Don't forget to call your phone company

[tsaw]

And ask for a deal!!
Way back somewhere around 2004.. I had land line phone service from CenturyTel. $80 something a month. No long distance service.. Had to buy calling cards to call LD. Every call was .05 cents a minute. For Internet - I had another company for dial-up.

I called them on that - and asked: "is there a way to reduce my monthly phone bill? The operator I spoke to, said: We have a deal available that would give you: DSL internet - unlimited LD calls and no fees for other calls.
Plus all the extras - like call forwarding - number blocking and many I never used. All for $91 dollars a month.

I took em up on that! I was able to dump the 29.99 dial-up bill - stop purchasing LD cards - and get a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)

Huge savings!

I let it ride like that for many years.
Then about 2 weeks ago, I decided to try it again.
I called my phone company, and asked if there was any deals to reduce my monthly payment. She said yes... we can give you the same service for $59.13 a month. WHAT??? I'm like - why didn't you let me know? She said: "most people just pay their bill"

 

[JimVT]

I have had AOL from the very start of the company. something like 30 bucks for my dialup. Had a problem and during our troubleshooting she told me I could have the same service for $10. I see my bill is really $12 for the unlimited use .I still just bitch about the slowness .
My auto insurance was about the same. It dropped $500 per year.
It pays to check.

 

[tsaw]

I have had AOL from the very start of the company. something like 30 bucks for my dialup. Had a problem and during our troubleshooting she told me I could have the same service for $10. I see my bill is really $12 for the unlimited use .I still just bitch about the slowness .
My auto insurance was about the same. It dropped $500 per year.
It pays to check.

You might enjoy this link about auto insurance.

http://www.forumsforums.com/3_9/showthread.php?t=37907&highlight=auto+insurance

 

[Lia]

I called my phone company, and asked if there was any deals to reduce my monthly payment. She said yes... we can give you the same service for $59.13 a month. WHAT??? I'm like - why didn't you let me know? She said: "most people just pay their bill"

No, they don't tsaw. They're not gonna call a customer up and say you can actually get the same service from us for a fraction of what you're paying now, that would be bad business acumen, and since most people aren't as enterprising as some, they never get to hear about these things.

A friend of mine over here has a Service Provider contract, whereby she was getting all that and then some; altho paying thro the nose for it, pcm. Then, when the contract ran out after 18 months they called her to ask when she was gonna renew it.

She said, 'Never!' It's far too expensive, and I can get a better deal with other service providers!' (Actually, her options would have been pretty limited, since like me, she lives out in the sticks), but in any event, after a hesitant pause she was told by the saleswoman who called her that they wanted to offer her a deal; the same service at a vastly reduced rate; at almost half the cost I believe.

It pays to be pushy, and to keep track of these things. They ain't gonna tell folk how it really is, because they'd lose money.