100yearpicnic.com

I don’t normally use the music site for online ranting.  Guess what?  I’m going off-topic today. 

First off, we are trying to reduce our monthly household expenses through budgeting and better cash flow management.  So it’s a no-brainer to look at the bills that we have to pay every month and try to figure out where to cut.  Well we are paying almost 50 bucks a month for our Verizon phone land line, with very few bells and whistles, like no caller ID, no long distance calls, and stuff like that.

So I call the company to find out if there is anything they can do to help us reduce our bill, otherwise we are considering switching to voice over IP.  It sounds like a VOIP service like vonage should give us a bunch of features for about half the price.  Long story short, Verizon can’t come close.  And I find that we’ve been for months, I suppose for years, paying $4 a month for "in-home wire maintenance."  Ouch.  This is considered a "feature" of our land line service.  I see.  Well, I guess we don’t need that anymore. 

Oh, and everytime we *69 (at least someone at Verizon has a sense of humor), it costs us 75 cents. Of course, we use *69 to find out who is calling us, because we don’t have caller ID…  And I should read the bill a little closer, I know this.

Overall, there are a few things we have to check out before we switch to VOIP, but this definitely lays some groundwork for that. 

Now onto the cable company.  Ours is Insight.  For a short period of time this summer, for fun, we tried extra cable channels, plus a digital box because it’s only $12 a month blah blah blah.  Well the box is $5 plus the channels.  Yes, we loved the upgrade from our most basic of cable to get a ridiculous number of channels even though we just wanted a couple like Bravo, CNN, and for the kids Disney, Nick, all that. 

After a little research and a quick family discussion, we decide for just a few extra bucks a month, we can upgrade our Netflix and the kids can get their TV shows on DVD and go back to basics with cable.  Hello.  I LOVE Netflix.  Now THAT is a company that is making ALL the right moves, at least as far as I can see. 

So we call up Insight to go back to basic cable.  Well, there is going to be a charge of $8.95 for them to come out and switch our cable service.  And then we need to drop off the cable box.  So I finally get around to returning the cable box, and I find out that
all this time since we had called to cancel the box, they’ve been
charging us for the service.  LAME.  I ask the receptionist why the
cable guy didn’t pick up the cable box when he came out to change our
service.  "Oh, they don’t do that."  I see.  You are charging me for
them to come out, but they can’t knock on our door to take the box
back.  They did put the box IN there, by the way.  And I really wanted to hand them a bill for $8.95 for driving all the way across town, just like they did to us.

I guess, we are just expected to eat it because they are the cable company and they can do just about whatever they want.  Yes we have a few other choices now.  But, in the not so distant future, there will be many more choices. Do they not know that we are all cataloging, deep into our memories, all of these unpleasantries and telling all of our friends how lame this and that is.  And some of us are switching services. 

Now onto cell phones.  How many times have you discovered–and only because you asked the RIGHT QUESTION–that your cell phone company NOW has a new discount program that gets you more minutes for 1/3 of the price you are paying now?  Why do they not tell us these things that they know?  They are doing all sorts of other market analysis and customer metrics, but they can’t do some for us, that might be in OUR best interest?  Of course not.  It would mean less money for them.  Maybe they know they need to gobble up as much as they can, while they can. 

Shouldn’t we just switch?  We were just reminded that we are stuck in contract with our cell provider until January 2008.  Shame on us.  And guess who we have?  Verizon Wireless.  True, we don’t learn.  Is there a better one out there?  I’m guessing they are all a little on the lame side.  I know about half of my calls are dropped right in my own house.  Can you hear me now? 

So, yes, I could switch our Verizon land line to get my phone through the internet.  And guess how we get our internet?  INSIGHT.  And, I suppose we could switch off Insight to DSL, but that is through VERIZON WIRELESS. 

I know it’s a privilege to be able to have these sorts of complaints.  I’m not complaining about THAT, but I definitely feel better about THIS.