Unbundle and Be Free
Okay here’s the situation… my last post was about cell phone providers. Now I want to discuss these “super providers” that offer great rates on local and long distance, and then offer reduced cable, internet, and cell service as long as you bundle them all together. I am fixated on utilities and providers because I moved over the summer and I am floored by what happened when we tried to save money!
The local service provider offered a fixed rate for cable, phone, internet (indefinitely), and then two free cell phones all for $89.00 a month plus cell phone usage. This sounded great and for the first month, which was prorated it worked like a charm and all was well.
Month two was a different story, the Direct TV that was bundled in our package was disconnected! Why you ask? So did we. The response we got was that the phone provider had not notified Direct TV of our payment. Once they were able to check and verify our payment the service was restored.
The same exact thing happened in month three. During month three we were a little worse for the wear but wiser and asked Direct TV if we could unbundle and still receive the same rate. To our amazement they said yes. There was a catch, we had to get the phone provider to release the service from the bundle and this could take up to thirty days.
Month four was the final straw, out of the blue clear sky the phone provider sent a cell phone bill for $553.00. Of course there was no explanation and so we called the phone provider and asked for help understanding our bill. First they said we had not paid for our two free cell phones, and the conversation went down hill from there. When all was said and done the phone provider needed $457.00 before the could credit the two phones and credit the over billed charges. So in order to get our money back we first had to pay more than we owed in the first place.
Bundling is a nightmare! I think we should have each company stick to what they are good at and call it a day.