Bye-Bye, Spectrum

A few months back, my wife, Terrie, and I switched cell phone service from Verizon to T-Mobile. We got a great deal and have been happy with our new provider. At the time, T-Mobile also had promoted its internet service, which we decided to hold off with.

However, after some investigation—and a recent price increase by our longtime internet provider Spectrum, we decided to give T-Mobile a try. We hooked up T-Mobile’s system and it works great. We also held onto Spectrum for a couple of weeks, just in case.

This weekend, after we decided to keep T-Mobile, I called Spectrum and had the unfortunate people-who-are-canceling-service experience of working with a Spectrum “retention specialist.”

It wasn’t pretty.

The retention specialist I spoke with initially requested answers to a couple of questions before she could proceed with terminating our service. Sounded reasonable.

But the conversation quickly went south. She became argumentative, in particular when I declined to answer her pointed questions about my new service and the cost. She then devolved into, “did I know my new provider was . . .” (unreliable, inadequate, likely to fail; she did her best to berate our decision).

I told her I didn’t believe I needed to answer questions and I thought her tone was inappropriate when I was simply trying to terminate service. She became obstinate. I asked to speak to a supervisor.

Now, some would say this retention specialist was just doing her job (she, in fact, said this herself multiple times). To me, continuing to push a negative approach—trying to make customers think they don’t know what they’re doing—is inappropriate.

Her refusal to get the supervisor (I asked twice, and her response twice was, “They’re just going to ask you the exact same questions so you might as well stay on the line with me.”) was rude. Her suggestion that I somehow screwed up by not calling Spectrum to ask for a price reduction after the latest rate increase was shifting blame.

The hilarious aspect was her 180 after I told her it was outrageous for Spectrum to expect customers upset with a pay rate increase to call and ask for a reduction. All of a sudden, my retention special became “Super Saleswoman,” dramatically trying to get me to stay by using what she might have considered a charming tone and pushing a lower Spectrum internet cost, two free phones/phone lines and more.

She never did completely match the internet price I receive now from T-Mobile, but what does this approach say about Spectrum?

What it says is they overcharge. They know they overcharge. And they’re prepared to drop rates for anyone who calls to complain and threatens to shut off service because of overcharging. I guess I can stomach ripping off customers—in fact, it seems all too common for the monopolies that have failed to adequately prepare for or address a changing telecommunications world—but I’ve never had it done so blatantly.

A few years ago, we dropped Spectrum as our television streaming service in favor of YouTube TV because of dishonesty in how we were sold on Spectrum and the constant service disruptions we experienced. Spectrum hadn’t set up our area properly to handle peak-period usage— something it knew, but conveniently didn’t disclose when selling the service.

Fooled me once. Not twice.

I’ve never been happier to say goodbye to a utility company.