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I was laid off recently, permanently, from a job that I was looking to leave anyway. I've been using the time to my advantage by updating old contacts, and calling companies that I have a relationship with to renegotiate things.

For example, my cable internet provider has many options for new customers that are much better than what I had. I called in yesterday, said "I'm on layoff but want to remain a customer and keep my account current. Is there a way I can take advantage of one of your new customer specials?" They were happy to move me to a plan 2/3 the cost with 2x the speed, and it's good for two years. My cellular carrier also has a number of help-out plans where they'll reduce bills for a set time. T-mobile in particular will cut your bill in half for 3 months, with the caveat that your data is now limited to 3GB. I'm never over about 1 or so off WIFi, so this was a perfect plan, and it should just go back automatically when we're done. If it doesn't, I'm not worried about it, I'd be happy to stay at that rate forever.

So get out there and see what your providers have to offer, feeding them a polite sob story in this time of panic can sometimes have good results.

I was laid off recently, permanently, from a job that I was looking to leave anyway. I've been using the time to my advantage by updating old contacts, and calling companies that I have a relationship with to renegotiate things. For example, my cable internet provider has many options for new customers that are much better than what I had. I called in yesterday, said "I'm on layoff but want to remain a customer and keep my account current. Is there a way I can take advantage of one of your new customer specials?" They were happy to move me to a plan 2/3 the cost with 2x the speed, and it's good for two years. My cellular carrier also has a number of help-out plans where they'll reduce bills for a set time. T-mobile in particular will cut your bill in half for 3 months, with the caveat that your data is now limited to 3GB. I'm never over about 1 or so off WIFi, so this was a perfect plan, and it should just go back automatically when we're done. If it doesn't, I'm not worried about it, I'd be happy to stay at that rate forever. So get out there and see what your providers have to offer, feeding them a polite sob story in this time of panic can sometimes have good results.

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[–] • 2 pts (edited )

Not just during pandemic times. If you have at least six months (some carriers do a year) of good payments, they'll bend over backwards to keep you as a customer. Most customers are shit, pay late, or eventually just let their accounts go to collections. One (established) good customer is worth ten new ones. If you've been on the same cellphone plan for more than a year, and have a good payment record with them: give them a call and ask what they can offer you. Chances are it'll be waaaay better than what you're getting now.

If anything, they more-or-less expect you to do this, from time to time. If you call in, and that "High Value Customer" notification pops up on the call-center-rep's screen: you're in for a pleasant treat; especially if you're off contract. If you're a few months away from your contract expiring: you can expedite the process by paying off the remaining balance owed for the phone itself, and it'll terminate the contract early.

Carriers have a mini panic attack when their HVC's are off-contract and will offer you the moon to get you back on to one. If you're one of those people who walks in to a mall store right as your contract expires to get a new phone from a sales rep: you're doing it wrong. Call the call center, and make sure the person you're talking to isn't Indian. If they are, hang up and try again. Seriously.

I've worked in a few call centers, over the years. These practices are more-or-less universal for any company that operates on such models. If you have a bad payment history or shitty credit score, though, don't even bother trying. If anything, they'll nitpick your account to see if you're getting any discounts and stuff like that erroneously, just so they can take it off.

[–] • 1 pt

I've generally had good luck doing what you've said, having been a T-Mo customer for 11 years certainly helps.

The only time I had this not work was when I had TIme-Warner cable. TW had bought out our local provider, Insight, and had raised prices substantially. One day I got a letter saying that they were raising my rate to $99 a month for Internet alone. I called, said I can't do that, what can we do? Nothing, I heard the term "Market Rate" multiple times. We're lucky enough to have another cable provider. Called them, they were offering 30/3 for $30, told them yes, called to cancel TW, and when I said why I was told that deal did not exist and she did not think I was being honest. Cancelled, they didn't even try. I would have thought being a customer for 15 years would have done something, but I guess not.

[–] • 1 pt

If you'd been with Time-Warner for that long, they'd have done it. But to the call center employee— they probably just saw your sign-up date as the date that the purchase went through; or at least the date of when they created your TW profile. If you said, "I've been a customer for over fifteen years!" then they were probably all, "heh, get a load of this guy. Nice try buddy, can't pull a fast one on me!"

Not all call-center employees are terribly smart; sorry to hear you got a retarded one. That being said, TW has notoriously bad support. I used to do T2/T3 tech support for TW, and 90% of my job was fixing other people's fuck-ups. Like: people dealing with some recurring issue for years, and all it would take is three clicks to fix it. Dumb shit like that.

[–] • 0 pt

I try not to pull that line on people because I know it sounds like whining. I guess at the time, TW had only owned our local system for something like 5 years, so that may have had something to do with it.

My biggest complaint was when the person I had on the line tried to tell me that no, in fact, the deal I was just offered by the other guy did not exist. Now, I know that people call in and make up whatever, so I don't blame the person, but I probably would have said "I'm sorry, we can't match that kind of deal." instead of "I don't see that on their homepage, I don't think it exists." - when they had been literally plastering everyone's mailbox for the last 6 months with advertisements for this special, and that was the first thing you saw on their homepage.

T-Mobile is completely different, they tell ME how long I've been a customer and how they appreciate that. Thank you.