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Pogue’s Basics: Money - Cheaper cable TV through creative cord-cutting calls

David Pogue

Cord-cutting. It’s happening all over the country, and it’s freaking out the cable companies.

The thing is, the cable and satellite companies spent a lot of money on marketing to get you to sign up in the first place — at least $1,000 per customer. And in this day of Internet TV, it’s getting harder and harder to sign up new customers. So they’ll bend over backward to stop you from canceling.

So here’s what you do:

Call your cable or satellite company. Tell the customer-service rep that you’d like to cancel your service.

The rep will probably transfer you to the “customer retention group” or a “customer loyalty agent.” This is a special department that exists solely to stop people from canceling.

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The Retention Specialist will offer to lower your bill if you’re willing to change your mind about canceling.

The more you insist on canceling anyway, the better the offer.

What kind of deal will you get? It depends on your persistence and what kind of plan you’re already on. Maybe you’ll get $40 a month knocked off your bill. Or, if you already pay for TV and Internet (or TV, Internet, and phone service) from a single company, the deal may be so good, you may get the TV service for almost nothing.

By the way: If you don’t have the nerve to bluff and say you want to cancel, say that you want to cut your service down to the most basic plan. That way, you’re not bluffing. If it actually comes to that, and they change your plan, no harm done. Just call up the next day and restore your higher-priced plan.

And if you don’t even have enough nerve to do that, you can often have good luck just calling and asking for a better deal — without threatening to quit or downgrade. Especially if you’ve been a customer for a long time, you might be surprised at how willing the cable company might be to help you out.

In any case, you can easily walk away with a bill that’s $500 a year lower. When’s the last time you made 500 bucks for making a five-minute phone call?