend to do roughly nothing right. They've fouled up my bill for 3 consecutive months, screwed up my cable install, the phone didn't work for the first three days, they added the wrong channels, deleted other channels and still charged me for them, and still haven't figured out that I'm a hockey fan and order the Center Ice NHL package every single year.

In fact, Not Long Ago, I had a rant about the top 3 companies that are On Notice for me (A Catch phrase I coined long before Colbert, but I don't have any evidence to back it up), and for some reason, forgot to include "CordSight". Terrible oversight on my part...they're #3 on the list, pushing "Greek Difference Airlines" down to #4. It's a long, uphill road before anyone can catch up to UPS in terms of incompetence, though.

Anyway...so "CordSight" offers new customers a special price if you have their TV, Internet, and Phone services, which is cheaper than just having TV and Internet (which are the only ones I care about). The catch is that the special price only lasts one year, at which point, they jack up the cost. So after I had their package deal for a year, they said they'd raise the rates, so I asked them to cancel the phone so I could save money. They offered to extend the introductory price for another year...which was awfully nice of them...and life went on. Another year goes by, and they tell me again that the rates will go up, so I again ask for the introductory price, threatening to cancel the phone part. They tell me that they can't extend the price, and that my costs will shoot up starting with my next bill. I say OK, and have them transfer me to somebody else to disconnect the phone. The entire process of shutting off the phone service took a minute and a half, entirely done with one phone call.

A mere two weeks later, I get a call from "CordSight" saying that if I'm willing to try out their phone service, they'll give me a special "introductory" price for one year. Yes...this is the very same phone service I just had disconnected, and the very same introductory price they said they couldn't give me.

Here's the kicker:

In order to activate my "new" phone service, (All hardware for which never moved) they have to send a technician out to my house to install the modem. I'm not getting a new modem. I'm not getting new cables, a new phone, a new ANYTHING. The phone service is already installed. The only thing that ever changed was clicking one button on their side of things. Stands to reason that the only thing needed is to unclick that button and I'm back in the introductory price phone game. Instead, they're paying somebody to come to my house on a Saturday to install nothing and give me my "welcome" package...the same welcome package I got the day I got all this crap installed in the first place. Anyone else still wondering why their cable TV prices keep going up?