I remember back in the aol dial up days I did the 90 day(or 60 day I don't remember exactly) free trial offer. So after the 90 days was up I called to cancel and they offered me another free 90 days so I said sure why not. Then I'd call each time to cancel when the trial period was over and every time they would give me a free extension. I ended up getting a whole year of free internet, until I got tired of crappy aol.
My cheap 40 dollar smart phone I use in Colombia is from some brand called "Azumi". It does everything I need it to do apps, internet, share internet to my laptop. The only thing is any time I'd pull my phone out to exchange numbers or whatever it was kind of embarrassing being seen with a cheapy phone when all the Colombians and Venezuelans I met had much higher quality, more expensive phones than me.
Guys, maybe try this--if nothing else, it can add up to major pizza money. Whadda ya got to lose---10 -20 minute's time and potentially save $100's of dollars??? Just say you've had enough and was wondering if you have to return euipment and/or pay fees to disconnect, because service has been awful. Before you can say 'robert angel'---they'll probably forward you to their 'Customer Retention" dept and then you work them, haggling a bit. Be patient though, because besides monthly price reductions for 12 months and extra channels for free like we got, they have a lot of stuff, promos etc. to research, like some months they're giving away free HBO, STARZ, CINEMAX, etc.--- a good rep will look. A bad, lazy rep? Maybe hangup and call back--you'll get someone new.
Again, once a year, I call my cable TV and Internet providers and rightfully complain that the TV signal drops out when it rains (always during something like the last minutes of rhe last quarter of a tight sport's championship game too!) and that our so called and paid for 'mega blast' internet speed is often way down and upload speeds are off too, reducing my son's body counts on Modern Warfare/Call of Duty and Skyrim video game scores. Unacceptable!!!
Never had to show it, but I take a quick screen shot of the TV punking out and the Internet speed test readouts.
Really, if I was halfway smart, I'd use a digital antenna to get local (ABC, NBC, CBS) channels for free, maybe add the Amazon for more TV content, as well as for for books, magazines and music streaming. Hell, I'm already getting my money's worth for maintaining $99 a year Pryme membership, which gives me two day delivery on almost everything Amazon sells.
I've ordered stuff via Amazon Pryme like struts for my car's suspension, other HEAVY stuff that the delivery would cost me a LOT more than just the cost of Amazon's $99 for 12 month Pryme. Besides, they even deliver on Sunday. If I don't like what they sent, I get an RMA in minutes and they send a truck pronto to my front door and take it away, refunding my money in hours, not days. Just got ceramic brake pads to put in my son's car in 36 hours and for a quarter of what a repair shop or Auto Stealership would charge us.
Amazing. For media, add an Amazon Firestick or two, perhaps Netflix, maybe a Roku box, Apple TV---there's a lot of options out there besides the cable TV pigs. DVR'? Drop $50-75 after searching for SSD hard drives---or anything-- from guns to girdles, on Slickdeals.net (GREAT site) hook it up and save.
I didn't really piss and moan to Direct TV, nuthin bout grandma or the dog, but with the cable and phone outfits, I do say money's tighter than ever and we can't afford to pay for unfulfilled promises. And I am NICE to the rep, today saying: 'Happy New Year, sorry you're not home--that I appreciate your time"--yada, yada.
I haven't even called our ISP yet today and we're close to $700 up for the rest of 2017 from that one call to DirectTV----probably more like $700, as there's no tax on what we're NOT paying. Plus the guy turned me onto some recommended shows. I said "Empires' kind of interesting, he said check out 'Power' and that 'Homeland' is coming back strong and one of my favorites, 'Ray Donovan' (They modeled his character after me, lol) is gonna be good again after last season's so so episodes. Oh, and I mentioned I like Denzel Washington's stuff a lot but haven't seen 'Training Day' yet, and the gent sent me a link!
And I cut my Verizon bill too. Do you known that Verizon, "Big Red" (pig) averages about a BILLION DOLLRS a MONTH PROFIT?? Got them to bust my bill down and give me free controls for a year to set my son's data limits, even see how they're using their data, ability to cut it off when they reach my appointed max, who they're calling/texting and at what time....
