I cannot begin to count the ways in which I think my local cable\/internet\/telephone provider sucks.<\/p>\n
Their customer service people, particularly in the billing department, are rude and incompetent. They are in my honest opinion also as useless as tits on a boar.<\/p>\n
Their prices are literally outrageous, but I guess when you have no competition other than satellite companies you don’t have to charge reasonable prices.<\/p>\n
I received my latest bill in the mail today.<\/p>\n
$67.74 total, $38.49\u00a0 for 100 GB hi-speed internet, $18.95 for telephone (which I don’t use), $7.50 for modem purchase, and $2.80 for fees. I decided I was going to drop the telephone since I don’t use the landline and am already paying $40.00 a month for my cell phone.<\/p>\n
The $18.95 per month for the telephone\u00a0 is a bundled price (because I have my internet with them too). That price includes only local calls, if I was dumb enough to use them for my long distance calls I’d be getting socked for another 5 cents per minute.<\/p>\n
I have 450 minutes every month on my cell phone (mostly those 450 minutes never get used) and that includes nationwide long distance so why would I use Bend Broadband for long distance and pay another 5 cents per minute??<\/p>\n
I’ve already switched to Dish Network for television -7 months ago-and they charge literally less than half what Bend Broadband was charging me.<\/p>\n
My Bend Broadband bill would be over $150.00 per month every month if I was intelligence-challenged enough to get my TV programming from them.<\/p>\n
Just for shits and giggles, I decided to check my actual internet usage for the last 2 months, since I pay for 100 GB a month no matter what I actually use (unless of course I go over 100GB, in which case they charge me through the nose!)<\/p>\n
Any unused GB does not roll over into the next month and they have no smaller packages available.<\/p>\n
Last month I used 18.3 GB total.<\/p>\n
The month before that I used 17.9 GB total.<\/p>\n
As again any unused GB does not roll over into the next month, I am royally being screwed and it gets even better (for THEM, not me!!).<\/p>\n
I do not download movies, songs, etc.\u00a0 I use my computer for email, maintaining my two blogs, the rare visit to Facebook or its ilk, being an admin at 4 incentive-based sites, clicking, surfing, searching, and chatting with friends.<\/p>\n
The $38.49 per month for 100 GB of\u00a0 hi-speed internet access is a bundled price because I have my landline telephone service with Bend Broadband along with the high-speed internet access.<\/p>\n
If I drop the telephone service my bill for the internet access goes up $10.00 per month.<\/p>\n
So lets see I’m already being grossly overcharged for my actual internet usage, and if I drop the phone service the bill would change to $58.79 including the monthly payment for the modem purchase (I thought that stupid modem was already paid for too).<\/p>\n
If the modem is paid for with the May 2, 2010 payment and I drop the telephone service the bill changes to $51.29<\/p>\n
However, knowing this company they will manage to increase the bill somehow, they’ve already raised rates by 9% (whinging that the cost of TV programming has gone up markedly) at least once in 2010.<\/p>\n
Last month the same services cost me $66.39 because they charged for partial months after raising their rates in the middle of a billing period, how bloody convenient for THEM.<\/p>\n
The month before that the same services at a supposedly 9% LOWER price cost me $65.95……hmmmm whats their excuse for that other than gross overcharging?<\/p>\n
Hmmm, doesn’t Dish Network get their programming from the same sources, how come they can charge $45.00 per month and Bend Broadband is ‘forced’ to charge $82.00 to $95.00 (they were dumb enough to include a 2010 price list in my bill)\u00a0 for the same programming .<\/p>\n
In my case the pricing would probably be even higher if I received it from Bend Broadband as all the channels I enjoy watching are all on digital cable, such as Discovery, A & E, TLC, The History Channel, DIY Network, Food Network, and HGTV.<\/p>\n
I was paying Bend Broadband $127.74 each month until November of last year (2009)\u00a0 for digital cable (including their converter box and remote), 100 GB hi-speed internet service, modem purchase (April through November), telephone, and taxes.<\/p>\n
Only one television (out of 3 in the house at the time) was hooked up to cable and I had NO premium channels at all (in this case premium refers to channels such as HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime).<\/p>\n
I now have 2 televisions hooked up to Dish Network and pay $43.99 per month for America’s Top 200 programming.\u00a0 I could get America’s Top 250 programming for $53.99 and still be paying at least $30.00 less than Bend Broadband would charge.<\/p>\n
The digital cable from Bend Broadband was $84.00-$86.00 a month so when that was dropped my bill should have been $41.00-$43.00, but it never has been anywhere near that low since September 2009 when I switched to Dish Network.<\/p>\n
In fact, they charged me for a full month in October 2009 after I had already switched the TV to Dish Network and the customer service representative still had the stone balls to say ‘there will be a credit on your next bill’ when I complained.\u00a0 So what, the idiots got to use MY money for a month while delivering no service at all.<\/p>\n
Since they are really the only game in town when it comes to reliable internet access I will grudgingly stay with them.\u00a0 Since they will screw me even worse money-wise if I unbundle the services and drop the telephone, I will also grudgingly keep the telephone service.<\/p>\n
I have however made up my mind that the computer will be on 24\/7 and I already added the 4 additional email addresses that I am allowed to have (for a total of 5).\u00a0 I will be damned if I pay for 100 GB every single month and use less than 20 GB every single month.<\/p>\n
I’m amused that two of my new email addresses are ‘using100GBifitkillsme’\u00a0 @ bend broadband and ‘bendbroadbandsucks’\u00a0 @ bend broadband.\u00a0 I’m nothing if not creative when it comes to expressing my disgust with poor customer service and price gouging.<\/p>\n
Personally I think this company has lost a lot of business to Dish Network and other satellite providers.\u00a0 I think they are trying to make up for those losses by gouging the hell out of the people who are forced to remain with them for whatever reason.<\/p>\n
Am I impressed with Bend Broadband?\u00a0 I DON’T THINK SO!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I cannot begin to count the ways in which I think my local cable\/internet\/telephone provider sucks. Their customer service people, particularly in the billing department, are rude and incompetent. They are in my honest opinion also as useless as tits on a boar. Their prices are literally outrageous, but I guess when you have no… Continue reading Bend Broadband SUCKS!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[228,229,318,323,479,599,614,637,672,854,895,1019,1042,1052,1189,1394,1878],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stupid","tag-bend-broadband","tag-bend-broadband-sucks","tag-business","tag-cable-tv","tag-computer","tag-digital-tv","tag-dish-network","tag-download","tag-email-address","tag-gb","tag-gouging","tag-incompetence","tag-intelligence-challenged","tag-internet-usage","tag-lousy-customer-service","tag-overcharging","tag-telephone","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-dont-think-so.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}