 graysonfPremium,MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL | They do this on DSL too My last AT&T DSL bill had an unannounced price increase. That actually was my last AT&T bill - I cancelled the service. |
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| Good for you! I cancelled my Verizon FiOS TV last year because my TV pkg was going up. Not sure if DirecTV, TWC, VZ, or ATT will learn. |
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| reply to graysonf
ATT Message of DSL Rate Hike |
From: AT&T High Speed Internet Customer Care
Subject: Important Change to your AT&T Internet Service
To: "AT&T High Speed Internet Customer"
Date: Thursday, January 31, 2013, 1:18 PM |
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| networks need to change not the video providers companies are in the business to make money. When broad cast fees go up they are more than likely not going to eat it. They will pass it on.. it sucks, but a hard reality. networks not the video providers will eventually have to give in as more and more subscribers drop and MSO and other video providers eventually stop giving in to the insane contract requirements....
ESPN for example basically ask 5 dollars a subscriber for a video provider who say has 500000 vid subscribers, but only 100000 watch ESPN.. guess what ESPN gets 5 bucks for every single one of those 500000 |
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| U-Go, at&t ...welcome to the Revolution! (of mystery charges having nothing to do with any service you're actually using)
People, people, people... can't you find better uses for your money than to give it up for "cable TV"? Internet access I can understand... but the other stuff? |
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KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | These fees should be illegal. If you are going to charge people for something it should be in the price of the product.
When I buy a steak at the supermarket there is no "slicing fee" "refrigeration fee" "Checkout scanning fee". No all of that is simply a cost of their operation and is in one way or another part of the list price. The only additional charge is sales tax on non food items and odds are state law requires that to be listed separately rather than rolled into price.
If the telecom industry ran a food store, steaks would be 39 cents a pound and your receipt would be 10ft long listing the various fees that in the end make it cost the same as any other store.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports |
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| U-verse 24Mbps package The price is pretty low for that kind of bandwidth in the Miami area. |
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| reply to sphinxguy18
Re: They do this on DSL too said by sphinxguy18:Good for you! I cancelled my Verizon FiOS TV last year because my TV pkg was going up. Not sure if DirecTV, TWC, VZ, or ATT will learn.
Verizon FIOS increased the price of your TV package? Wow! No TV provider has ever increased prices before.  |
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 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | Great! An out for unhappy subs with no ETF
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Despises any post with strings. |
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| price us into stoneage I gave up my car, my TV, my moto and soon my internet and lastly my dumb mobile. These companies try to price us into the stone age... but I will never give up my guns |
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| I have u-verse tv with internet and pay $11.33 in Government Fees and Taxes + $2.80 in surcharges. |
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PaxioPremium
join:2011-02-23
Santa Clara, CA
kudos:1
1 edit | Oops Wrong thread! |
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PaxioPremium
join:2011-02-23
Santa Clara, CA
kudos:1 | reply to Kearnstd
Re: These fees should be illegal. It's worse than you think!
Most of the "fees" have nothing whatever to do with actual government taxes. They are just pure profit added "below the line" to claim a lower "advertised price".
We separate the actual taxes on our bills because it's not fair to make people in one city pay the city broadband tax for another. But the telecom taxes account for only a tiny percentage of the bill -- less than 2-3% in most of our territory.
Our openness puts us at a marketing disadvantage when someone calls and demands we match price with one of the "biggies" -- because they compare their advertised price (without the extra profit) with our actual price (which includes all profit).
Bottom line: there is a huge push in our industry to price services deceptively, like the big guys, because otherwise you lose the business of low-information customers who make uninformed price comparisons.
It sucks, but there it is. Because the big guys get away with it on their customers, more and more small providers have to play the same game. |
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 skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2
 ·Cox HSI
 ·Clear Wireless
| This is all fine... ...but turning around and advertising a $39/mo price is fraud when the actual price is $49/mo or whatever the real price with all the B.S. fees turns out to be.
The advertised price should be the O.T.D. price and if that can't be determined the "up to" price, the price in the most expensive jurisdiction is the one advertised. So in this example the advertised price is "$49 or less" not $39 and always more. |
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| Or, at the very least, the price minus taxes. I have no problem with a store advertising a price before sales tax, since I know what the tax is in my area and can figure it out for myself, but adding so-called fees is out and out fraud.
In fact, if adding these fees below the line is OK, why not just take it a step further and move just about all the cost down there? Advertise the service for $1.99/month, plus fees and taxes. Man, won't the customers be surprised when they still are paying $140! |
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skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 | reply to ISurfTooMuch
Re: This is all fine... Taxes perhaps, IFF 100% of that tax is handed over to the greedy thugs in government, but the bullshit "regulatory recovery fees", no.
No more itemizing overhead. |
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Reviews:
 ·ooma
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| wow... takes the cake equipment fee for piece of s*it DSL!?!!?!? Gotta be kidding..
outrageous.. tell everyone to start writing their congress people and the FCC/FTC over this one.. deploy a cheap, slow and anti-competitive network and expect to gouge consumers on top of it... the time has come to lynchmob these companies every which way you can to get them to change their behavior... and those which have done VIRTUALLY NOTHING for high speed internet.. hint, hint, Centurytel/Qwest should be taken over by the local municipal governments as eminent domain and throw the company of their states altogether! |
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| Best game in town Around here, anyway, U-Verse is still the best game in town (Lawrence, KS... home of Sunflower Broadband and the original 'Bandwith cap'). If someone wants to compete (no caps), I'll be happy to shop around. |
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| reply to skeechan
Re: This is all fine... Agreed. Unless the fee is mandated by law, and the company doesn't retain any of it, it's part of the price and needs to be included in the price.
Actually, I think that what the feds did with airline tickets was a good idea. Basically, they required that sites selling them must prominently show you the final price. If they want to show you a breakdown of what went into that calculation, they can, but the number in the biggest font must be the price you are charged.
You know, now that I think about it, maybe the cable and telecom companies should also be required to do the same thing. While their national and regional ads wouldn't be able to do this because of different taxes on the local level, there's absolutely no reason their Web sites can't. After all, the companies know what the final price will be in a given jurisdiction, since they have to bill their customers, so there's no reason that, if you enter your location, they can't tell you what the total monthly bill will be. |
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