I'm nice as can be to the reps, unless I get 'attitude' and if I can't get them to treat me decently, I politely ask for a supervisor and begin to start ratcheting up the nasty.... While waiting, listening to their 'elevator music' as I wait, I sometimes look up the names of regional corporate bosses and their addresses, if I need to threaten to write a concise letter of complaint to the supervisor's boss.
But, if they treat me decent or extra nice, I ask to talk to their supervisor, not saying "Sir: they just saved me $700 and added channels, (losing the company money)---instead saying: "I apologize, but when I called, I was sooo angry, ready to take my business elsewhere and tell everyone I know to do the same, but your employee James must have had prior experience defusing land mines, because he was so professional and efficient that we're calm now and staying on HE made ALL the difference and your very lucky ro have him"--and ---"I don't usually take the time to ask for a supervisor to compliment, but you've got a superlative employee there who deserves recognition for his exceptional abilities."
You get more with sugar than vinegar.....
No wonder mid range cell phones in 2nd and 3rd world countries work so well, especially considering there's often few towers, more mountains and trees. Their phones, typically not running the latest Qualcomm/Samsung/Sony proecessors or 2K never mind 4K resolution screens, aren't nearly as hopelessly bogged down with bloat ware that the cell phone companies here add, while at the same time, decontenting/eliminating useful features.
My Verizon S7 came with 15 free GB of FREE Samsung cloud storage. Verizon gutted it and only gives 5 GB, then send you popups all the time, asking you to buy more. They eliminated the handy Samsung "Device Manager" from settings, the free Samsung music app for their own 'pay for' Verizon app and added a lot of other boggy crap that's useless for most. They insisted the manufacturers dump free FM radio access. They got Samsung to eliminate the IR blaster that doubled as a remote control for your TV and stereo. And they build in 'permissions' for their corporate affiliates to often almost invisibly add more layers of boggy, bloatware. No wonder we drop calls, have crappy voice quality, and it may take 20-30+ seconds for a call to go thru even in metro areas. Unexcusable.
For a decade now, phones in Japan and more recently in Korea, could remote unlock/ lock and start their cars, adjust the heat/air, pay for a head of cabbage or an Armani suit at stores, unlock your home, start/stop the oven, coffee maker and washing machine, all remotely at their convenience.
They've had their top phones with 100% all screen and no bezel for a while, squeezing 6 inch screens into the size of our 5.5 inch screen size phones here. And they pay LESS per month for all that on mid line and high end phones, both upfront and monthly. We're taking it up the arse here in the states, boys....
Sure, if you know how (and tread carefully there) how to 'root' your smart phone's OS and hardware to lose all the bloatware to where it begins to function as orginally intended, you can, but you automatically lose the Cellular and Manufacturer's warranty coverage by doing so. You brick your phone trying and they probably won't even want to informally talk to you to try and help, lest they lose their jobs.
Besides that Slickdeals.net tip, you might want to consider loading the following on your smart phone, tablets, laptops and desk tops: Malwarebytes, Avast Battery Saver, Avast or AVG antivirus, ((NOT both antivirus progrsms on your device, only one)) and CCleaner. Auslogics is good to defrag your drives. Besides, especially when I want privacy, with little or no trackers/cookies following me, locking me out of the best airfares and hotel rates because they already know from Google/IE what I already clicked on--- the Ghostery browser, and to an extent, Mozilla/Firefox are on all our devices.
They're all free, but make sure you download from a trusty, verifiable site and click on the right spot. Download.Com is good, but they float the choices around the screen and up on the top banner, so it's easy to fall for their 'click bait', or for a 'lookalike' program, which is where they make a lot of their revenue...
Ahh, wifey's up from nap, the roast beef's perfect in the oven, with all the vegies done, collard greens with black eyed peas and ham hocks done, neighbors brought us enough fresh baked deserts for a month--- got better things to do than blog!!
Now if the Falcons can beat New Orleans again and the Lions can put the Packers back in their can, a few points short, it'll be a great first day of the year!!!
Happy New Year, everyone!!!!!
