Paul's Comments

Verizon is now offering the same crappy - or almost as crappy since the quoted rate for this service is "up to 1Mbit" instead of the current "up to 750Kbit" - service I'm not getting for the much reduced price of $9.95 per month for months 1-6, and $21.95 for months 7-12. So it's a net cost reduction of $60 for the first 6 months in exchange for a cost increase of $12 for the next 6 months but the supposed band width goes up by 30% or so they advertise.

I look at the offer, and how they work it is there is a big string; you have to have phone service.

I discovered I originally booked this (horribly bad) DSL service (it has occurred to me that I have had some service problem with this DSL every single day that I have had it!) such that it started on the 14th of October, so I could still cancel it (during the 1st 30 days before the 1-year contract applies) then re-order it, and order Link-up America (discounted) phone service for $2.50 a month since I qualify for it (I finally got the problem with my food stamps solved). Thus I would have phone service from Verizon and would qualify for the lower cost DSL service. I'm sure I can't do it now, but I think I will do it on Monday. I mean, if I'm going to get really bad service I might as well pay as little as possible for it!

[Update 11/22/2008] I found out that since I am "a recipient of a state public assistance program", e.g. the whopping $11 a month I get in food stamps, I do qualify for the restricted service, which comes in two flavors: The $10 a month unlimited local service, which if I didn't already have magic jack and a cell phone I might have considered, or the one I did take, which provides for 30 local calls a month, and 10c a call after that, which costs a massive 89c a month, plus tax. I kid you not, it's probably costing Verizon more to bill for the service than they charge. They'll be turning the service on Monday. For it to be that low, the subsidy must be huge.[End Update]

What is interesting is that if they change the service terms you had while your contract is in effect, they don't give you the option to change over to the better ones unless you pay a penalty that effectively wipes out the savings, but I've seen (and even heard of cases where) companies try to change the terms of their contracts in their favor in the middle of them. Not nice.

My personal incident was when HSBC offers me a zero fee credit card, then issues it with a $59 fee. Not sure whether they never had any intention of honoring the zero fee unless I complained or if it was an oversight that they didn't bother to check which contract they were using, but it's still slimy.

One I've heard of is where some cell phone company - and knowing them I suspect it was Sprint - in which some guy reported that he had a two-year contract and his cell company decided either to raise his monthly rate or change the number of minutes or change how he could use his minutes, which would effectively increase the cost of his contract. Yet you can bet, were he to try to change his contract they would demand a penalty. All he was able to do, apparently, was to call the service droid (a clerk having no authority to do anything) answering the line, to complain about the change and point out how it violates his contract, and probably telling him he has to snail-mail in a complaint to do anything. This is a typical practice since it raises the hurdles and often makes it less likely someone will bother; or why marketers love "negative option" contracts where you have to stop the order or it keeps being shipped (and automatically billed to your credit card).