SUPER DAVE DEBATES COSTLY CABLE TV AND THE POWER OF PROTEST!!!



A word from our pal Super Dave on the tyranny of TV . . .

Super Dave: Make Protests Count!!!

You can’t pick up, or access any mainstream media nowadays without headlines of protesting, protesting, protesting, and protesting about something or another. Protesting seems to be the current new fad to spend time doing on the weekend. Personally I could find much better things to do with my time than to march up and down the street protesting something that’s already been law, and has been for years, or protesting about something, your protesting is not going to change no matter how much you protest. I fail to see the thinking behind protesting for things you know are not going to change. If you’re going to protest, get out there and protest for something that makes a difference. Something that is for the good of everybody, something like how the cable company can get away with ripping you off every month and nobody seems to care outside of those paying the bills to the companies that are screwing us.

I mean who doesn’t for the most part have cable anymore?

Yes the great cable companies which came into our lives back in the 70s with promises of better TV with more selections. Movies appearing on your TV screen within 2 to 3 months after being in the movie theaters. They still sort of make that same movie promise and they still seldom keep that promise either. Along with the cable companies starting up here there and everywhere from the big cities all the way into the rural country little towns came the snake oil salesman making promises to you they never intended to keep while suckering you into filling their pockets with money. Now most have customer service call in locations that are supposed to handle all of your problems and your issues now days.

They’ll be a person sitting at a desk with a headset on with a book in front of them that basically tells them what they can say to you or what they can’t. In short you call customer service to work out a problem and a person on the phone isn’t really able to work out the problem. Their job is to get you to pay for a service call or maybe an extended service plan that you’re billed for each month claiming it will cover all the wiring in your house that runs to all your TVs that they probably installed to begin with. Or then they try to get you to bundle your services with claims of how much money you’re saving when in fact, you end up paying them more money because they talked you into a higher plan. And the higher plan is always about more channels that seem to draw the folks in till next month’s bill or the ninety day discount program ends and statement increase shock hits.

Speaking of all these wonderful channels they claim to have. Have you ever noticed that the channels you really want to get, you can’t just get them alone? No you have to buy a basic package first. If you only want the movie channels you’re out of luck you have to buy a basic package first which does not always have the best picture. But they can fix that problem for you they’ll sell you digital service as well to go along with your basic service package.

Let’s say you walk into the meat market and you want to order some steak. You tell the meat cutter what you want, and that is some T-Bones. The meat cutter then explains you can’t have T-bones unless you order hamburger first. Will this irritate you, because you just wanted steak, but you have to get hamburger first. Okay so you buy some hamburger then you say I want T-Bone steaks. Nope they can’t do that. If you want T-Bone steaks you have to first buy the hamburger, then some sirloin steak. So you piss and moan and say okay and now that you have bought those two items, only then will you be allowed to buy your T-Bone steak. But don’t ask for Ribeye steaks, because they make you buy T-bones first. Now stupid is this all sounds, this is exactly what the cable companies do to you in so many ways.

They make you buy a whole bunch of programs you don’t even want to watch.

Another scam of the cable and satellite people that’s real popular is making you pay upfront for your service. The water company, the electrical company, and the gas company, they’ll send me a bill every month and say I owe them X number of dollars. And every month I send them off a check to cover the cost of the services I have received. The cable company wants their money upfront, if the service you get isn’t operating correctly they know it, but do they offer you a refund, nope. If your service is down for days will they up and give you a refund, nope. You have to call and hassle with customer service to explain to them to the minute when your service stopped operating correctly as well to the minute it started working again. Now if your cable provider also supplies you with your Internet service they know when there’s a problem on the system and when there’s not. They know exactly how much money they should refund to you, but they will not do it, not unless you first fight them for it. Myself, I never pay my cable bill first, except for the first month that is. From that time on as far as they’re concerned I’m thirty days past due and as far as I’m concerned I’m current, I paid for my months service as I receive it.

In the past couple of weeks I got rid of my cable TV service. I got tired of having to spend $200 a month to just watch on the TV what I really wanted to watch, and mostly reruns at that, all the while being forced to receiving approximately 100 plus channels I don’t want to watch, or even care to watch. When I called to discontinue my service I was advised that there was a $75 service call charge for their technician to pick up their equipment unless I wanted to return the equipment myself by making a 60 mile round-trip to an area I never go to while their technician drives up and down my street probably five times a week. I politely told them to stick their $75 charge I would return their equipment.

Now this is where it gets even weirder I am keeping the internet service with them and requested an upgrade to my cable modem and was told that I owned it. I could upgrade the modem if I wanted for $150 fee with a $55 service call fee to hook up and program the modem. I explained that I never bought this modem, but they swore up and down I did. I asked for an itemized statement showing where I did.

