Opinion: Was I stealing cable for the last three years?
 

All the talk of downloading on the board today led to an interesting conversation at lunch with a friend of mine. About 6 months ago I got rid of my cable TV and only have an antenna. I am fine with it since I hardly watch TV. The reason the cable went away is because of a network upgrade by my cable company.

When I first moved into my house I hooked up cable TV and cable modem. The cable TV was expensive and sucked so I dropped it and went to the dish, but kept the internet connection. Later I dropped the dish as well. One afternoon I get a letter from my cable company telling me my internet access is going up $10 a month. I call them and after a short conversation the guy ends up telling me that the reason it is going up is because to have internet access they have to have the line on which means I have basic cable coming to the house and they have no way of shutting it off. So they were forcing me to pay for it regardless of if I used it or not. After that call I hooked up a TV to the cable and he was correct I had basic cable. So for the last 3 years I have had basic cable.

They just upgraded their network and are now able to shut the cable off. They offered me a deal to keep it on for a small fee, but I almost never watch it so I didn't take the offer.

So I feel that the company told me the service was coming to my house and charged me for it so by using it I was not stealing. My friend said that I was because I was not paying the actual price of basic cable (which was around $30) yet still got the full basic cable package and that since my internet access price didn't drop back down once it was shut off shows that the raise in price was never really for access to cable TV.

Thoughts?

I voted "Yes, you theiving bastard." without reading your bullshit. That is the kind of guy I am ... fuck the haters.. im fucking l33t!!!


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No, because it's their fault for not having a way to turn it off.

Nope, essentially you were paying for it, they even told you so.

They are full of shit.. I used to do cable modem installs before I went full time online. The cable companies have what they call a "trap" that can be put on the line to block the TV signal. Sounds like they just didn't put the trap on your line when the model was installed.

Unless they have some totally diffrent system, but I've never heard of it.

If they can't shut it off it's their fault, not yours.

I thought that as well. Before I moved into my house I had a cable modem and they installed a trap. My one thought is that when I canceled the TV part but kept the internet they would have had to come out and install a trap and never did.

I was actually kind of shocked when the guy told me they had no way of shutting off the TV.

can you watch cable without a cable box?

Let me guess... it was Comcast, wasn't it? And yea, it's their fault they didn't put a filter on the line.

A - Sent a tech out to install the filter and cost the company money

or

B - Charge you extra and give a bullshit excuse


Shows you what kind of company they are.

If they raised the price and told you they were raising it because they couldn't shut of your access to basic cable...then no you weren't stealing it, you just got a much better deal on it than most people (even though you didn't want it)

Now that they've shut it off, I would demand a price drop of $10 on the internet connection.

I actually did that. They came to my door and said they were out offering all their internet only customers some great deals to also pick up TV service. I listened and wasn't interested. I really only watch a couple of TV shows. Mostly I read, watch movies, play games and stuff like that. TV has little to interest me these days. So when he asked me what I had now I told him about the cable and showed him. He just said, "hum..." So the shut it off and I asked if my internet bill would be going back down and was told no.

The original company that installed it all was sold to a different company that came in and did all the upgrades so they said whatever "verbal" agreement I had with them didn't carry over.

I didn't care enough to pursue it.

Originally it was a company called Cable Rocket. I think they may have been a branded version of Comcast because I have seen some Comcast trucks in the area doing work before. I live in a small town where the phone, cable, utilities and everything are either co-op or they have standing long term deals with the city so companies like Comcast and Verizon can't come in. About 6 months ago they got sold to a company called Wave Broadband. I don't know if they are an individual company or if they are a branded reseller for someone else.

Well even though they're not willing to drop the $10, you definitely weren't stealing cable before.

If it's been that long since you got your deal you should probably shop around to see if you can do better. If there's competition in your area you can get something better or use the other company's price as leverage to get the cable company to play ball. :2 cents:

No one tapped the line? Wow... too bad... for them.

I don't think you're stealing it.