adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 adamg Member [Rant] Being lied to about prices on Suddenlinks own website. So Im logged into my account, and click the "update services" link, and am presented with the option to lower my price! Or so I think, but the response i get in an email for actually trying to do it, was "Sorry, but you already have the 200 meg service". Then why the hell do I have access to this? Knowing this company, they just want me to call in so they can try to up-sell me some bullshit that i don't need. Must be nice being able to be this incompetent without fear of someone running to the competition.



moldypickle

Premium Member

join:2009-01-04

Haughton, LA 496.2 41.6

Netgear CM600

Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway

Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-nanoHD

moldypickle Premium Member Note the data cap. You are grand fathered on the 550gb cap and the listed plan is 450gb cap. The funny part is the pricing that turns out to be the same as 2 overages on the 450 plan. You would be ahead to drop to the 450 plan and then add two 75gb cap increases for the same price but a total cap of 600gb



Chubbzie

join:2014-02-11

Greenville, NC Chubbzie to adamg

Member to adamg

said by adamg: Then why the hell do I have access to this? To downgrade or upgrade your current plan?

Suddenlink

join:2009-08-26 Suddenlink to adamg

Member to adamg

Hi Adam - My name is Samantha, and I'm with Suddenlink. I'd be happy to look into this issue for you. Please feel free to email me directly with your account address, and please reference this post. Our email address is socialsupport-AT-suddenlink-DOT-com. Thanks, ^SS

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 adamg Member Haven't heard anything in over a week. Though I noticed that they simply disabled the feature.



moldypickle

Premium Member

join:2009-01-04

Haughton, LA moldypickle Premium Member Still working here.



Did you ever take note that you had the grandfathered 550GB cap and the lower price was 450GB? That's all that was going on.

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 4 edits adamg Member They still wouldn't let me do it, even after i tried 3 different times. I was simply told I already had 200 meg, and one guy told me that was new customer pricing.



You're right. If i'm paying 20 dollars more because im grandfathered into the 550gb cap, then that means that I am being charged the overage price for the extra 100gb at 10 per 50GB, instead of the 10 dollars per 75gb that I'd get by purchasing it up front. I stand to lose absolutely nothing by dropping to 450gb, because the price would be the same if I used 550gb anyway.



The fact that you still have access to it irritates me even more. It almost seems like they specifically disabled mine, or those like me, due to being a special case with the 550gig cap. It's as if they're trying to hide it rather than fix it. It wouldn't surprise me one single bit if this were the case, if my past experiences with this company are any indication (i have a story i'll share if you think I sound paranoid).



I'm going to drop to a lower tier, and then back up to 200 meg and see what happens.



edit: for clarity

adamg 2 edits adamg Member



I have no doubt that they're going to try to weasel out of giving me any sort of credit for it. By my count, I should be getting 10 dollars back for every month since 200 meg went live. So I downgraded to 100 meg, and then right back to 200 meg, and of course, they give me the new price; 20 dollars per month less.I have no doubt that they're going to try to weasel out of giving me any sort of credit for it. By my count, I should be getting 10 dollars back for every month since 200 meg went live.

adamg 4 edits adamg Member So how about it Suddenlink? Are you guys going to make this right? I should have been getting 600gigs per month once the 200 meg upgrade went live with the price I've been paying. That means that there are several overages that I had to pay for that I wouldn't have had to if Suddenlink were doing the right thing. There are no doubt a lot of people who are going to be upset when they realize that they're basically being forced to pay overage fees up-front, who never go anywhere near their cap. and It would appear that their only recourse is to downgrade and then upgrade again.



I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you were hard at work on a solution.



moldypickle

Premium Member

join:2009-01-04

Haughton, LA moldypickle Premium Member Did they hit you with the fees for both downgrading and upgrading? They're listed in the last price chart they sent out here.

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 adamg Member I sure hope not. neither CSR said anything about it. Guess I'll find out when I get my bill.

adamg adamg Member I emailed them back this morning pointing them back to this thread, and still no response. They've been silent for over a week now.



azbuddy

Premium Member

join:2002-01-17

united state azbuddy to adamg

Premium Member to adamg

fyi... Mine has been disabled as well.