They had no records for that. I asked for an itemized statement on my last month’s charge. They had no way to send such a thing to me. How do you trust a company that can ever send you an itemized statement for services provided to you? Good grief, at least the power company shows you how much power you used a year ago compared to today with their nice little graphs while breaking down exactly where all your money is going with ridiculous service fees, service charges, this that, and everything else they gig your for, but at least you can see what it is.

I have a theory about the modem, I never paid for the modem, and the modem was all part of the package deal when I had HD installed 7 years ago. My modem, as well as everybody else’s modem around here, is getting outdated and they know it. So instead of them picking up the charge to upgrade their services, they just make the customer buy a whole new modem instead. Sure isn’t a totally dishonest plan sure is not an honest plan either. By the way the same modem is on Amazon for $89 and a three year old could hook it up.

I have no idea what I’ll be watching on my TV, sure won’t be any MSM lying fake news puke. So far I’m just playing with my Amazon Prime subscription a little bit, playing with a little DirectTVNow plan and just doing a little research as for what will be the best for me. I have to admit the Prime plan looks pretty good I can get all my movie channels again and not have to pay for the Home Shopping Network or Food network along with all those other foo foo shows I have no desire to watch for less than $50 a month.

So I say to all you protesters out there. If you want to really protest about something that is terribly wrong, start protesting these cable and satellite dish providers. They may think they’re the only ones in town, but let them know whose town it really is and you’re not going to take it any longer. If everybody dropped their service for a couple months, I bet you would see some awesome television viewing options become available from the service providers. Besides I think we all watch too much TV anymore anyway. Might do us all some good to be without TV for a couple months while doing a little more reading, Tony has a mini book out that’s worth a read, so why not.
##################

Comments

  1. Nice job Dave!

    Consumer advocacy can be far more powerful than so much political blather. I agree, people need to start complaining about their bills.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Look on the anti-Trump protests as the new tea party. Lots of people don't have cable. Streaming via Roku or a smart TV is a lot cheaper than cable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Arrest violent protesters and prosecute.

    Avoid Direct TV like the plague. They ripped me off after many forced program changes. Refundable $30 installation fee was not refunded after 2 hours of use. Could not provide repair service time after did not work. Left with holes drilled in roof. Cable box has to be mailed to them. A horrible experience. Others have had worse experience after entering into contracts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Executive summary:

    YOU KIDS GET OFFA MY LAWN

    ReplyDelete
  5. Where's Chapter 2?

    ReplyDelete
  6. What the fuck is "foo foo?"

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dead, dead on the money Dave.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is what happens when dumb ass kids go to college and tyake a civil disobedience class. They learn about a couple of journalists and the civil rights movement and let some left wing huckster Pied Piper instructor convince them that is some honor ion marching around blowing smoke about shit that will be meaningless to them in another ten years. Now if we could just find a college instructor or two that could give them the motivation and skills to hold down a freaking job and make a positive contribution before they all decide to imitate the Afican't movement.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Byron Funkhouser2/14/17, 12:35 AM

    Typical muddle class nonsense: protest the cable company because that really matters, but don't protest against the President because he'll still be President, at least for a couple more days.

    Your fascist dictator is going down NaziDave. He has committed treason.

    BTW, You can pick up every broadcast channel in the Kansas City area with a pair of rabbit ears for free. Perhaps, you should take my course on how to make the transition from being muddle class to being poor without starving to death.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Deplorable Joe2/14/17, 6:14 AM

    These idiot snowflake protestors will end up in a situation much like how Mizzou ended up following their "safe space" protests. Let them keep protesting and see what happens.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Byron-You're going off the deep end again. You don't want to get rid of the middle class. We're the ones supporting you.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The way to protest CABLE is to shut it off and watch the free stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Want to protest -- try protesting the $800,000,000.00 Bond Election. Broadway Bridge carries 27,000 people each morning. Get a sign and let people know they can VOTE NO

    ReplyDelete
  14. So there shouldn't be any protests because you disagree with what their protesting about? Your logic doesn't make any sense. I don't know if you understand your country's history very well or not, but it seems to me that protests accomplished quite a bit in the 60's. It also seems to me that these anti-Drumpf protests are getting to the right and isn't that the point? You try to belittle them or make them insignificant by using all the requisite right-wingnut dog-whistles such as "millennials" or "snowflakes" but every protest I have seen or been a part of there were people of all ages, creeds and colors. I'm sorry if there are things in your life you do not feel passionate enough to get out and protest about. Maybe instead of dumb posts like this, you should just step back and let your bettors do their thing...OK snowflake?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

TKC COMMENT POLICY:

Be percipient, be nice. Don't be a spammer. BE WELL!!!

- The Management