Capitalism gone wrong

When I moved into J.R.'s house six years ago he had Dish Network. Four months after our wedding when we moved into our first house together, we just moved the service with us.

I hated it. When it would rain, we'd lose TV. If the wind blew to hard, we'd lose TV. If the receiver thought you looked at it funny...you get the idea.

So two years later when we moved into our "forever home" (and by forever, I mean our "we'll live here for ten years until we can move out of this godforsaken plot of hell" home), I refused to keep Dish Network.

Being the sucker for a price lowering bundle that I am, and not having access to DSL in our godforsaken plot of hell neighborhood, we chose to get regular cable TV with our cable internet.

It was fine for a while. Until J.R. started playing fantasy football. And we only had the regular channels for football. We waited two years for cable to catch up and at least get NFL Network.

No dice.

So last year, for J.R.'s birthday, not only did I give up my lovely money-saving bundle, but I coughed up an obscene amount of money to DirecTV, the only company that not only has NFL Network, but that also carries all the games each weekend.

Yep, I love him thaaaaaat much.

This year, we saw that DirecTV was offering a 10% off offer for early orders. So last month, I ordered our football package.

Only to find out a couple weeks ago that several families we know not only got 10% off, but got Sunday Ticket and Super Fan for half of what we paid for just Sunday Ticket.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I called DirecTV yesterday.

Here's roughly how the first conversation went:

Me: "Hi, I'm paying twice what my friends our for NFL Sunday Ticket. Can you fix that for me?"
DirecTV agent: "According to the information in your account, I can offer you another $20 credit in addition to the 10% off."
Me: "Okay, but I'm still paying almost twice what other people are."
DirecTV agent: "That's all I can offer you based on the information I have here."
Me: "Well, then, can I talk to a manager who might have more information?"

And she did the whole please hold while I get someone, blah-blah-blah, click....dial tone.

While up to that point she had been very nice, mistaking the hold button for the hang up button is just not cool.

So I called back (slightly less patient this time for having been hung up on), got another agent, and went around the same circle again (in spite of asking for a manager first).

When I finally did reach a manager, the conversation went something like this.

Me: "Hi. So did your agent give you the background to my situation?"
Manager: "Yes."
Paaaauuuuuuse.
Me: "So, um, can you understand my frustration and is there anything you can do to help?"
Manager: "We already gave you the best deal we can offer you."
Me: Much exasperation trying to explain the complete lack of logic of charging two different prices for the exact same service.

And this is where it gets good.

Manager: "We offer the best deals to our most valued and loyal customers."
Me: "So basically what you're telling me is that I'm not a valued customer?"
Manager: "Well, we have some people who have been with us for eight years.":
Me: "And since you are the only carrier with this football offer and we switched to your company for it, so we have every intention of staying with you for at least that long."

Wait for it...

Manager: "Yes, but the NFL package costs us $4 billion a year. The people we make the best offers to have our best packages. You only have our most basic service."

And that's when the conversation hit the skids.

You see, back in January, things got a little tight financially in Insta-Land. It seems that having two babies at one time is twice as expensive as the one you planned for (shocker, I know). And that extra expense really piles up after a year. Not to mention that the six-seater car we responsibly bought knowing we wanted to expand our family worked great until we had to get two toddler seats into the middle at the same time and have access to the back seat. So there were the new car payments and the old student loans and the creeping in from the background credit card debt that we had never had before.

So we reevaluated, and I chose having a fancy cell phone and monthly weekends in the travel trailer at the beach over having 500 channels that didn't get watched anyway.

Sure, I miss out on all the cool cable shows like Hung and The Closer. There are times I would stop coloring my hair forever for ten minutes of CNN or an E! True Hollywood Story. But I knew it wasn't permanent. Mostly importantly, though, we felt like we were doing the responsible thing by trying to erase our debt.

Not that all that information would have changed things for Mr. Manager and his $4 billion dollars. Nope. I was flatly told I was not valued, and I didn't spend enough money to deserve a discount.

Fine. I don't agree with the policy, but I get it. But to tell me it's because I choose not to spend my money on TV? To more than imply that I am not valued?

Bite me.

I'm wondering if grocery stores will start this kind of policy soon. Oh, you don't by lettuce every week--then it's going to cost you twice as much.

What about the electric company? Oh, you don't use as much power as your neighbors. Well, then it's going to cost you more when you do decide to run your air conditioner this summer.

The worst part is that I adore my husband, and watching him on Sunday afternoons as he flips through all the games while checking his fantasy football score on the laptop every thirty seconds is just plain endearing.

I won't take away from him the few hours of fun and relaxation he gets from that.

So, my cheap ass will be coughing up twice as much money as those "valued" people this year to make my husband happy for sixteen weeks. Because DirecTV is our only choice--and so they can tell us to bend over and smile about it.

And that sour bit of ethics will likely be the hardest hit we see this football season.



More ranting:
This is the same company that charged us $80 extra to install because we had our house pre-wired for satellite and they had to drop the wires through a wall rather than drilling a hole in the side of my house. Apparently sticking holes in things is cheaper than actually trying to respect and work with what someone else has tried to do to preserve their property.