First Person: How I Worked a Cable Bill Increase in My Favor, Saving $240

I no longer dread the mailbox because all of my bills come via email. Now it's my main email box I despise. Can you blame me? It seems like the cable company and other service companies keep raising their rates for the same services. Funny, my income isn't rising at the same rate as my bills keep increasing. When my most recent cable and Internet bill came I was not happy. My manageable $118* bill was now a $136 bill. I not only negotiated my way out of the $18 per month ($216/year) increase, I walked away with a bill that's lower than it was before the increase, saving in total, $240. I didn't give up any services to do it, either.

Cable Bill Increase

The increased bill included a higher fee for basic cable service as well as an increase for monthly Internet services. Because the cable company has moved so many "good" stations to the upper, digital channels some of them can only be watched on the TV with the box. This can cause a problem when the husband and kid battle over watching sports and home improvement, or educational cartoons on Sprout. Forget me trying to watch anything on Bravo anymore unless I record it with the DVR. As usual, the cable company wanted more money for the "same" service although that service has been altered.

Making the Phone Call

After reviewing the previous bill with the current bill, which is the only way to find out exactly which services were increased, I made a phone call. I have learned over the years that the cable company always has some kind of special available. They extend many of them to new customers or when they introduce a new service. However, if your bill increases you can and should make a phone call and negotiate your bill back down to where it was.

Nixing the Sales Pitch

Our cable company has pretty much been obsessed with three things in the last year: cable-based phone service, bundled Internet/phone/cable, and the dreaded "price lock guarantee," otherwise known as jail for your cable. I don't know anyone with a cell phone contract that doesn't despise it, because, let's face it, in today's world two years is like 10. Why would I want to get into a long-term commitment with the cable company, too?

Before the nice sales woman could get too far into trying to sell me phone service or a contract, I told her what I wanted. I said we did not want movie channels, we wanted to keep the exact same cable and Internet services we have now with the one DVR. I made it clear we did not need a phone and did not want any contract situation.

Guess what? She said okay. She could find a "special" so my family could keep the same services at the previous price. Except she went one better. She actually came up with a price that was $2 lower per month than what I was already paying. Instead of shelling out the new monthly price of $136 a month, a $216 annual increase, I will now be paying $116 a month, two dollars less a month than less year, saving $24 when comparing 2012 to 2011.

Total savings from one phone call: $240 on the $216 increase plus the extra $24 on my "special" rate

* rounded