They raised the bill

My bill hasn't been increased... But pI think these companies increase bills, knowing that a large percentage of their customers won't notice, or bother to complain, or switch provider. I think it's very unfair, and if a company did this to me, I'd switch without hesitation. It's all about money, and profit - the b*stards.

Well I am not on SS and did not know they froze it. What Congress needs to freeze is passing more laws. But, yes the bills are going up here. Our house assessment went up so our taxes went up too. Are you with Comcast? Have not heard great things about them in my county in the past few months.

It is not to bad here in the UK as there are so many Companies and there will always be one Cheaper then the other and outdo them so tat is not much of a Problem here in the UK I am glad though that you where able to get it lowered as you say everything goes up in price whether your Money does or not

We don’t have cable TV because we basically cannot afford it. I live in Australia and I think the rising prices versus low incomes are a universal issue which is affecting the majority of us. We have less and less spare cash each pay because our mortgage interest rates keep going up and our social security is at a minimum also. It is a positive that you are able to get the bill reduced although it would have to be a pain to call up every time there’s a price hike!

Life is a nightmare these days.How dare they expect someone on social security to spend all that money on a phone call,why should you negociate like that it should be a dollar rise for everyone regardless of income.The cable company practise stinks like you say if they can pay someone to sit there and argue with the customers it must cost them more.I suppose they hope not many people will ring up and they will get away with such a big hike in payments.What will happen is people will decide to go somewhere else or do with it and they will lose so many customers they will go out of business.We have a trading standards watch dog in this country to guard against such bad practise.

No cost of living incress for..... two.... years....? What.... no.... that can't be... Well the people who charge you don't think of that. All they care about is making money. They will make money off of you for as long as you continue to have service through them. And, with the things the way they are lately. Everyone is struggeling to survive including those providers. They feel the damand for entertainment is high enough people are going to be desperite enough to pay. Despite the costs.

I think you're right on this savypat, not only hoping that some people will take 2 or 3 months to call, but then there are the people that don't call at all. My sister just got cable for $70 a month and that doesn't even include the internet. A week after she got the cable installed, they had a 'special' where you could get cable for $25.00 a month for one year....she called and they wouldn't change her $70 to the $25.00 and she has never had cable before. You would think that they would want to make a better deal for a new customer. But I'm guessing she's helping to pay someone else's bill that is cheaper. I remember when cable first came out and the idea of paying for cable was so that you didn't have to watch any commercials.....in the early 80's a lot of the channels didn't have commercials on cable but now I see more commercials than I do programming!

I have AT&T Uverse, it's fiber optic, and I signed up last December because they gave me $300 in rebate checks. My cable is $50, for phone and internet and cable I spend about $120 a month. Too much, but it's the lowest price I can find! Everyone is raising prices, I'm waiting for Uverse to raise theirs. I think eventually a lot of us are going to give up our TV viewing and start reading books or renting $1 movies once a week. This is getting ridiculous.

Hey Pat! Of course I am! Do you think your miserable cable company is alone in this? My cable company has been doing this for two years or more now! They started with a great campaign to give a "3 for 1 package you can't refuse"! Get cable. phone and Internet for $99.99 for the first year, no additional charges when the year is up! Yeah, right! My bill went up to almost $150 and just keeps rising! So, what can I do about it! Not much because the other cable companies are just as bad so it's a monopoly which equals "lose lose"!!!

I know what you mean about cable constantly going up. I am reducing my monthy bill by around $100 this year. I have decided to drop my package to a very basic one and am now signed up for an online movie package. It's going to cut my costs that much! I was amazed and am testing it out right now on a trial version just to make sure that it works like I wanted to. I know the cable companies aren't going to ever cut the costs back so I have decided to take it into my own hands to save money.

That's an enormous hike. In fact it's monstrous. What could their justification be? It doesn't seem to happen quite like that over here, although utility bills are steadily rising, as is the cost of fuel. Well done for getting the better deal, but what a hassle.

Sorry to play devil's advocate here, but cable is a "luxury". Is your life going to be impacted if you can't watch cable? Get rid of it and save yourself some bucks. There was life before cable, there will be life after cable. Read the newspaper, read a book, spend some time on your garden. Use the money you'd be wasting on cable on something that would be truly beneficial in your life.

dear pat, that is tripled and then lowered .. my gosh! i am guessing now, they do that because not everyone likes to complain? but if that happened to me, i will feel very irritated with their systems and procedures. and you? ann

What do you expect? I'm not suprised they charged more monthly. It is a service! Your paying them for their service and they are allowed to raise the price as much as they want. My suggestion would be maybe consider switching to another company like a vonage or something that gives you the same monthly rate. I don't know who you have for a provider, but time to kick them to the curb.

Everyone is trying to gouge all they can. I dropped the cable a long time ago. It was already going up beyond all reason for what we could get.I refuse the phone company "upgrades" that they try to sneak in on me as well. It may well be that they aim high, but settle for what little they can get and call it good.

I only keep my Internet bill and I watch whatever I want on Internet. There is nothing to watch on TV anyway and I don't watch it for the last 3 years or longer. But I agree with you, $50 is a lot to pay for cable......

Hi Savypat, Actually that is exactly what they are thinking when they make an increase like that. Why, Because many people are not diligent about questioning there bills like you are, and will let it go two or three months before they do something about it. The best way to challenge a cable company raising your rate is to shop around and find a cheaper rate. Once you have found a few other services with cheaper rates than give your cable company a call and make it very clear that if they don't match the price you can get with someone else than you will change services. You would be surprised how fast they back down in order to save the account. In the end they can only charge what the market is willing to pay. If more people stood up and made clear they will not put up with this kind of thing than it would not happen.