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 adamg Member Are you grandfathered into a particular data cap?

adamg 4 edits adamg Member So yeah, i got a response finally after over a week. The only thing she said was that I wasn't charged for the downgrade/upgrade and said "i wasn't due any credits at this time"



No, "sorry we offered you absolutely no help whatsoever in solving this matter, and had planned to just keep ignoring you why we pre-charge you for overages" or "sorry you were denied 3 different times to get the normal price for your tier and had to figure out how to trick our system to keep from getting the shaft every month" or anything like that. They were fully planning to just ignore me and keep charging me overage fees up front, and I'm sure that they hope to keep screwing over anyone else who is in my position.



Typical Suddenlink.



moldypickle

Premium Member

join:2009-01-04

Haughton, LA 496.2 41.6

Netgear CM600

Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway

Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-nanoHD

1 recommendation moldypickle Premium Member Well, reviewed my usage and since I limited everyone elses Netflix to SD, I wasn't using as much data. Sooooo I chatted in to SL support to drop mine down. Took 10 minutes and a modem reboot. Only thing I had to do was inform him that I wanted to downgrade from the grandfathered tier to the normal 200 tier and he had to get his supervisor to repackage, but no hiccups. Well, I did have to say I was aware that I would not be able to go back to the plan. But $20 lower now.



Of interest though is that the 1Gig tier is another $50/month PLUS modem rental as they are still not currently selling the 32 channel modem. I really don't see the usefulness at that price point.

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 1 recommendation adamg Member same. 1gig sounds nice, but not if the cap is that low, especially for that price.



moldypickle

Premium Member

join:2009-01-04

Haughton, LA 1 recommendation moldypickle Premium Member Keep the price point, even leave the modem rental and put unlimited data. Though I could see a node being brought down hard, lol

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 1 recommendation adamg Member Id even be fine with like a 1TB cap, maybe even 800gig. They know right where the sweet spot is for catching above average users. If they were just trying to stop people who torrent 24/7 theyd have just set the cap at 1tb or something

adamg 2 edits 1 recommendation adamg Member but anyway, what an incompetent, dishonest company. 3 CSR's over chat, and one over email later, and I still had to help myself.



So to all of you who are in my position, if you manage to get a CSR who is competent enough, just ask for the, "200 meg package where you aren't giving me the shaft", and maybe you'll get lucky. Otherwise, you just have to downgrade and then upgrade back.

mojo1

join:2006-12-05

Victoria, TX mojo1 to moldypickle

Member to moldypickle

I tried the 1Gig for a couple of months. I couldn't get over 600meg on speed tests and the cap was too low. They installed the new modem and never saw a modem rental charge on my bill. Downgraded to 200meg and paid for extra data. Still no charge for the modem. I have since moved to business class with no caps and still using the modem provided by SL, but no charge on my bill for the modem. I hope I didn't just jinx myself...

StR

join:2009-11-10

College Station, TX 108.6 9.0

StR to adamg

Member to adamg

@adamg:

There have been recurring discussions (including a very recent one) in this forum about how lack of healthy competition results in some of the problems we observe with today's cable providers.

Your saga made me recalling how slimy were the tactics (slamming, cramming, etc.) of the long-distance phone companies in 90's (post AT&T-break era). There was plenty of competition, but that didn't prohibit the unethical behavior of the customer service.



So, I am thinking that while a healthy competition can bring the prices down and force some companies to behave better, there are some other driving forces that affect the behavior. I see that there is some type of "industry culture". But I don't know what creates that. It looks like that in many cases it "just happened" (historically).

I am starting to suspect that the roots of the poor customer support by cable ISPs might be in a similar "industry culture".



And you can compare that to the proverbial used-car dealerships and their notorious attitude and strategies (despite some apparent competition).

adamg

join:2013-03-01

7501 adamg Member I would blame this particular issue on incompetence rather than malice, at least on the part of anyone I've talked to. The company clearly knows what it's doing though, they've even openly admitted that they are banking on overage fees, and I'm sure they jumped at the chance to simply build them in.



Though I experienced another situation with Suddenlink that was obviously planned deception. My blood still boils when I think about it, and it's been a few years ago.



azbuddy

Premium Member

join:2002-01-17

united state azbuddy to adamg

Premium Member to adamg

no sir.