Cablevision sucks

[wraithfodder]

 Yes, this is a rant. Sensitive eyes or Cablevision employees should avert their eyes. Rant ahead.

Cablevision sucks. It blows, and all those other phrases.

In their infinite wisdom (and also a way to pad their bank account), they removed SciFi from the lineup unless you pay for their stupid "digital box." Yes, SciFi, along with several other channels, now require me to pay more than $15 a month (plus more taxes) if I want to get it on the upstairs TV. So, I'm going to downgrade their service, and check out dish. They charge an arm and a leg and then give me less? And they *said* they sent out a notice. Never got it. As Stan or whoever would say on SOUTH PARK, "Those bastards." Grrr....

Comments

[leesa_perrie]

Hubby won't go to Sky because he doesn't want a satellite box on the house, and I won't go because they were the ones who doubled their prices to NTL (Virgin) for Sky channels and cut what they were willing to pay Virgin for their channels to appear on Sky! I hate it when a company stomps on another one just because it thinks it can!

Anyway, I watch SGA online as soon as it is available (July!!) and a friend sends me a copy of them when they are shown on Sky, which tides me over until the DVDs come out and I can buy them...naughty, I know, but Hubby won't have Sky and I can't get official downloads because Amazon and iTunes are US only... And I DO buy the DVDs as soon as they become available (4 eps at a time) and don't wait for the complete season release later in the year (which costs me more), so I don't feel so bad about it...

Anyway, sorry to jump in! I'm glad you have Sky - I've never had trouble with NTL or Virgin myself, but I know some people have had big problems. If I was having problems then I'd try and persuade Hubby to jump to Sky, but seeing as I'm not and I don't like bullies, I'm staying put!

[alipeeps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was majorly PO'd with Sky's behaviour too but honestly, if we'd still been with NTL I probably would have changed to Sky anyway (which, of course, is precisely why they did what they did) because Sky One is pretty much the main cable/satelitte TV channel I watch.

As it happens we'd switched anyway - mostly, tbh, because of the crappy service from NTL on the broadband internet (when you pay for permanent high-speed broadband it's not acceptable to have it unavailable for hours at a time or losing connection every 5 minutes when it is available!), though we'd also had issues with the TV from time to time - the problem with NTL is, they are fine when everything is fine. But as soon as you have a problem.. jeez, just trying to even contact them is an exercise in frustration! I once spent over an hour on hold to their customer service line without ever getting to speak to anyone! And once you do get hold of them they are crap; every person you speak to gives a different excuse and different information and different advice. Engineers don't turn up when booked (after you've taken the whole day off work) or booking are lost or made for the wrong dates etc etc etc etc etc. And the problems still don't get fixed. It's a nightmare.

So we decided we were dropping the broadband and, as it was part of a whole broadband/TV/phone package, we decided to dump them completely and get Sky for the TV and went with BT for the phone and for broadband. And we've had no problems since. And don't even get me started on the hassles we had with shutting the NTL account down and the amount of times they booked for someone to come collect the box and then never turned up (hubby was thinking about charging them storage fees in the end! :lol:) and the continued monthly demands for payment even though the account was closed (it was especially entertaining when they sent us final notices threatening to cut off the service which had already been closed down! :lol:). I wouldn't touch em with a bargepole!

And I do the same as you - for the US shows I really like, I watch em on the US schedule and buy the DVDs as soon as available. I'd happily buy legal downloads if I could but iTunes etc won't let us so we don't have that option. I refuse to feel guilty cos my downloading isn't going to affect the US viewing figures (that decide on renewal etc) anyway and I pay my money and get the DVDs - if I like a show enough to download it then I'm into it enough to want the DVDs so I'm not costing them any money or ripping anyone off. I'm just impatient! :lol:

[leesa_perrie]

Yeah, I can see why you switched!!

We did have a net connection problem recently (I was referring to TV in the above comment when I said we'd had no problems) - and they were very good. Answered the phone quickly, didn't give us the run around, credited us with the phone call when it was determined the problem was on their end, and both times the engineer came round he came as promised. Got a new modem out of it, though it did turn out to be a wire in the wall box in the end! So it seems Virgin has learned from NTL's mistakes...at least to some extent. Either that, are we were lucky!

But yeah, if it was more than just SGA and Bones, I'd have tried harder to move. But both of them are available online and in DVD form, and it seems a lot for just two shows! Even if one of them is my beloved SGA!!

I'm glad we didn't have any problems when it was still NTL, 'cos it sounds like they sucked big time.

Anyway, got to go - need to pack for my holiday!!! (No internet for a whole week - *shock, horror, gasp*!!! *bg*