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AT&T Will Keep Your Money If You Cancel TV Or Internet In Middle of Billing Cycle (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The telecom giant has announced the end of its prorated credits for some subscribers who cancel a service in the middle of a billing period. AT&T bills service for DirecTV, U-verse TV, AT&T Phone, AT&T Internet, and Fixed Wireless Internet in advance. It previously offered the option to receive a credit for any unused days in a month when a subscriber canceled before the next billing period, but it will now force many customers to ride out the month with nothing in return. The change goes into effect on January 14, 2019, in most states, so if you're considering a change, it's time to plan ahead. If you're even one day into your billing month, you'll presumably have to pay for the full period, according to the company's new policy. You get to keep the service you don't want for that period of time, but, of course, you're canceling because you don't want it. The change will not apply to customers in California, Illinois, New York and, in some instances, Michigan.
Big companies look for ways to be abusive, apparently.
I wish the U.S. had a functioning government.
This kind of crap is why AT&T was broken up in the first place! I'm happy that I'm not one of their customers, but I feel bad for all those people who are.
Between their abusive policies, lack of investment in infrastructure (coverage sucks in anything but metro areas), and their discontinuations of services (No Satellite for You!), they are batting a million!
There are large swathes of the country that do not have access to broadband sufficient to replace their Satellite TV, so I guess that'll leave Hughes to pick up the pieces!
Nuff said!
Caution: Contents under pressure
I cancelled Kabel Deutschland Vodafone because of a move back home. To cancel you need to give three months notice and have to present a copy of the "Abmeldebescheinigung" which is basically a certificate from the local city that you have moved out of the country. I tried to give three months notice exactly three months prior to moving, but was told I could not give notice until they receive the certificate that I moved out. So in the end I was forced to pay three months of service I could not use. Maybe it was because I was a foreigner, but this was typical of my experience living and working in Germany and it caused me to leave after seven years. Death by a thousand small cuts.
Years ago, I had Bell Canada satellite service and tried to cancel.
They said they wanted to keep me as a customer and wouldn't put through the cancellation and give me free service for six months and if I still didn't want it no problem. I tried repeatedly, during those six months, to end the service including dropping the receiver off at a Bell store after three months (fortunately, I made the clerk sign a receipt for the receiver).
At the end of six months I got a bill from the Bell for the six months that had just past. After another three months of fighting with them, they demanded that I pay rent for the two months I had the receiver before returning it.
The problem with cutting the cord is that the people who provide the cord will do everything they can to keep you from doing it.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The change goes into effect on January 14, 2019, in most states, so if you're considering a change, it's time to plan ahead.
It's time for everyone to cancel their AT&T service(s) before Jan. 14, 2019.
I'd laugh if AT&T saw a huge spike in cancellations over the next month. Let's see if we cannot accelerate the cord cutting even more.