Tuesday, September 20, 2005

I've said it before, but...

I've become my father.
A Case of WTF. I have had a moment of being my father this evening. I wanted Tivo and since I don't have a land line I can't get it. Extreme sadness ensued, but I decided to try and get similar service through the ole' cable company. I called Charter tonight and asked them about getting DVR and they said that they would be "happy" to arrange that and I said "great!" Renting the DVR every month would cost $9.99/month and the service is $6.99/month. Since I figured this would be a temporary thing ('til I actually have money and a land line) I was okay with paying an extra $17 per month. Then the lady told me there would be a "trip" charge for delivering the DVR which would set me back $26 buckaroos. I was like "um, what?" She said that it was a standard charge and I told her that with the DVR service I would be paying over $100 a month and they wanted me to pay for bringing the DVR to my house so that I could increase my bill????!!! Whatever. I told her that I wouldn't pay it. It was like charging someone to deposit money in their own account and that it was a deal breaker. She said she would talk to her supervisor and try to see what could be done. I waited awhile and she came back on the line to tell me that I would indeed have to pay the fee. I told her no thanks. I will do without before I will allow this "travshamockery" to take place. Do they not realize that they would have recouped their "trip" charge within two months of my service??? Now I am not going to get their stupid DVR for the sheer principle. In the not too distant past I would have sucked it up and paid the fee, but it is ridiculous to pay for something that literally costs them nothing. I would have waited until they had to come to my side of town to do repairs or some such nonsense to get my recorder - oh, but no - they are going to enforce some dumbass delivery fee. Ahhhh, Ken G. would be proud!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

What a load of crap! Why do they think they can get away with it? They should at least call it something that makes you think it's a NECESSARY charge!

Anonymous said...

Do you have high-speed Internet access at home? If so, and if you already have or are willing to shell out around 50 bucks for a router, the lack of a landline would be no problem for TiVo. You'd have to carry your box over to a landlined friend's house for the initial setup, which would probably further set you back the cost of beer and pizza, but after connecting by phone once your TiVo can do the rest of its business over t'Internet.

My god, I'm a TiVo evangelist.

Unknown said...

Plus, someone once told me that Tivo can do its communicating through a cell phone.

Tivo is demanding. It got its own landline at our apartment.

katie g. said...

Good advice, ya'll. Matthew, You will have to explain it to me when I see you in class next.