Was This Trip Really Necessary?

[CancelMyService]

A guy calls in today upset. Not the usual I-hate-cable-companies-on-general-principle angry we usually get, oh no. He's an EXTRA SPECIAL kind of upset.

See, the NFL has it's own TV network you have to subscribe to that airs games that used to run on free TV. That made people mad, but it's football so they paid up.

Now in the last week of the season the New England Patriots had a chance to go undefeated in the regular season in a game that was set to air only on the NFL Network. Congress, having solved the Middle East and caused word peace which left time for the important things, had a hissy that most of the country wouldn't be able to see the BIGGEST GAME EVAR. So instead of facing a Congressional inquiry, the NFL struck a deal with NBC and CBS to simulcast the game. Here lies the part that made my caller mad.

See, he PAID FOR THIS NETWORK, BY GOD, and is upset that people got to see this game for free. Never mind that it was the NFL who made this deal, this guy wants compensation and he wants it from us. I tried to explain that it was the NFL who made the game free, and advised him asking them for compensation. This went nowhere (since we both know the NFL would just laugh in his face). He asked for a supervisor, so I put him on hold and dialed over.


Me: Yeah, I have a good one. *explains situation*
Sup (who I'm cool with): *laughing* oh my god, some people. Is this guy for real?
Me: Apparently so, he wants his COMPENSATION don't you know.
Sup: All I'm going to do is give him a credit for that day, which would be like 25 cents.
Me: That's what I was going to tell him, but I didn't want him to think I was being smart.
Sup: Oh well, send him over.


Now this guy was probably expecting the supervisor to shower him with candy kisses, roses, and huge discounts. What he got was $1 off his bill.

One dollar.


He spent at least 5-10 minutes of his life on the phone just to get a dollar in return. What's funny is the notes from the sup stated "customer satisfied".

Some people think every inconvenience in life demands not only compensation, but ridiculously out of proportion compensation to boot. Like the lady who calls in every time there's an outage in her area to ask "can I get a discount?". She's only mildly concerned with service being restored, she just wants her precious discount. Which so far she's never received.

[mattm04]

I don't know who to laugh at more the cust. or the "representatives" in Congress who threw a fit to the NFL because they, a private company, would not air a game like Congress wanted.

[smileyeagle1021]

you know, I have only once asked for compensation because of an outage, my DSL was out (the entire neighborhood was out because of faulty equipment in one of the hubs, the company was honest about this) and they said that they wouldn't be able to fix it for at least 2 weeks and at that point I asked to have half of the bill credited... I mean i'm sorry half a month is way beyond normal maintenance outages... but yeah, I think that asking for credit over a football game is beyond stupid.

[marasbaras]

While it is private, it is a near monopoly. The NFL, NBA, and MLB all know this. They have to play somewhat nice or find their near monopolies stripped of them.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

Monopoly? Like congress?

[Broomjockey]

Monopoly? Like congress?

That's called Fratching Territory. We will leave that alone.

[aurelemsrealm]

Oh come on now, I think we can all find poking fun at the government to be an agreeable exercise. After all, politics would be boring without all of the mudslinging. I just wonder how long before the candidates air their dirty laundry and duke it out on Jerry Springer or something of that low caliber?

As for NFL or any other sports programming, they can keep it. I'd rather they save me the trouble of having to pay for something I'll never watch anyway. If I'm going to watch TV, I'd rather watch a good movie or one of my shows. All of the ball games and other sports crap, especially on weekends, are one of the reasons why I rarely ever watch the local channels on the cable lineup. It just bores the hell out of me.

[LifeCarnie]

Comcast sucks because they charge for the NFL Network, it should be free with a basic subscription.

I had the NFL Network for over two years, without paying extra for it, and than I received a nice notice from Comcast saying that they were changing this free network to a pay network, an extra $9.95, a month.

Why were they charging? Was it an extra expense for Comcast to offer this network?

No. It's because the NFL makes a Cajillion dollars a year and comcast wants a piece of that pie, so in attempt to get money out of the NFL, they tried to put the squeeze on the NFL Network.

By threatening to make it a pay station, which would lower the viewership of the station and make it tougher for the NFL to get sponsors to advertise on their network, which in turn, would raise the expense of running the network.

The only problem is, the NFL didn't cave, they refused to be muscled into giving Comcast anything, and absorbed the expense.

The loss of viewers is still an on-going issue.

The interesting thing is, when Comcast took away a service that they valued at $9.95 per month, they didn't lower my bill by any amount. So they were offering less service for the same amount.

Cable is the only industry that can strip customers of services, without discounting the price on their service, and get away with it.

I want my cable bill lowered $9.95 a month. I think it's only fair.

[Broomjockey]

Oh come on now, I think we can all find poking fun at the government to be an agreeable exercise. After all, politics would be boring without all of the mudslinging. I just wonder how long before the candidates air their dirty laundry and duke it out on Jerry Springer or something of that low caliber?

Be that as it may, that was as close to political debate as we're going to get. That wasn't a joke, that was a jab at the political system and setup.

[Geek King]

Oh come on now, I think we can all find poking fun at the government to be an agreeable exercise. After all, politics would be boring without all of the mudslinging. I just wonder how long before the candidates air their dirty laundry and duke it out on Jerry Springer or something of that low caliber?

Yes, but that is why the nice, kind, and benevolent furry moobed dictator, Raps, decided to put up Fratching.com for our amusement. Let's keep the side-snark over there, and the customer irritation here, mm'kay?

Not everyone likes to wade through the Jerry Springer to get to the Mythbusters.

[UncleImpy]

Not everyone likes to wade through the Jerry Springer to get to the Mythbusters.

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Can we blow up the dump trunk now?? PLEEEASE!

[aurelemsrealm]

Yes, I know, feather get ruffled too easily sometimes.....

[justZu]

Comcast sucks because they charge for the NFL Network, it should be free with a basic subscription.

Cable is the only industry that can strip customers of services, without discounting the price on their service, and get away with it.

Ooooh, don't even get me started on Comcast. I could fratch about them forever. I am praying for the day when there might possibly be more than one cable company available in my area. I hate their monopoly and constant price increases.

Sadly, I love their many channels too much to ever let them go.

[Geek King]

Comcast sucks because they charge for the NFL Network, it should be free with a basic subscription.

Wait , why should I have to pay for another channel I'll never watch? It's bad enough I have to subsidize ESPN, why add more to it? Let it be seperate, and those who want it can buy it. I'd rather they do that for all the channels, frankly. I'll take the chance of paying more for what I do watch versus not paying for what I don't.

Comcast has a lot of problems, but this isn't one of them for me.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I don't care that I don't get the NFL Network because if the Packer game is being shown on that network, it will also be shown on one of the local broadcast channels, so that those people without cable can still see the game.

I'm not so much into football that I'd complain to the cable company because not having the NFL Network is causing me to miss a game I don't care about, like the 49ers vs the Bills or something.

There's also the Big Ten Network. If the Badgers are playing a game on that network and it isn't being shown on a local channel, I can listen on the radio. The radio announcers are better than the Big Ten Network announcers anyway.