I just canceled an order to get started with Comcast cable internet because well over half of the startup price was due solely to trick charges and fees. “You have to rent the modem from us at $3 a month, because yours WON’T WORK,” a mandatory and unwaivable $50+ installation charge even though I’m fully comfortable plugging in a modem and installing software, some intentionally misleading figures about upload/download speeds, etc. It finally struck me that this company is basically setting out to make most of their money through tricking the customer and surprising them with hidden fees.
What companies seem to have their entire business model built around tricking the customer and collecting hidden and unnecessary fees?
MSNBC has a whole subsection of content labeled “Gotcha Capitalism”. I think their #1 culprit is cell phone companies, with cable companies and ISP’s being right up there. Kind of depressing reading, actually.
Earlier today, I got a call from Comcast’s customer satisfaction survey. That was a very pleasing conversation.
“On a scale of 1 to 10…”
“It’s a 1.”
“You didn’t hear what the category was.”
“It doesn’t matter, but go ahead and ask me anyway.”
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your satisfaction with Comcast’s high speed internet service?”
“1”
“Why?”
“They suck, and the only reason I’m still using them is because they have a monopoly. I have already complained to my local liscencing authority, but they won’t do anything about it because they’ve been bribed. Next question.”
“…”
Just FYI, there was a lawsuit 2 or so years ago; the results of which are that you do NOT have to rent your modem from the cable company. Now, on the other hand, I have no idea what their set-up is… so if you have a modem that isn’t DOCSIS 2.0 compatible, and they require that, they might tell you your modem won’t cut it. But you still have the option of buying your own 2.0 compatible modem.
Possible. Or the CSR he talked to didn’t know what he/she was talking about. Or TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW misunderstood what he was told. Or…? Dunno, I wasn’t privy to the conversation. I wouldn’t find any of the above hard to believe.
For that matter, as of last summer, you no longer have to rent a cable set-top box from the cable company either. You’re free to go buy your own; the cable co. will supply you with a cable card containing the security codes for your services.
I don’t know if it counts as a “hidden fee,” but I saw a piece on FOX news that mentioned that US Energy Savings Corps was being accused of misleading customers by telling them they would save money if they agreed to pay a flat fee of something like $1.14 per therm for the next whatever number of years. Their rational was that gas prices are rising so rapidly that in the near future $1.14 per therm would be cheap. It seems like a good deal, until you actually do your research and find out that even when gas prices have been at their highest (in the winter, obviously) they’ve never been $1.14 per therm, and there’s no evidence that in the near future they ever will be (their own graphs show that prices have been going up and down in the past few years with no consistency). Plus prices are lower the rest of the year anyway. The ironic thing is that this information is in their own literature, there for whoever takes the time to read it. If you try to cancel after the first three days, you have to pay several hundred dollars in fees (which most people find out months later). On top of all of that they tend to canvass lower-middle-class neighborhoods where people are apparently less likely to scrutinize the fine print (some are illiterate, others can’t even speak English very well).
I admit, I signed up for it at first, but cancelled the very next day after reading the packet they gave me. They kept asking me why. I just kept repeating, “Sorry, but it’s not for me” like a mantra.
Over here Mobile phone companies were famous for this kind of thing in the 80s and 90s, but then one company adoped a “clear and straightforward approach” they all copied and things started to get much simpler. But since the turn of the century they gotten a lot worse again.
e.g. When a customer connected to a certain network they get two months free access to a service they don’t necessarily need. Then they get charged £5 per month after unless they contact the network.
As I sell products on behalf of that network (but I don’t work for them) I questioned what the hell they were upto. Their answer was: It’s your responsibility to explain it to the customer.
It’s my responsibility? Even though I didn’t ask for this product, I have no way to make sure the customer doesn’t get this product and even if I did explain it plenty of customers would forget within those two months.
What pisses me off most if that they know that. They’re counting on that. It’s a deliberate scheme to get money for nothing and it pisses me off.
When I had to start repaying my student loans (which had been sold to some corporate villians called Suntech), they offered me the option of paying just enough to cover the interest each month for the first year… well, by and by, it turns out I checked a year later and my balance had actually increased!
I called to inquire, and it turns out that the interest is compounded daily, and the “interest-only” payment rate is calculated based on a 28 day month. Little known fact – 45 out of every 48 months actually have MORE than 28 days, hence the balance kept slowly creeping up. The really annoying thing is that the customer disservice person acted like *I * was the crazy one for thinking this was a scam.
A company I know of ended up becoming the biggest in its field because they got a deal with Visa or someone such that if you checked a box on the Visa signup sheet, you be automatically signed up for this service, with the yearly dues automatically being deducted each year so long as you continued renewing your card. Most people weren’t even aware they had it, let alone how to get out of it.
Mortgage brokers should quailfy, well I should say most mortgage brokers. They all try to add on miscellanious charges and fees to loan closings for doing nothing more than what they’re getting their commissions for already. I don’t know why anyone with internet access would even use a mortgage broker anyway. They’re not doing anything you can’t do for yourself.
I told Comcast that I was getting my own modem because theirs was ancient, and they didn’t even blink. Told me to drop it off at their nearest facility and they’d discontinue the rental fee.
UHAUL advertises a low rate to rent a medium sized truck. But by the time you pay for insurance, options (what -you WANT a truck with a radio?), and other fees, you are up to >$50.00/day. Or renting a car in Florida-there are at least 3 taxes, plus a sales tax (on the total including other taxes).
Not only that, but U-Haul was rated as having the worst-maintained fleet of all the consumer moving-rental places by a Toronto Star expose a few years ago.
