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View Full Version : What's up with the loyal customer penalty?



Rich Engelhardt
07-06-2012, 9:49 AM
Every where I turn anymore it seems like I'm getting slapped in the face for being a loyal customer.
The cell phone providers, banks, insurance, sat.cable TV,,,and so many more.

It's the same old story from all of them - "That offer is only for new customers".

Fine - two can play that game I guess.

I'll just go somewhere else and be a "new customer".

Dick Adair
07-06-2012, 10:08 AM
Rich, often just a phone call threatening to move will put you into that "new customer" zone and you can deal with them. I did that with my internet service. Got a lifetime locked in rate I'm very happy with.

Brian Elfert
07-06-2012, 12:02 PM
Obviously, they aren't losing enough long term customers to drop the new customer programs. I don't think some of the businesses remember that it costs something like 10 times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Unfortunately for me, I can't change cable providers to get the new customer discount. I do have a discount on my Internet from Comcast and I'll need to decide soon if I switch back to DSL or stay with Comcast. I'm only paying about $12 a month for what normally costs $45 to $50 a month.

Greg Peterson
07-06-2012, 12:32 PM
It's a sticky wicket. Generating new customers without upsetting existing customers. Some business's and industries require different means of acquiring new customers. Small business typically thrives by word of mouth. Banks and cable companies rely upon the very thing they are trying to undo for the competition; inertia. Changing banks or cable companies is not as simple as going to a different grocery store or gas station. With time being a premium, there needs to be a considerable incentive to invest the time required to change services.

I'm not defending these institutions, just playing devils advocate. Literally.

Lee Schierer
07-07-2012, 1:49 AM
I'll just go somewhere else and be a "new customer".


We had been Directv customers for 9 years with our old Hughes receivers. We had a problem with our reception and I talked to them. They couldn't fix my equipment since I had purchased it, yet they were offering new customers new DVR's if they signed up. At first they told me they couldn't give me the free DVR and installation. I said fine, I noticed your competitor has an advertisement in today's paper for the same thing. I want to cancel my service and I will switch to them. Suddenly the free stuff was available and we got our free DVR and installation within a week. Now Directv is offering for us to upgrade to HD for free since we are loyal customers. I may wait until we get an D TV before doing it.

I recently decided to sign up for Sirius in our new vehicle. All they would offer me was a rate for 6 months. I told them I wanted a one year rate. They said none was available. When I said fine I'll just let it run out, they were able to find a one year rate. I also asked for a paper invoice,(which took 6 weeks to come) so they don't have my credit card to automatically roll over to the higher rates at the end of the year. The will have to call me.

It's a shame you have to do things that way, but hey if it works and saves some bucks, that's okay too.

Matt Marsh
07-07-2012, 8:02 AM
I recently decided to sign up for Sirius in our new vehicle. All they would offer me was a rate for 6 months. I told them I wanted a one year rate. They said none was available. When I said fine I'll just let it run out, they were able to find a one year rate. I also asked for a paper invoice,(which took 6 weeks to come) so they don't have my credit card to automatically roll over to the higher rates at the end of the year. The will have to call me.


Good luck with that! They are the shadiest and worst company I have ever dealt with. Even without your credit card number they will still keep billing you. If you don't pay, they will just keep stacking each new fee on to the last. Discontinuing service is like dragging a sled on cement. You will spend hours on the phone getting transfered around, and talking with people that barely speak English. Finally after what seems like an eternity, they will tell you that your service is discontinued. But its not really. If you are still receiving service imediately after they they tell you that you are disconnected, you are not really disconnected. When you call and complain after the next bill comes, they will tell you that they have no record of you discontinuing service. Then you'll start the whole ordeal all over again. I went through this process 3 times before I was actually disconnected. I don't know if 3 times was the charm, or if telling them that I was recording the conversation did the trick.

If you do decide to renew, they'll tack on extra fees at the last minute. If you threaten to quit, they will drastically drop the price. Then when you get the next bill, the fees are tacked on anyway. You will go through this same ordeal everytime you renew. Worst company ever!

Curt Harms
07-07-2012, 8:03 AM
Boy we found out about that re auto insurance big-time. SWMBO had been a Nationwide customer for 48 years (!). Our car insurance just kept going up & up. We finally got tired of it and did some shopping. We're now paying for 2 what we were paying for one before. When she called to cancel Nationwide, the agent was like "oh, okay. Thanks for the call".

Rich Engelhardt
07-07-2012, 8:43 AM
When she called to cancel Nationwide, the agent was like "oh, okay. Thanks for the call".
Yep - that's the kind of attitude we're getting. Allstate ( the Allstate agent) said the same thing to us a few years ago when we changed to Nationwide.

We've had Dish TV for 8 or more years. Our bill has gone up every year. We finally got to the point that we decided to just change to someone else cheaper. We tried to call Dish over and over and over & just got a busy signal. We called the credit card company to cancel the auto payment that had just been made (on the 3rd - the present service is still good through the Th). The credit card company canceled the bill, then offered to transfer us to Dish - which they did and got right through to someone!?. Dish asked why we wanted to cancel and when we told them because of the price, they offered to knock off $100 a year.
That ticked me off more than anything since if we hadn't complained about the price, they would have done nothing. They were still a lot higher than Direct TV - due to the "new customer" price of Direct. They were also a lot higher than the prices offered to new customers of Dish.
To make matters worse, when my wife was on the phone w/them (Dish), our TV went blank as the "new programming" was being downloaded. My wife hung up before I could alert her to the fact that our service had been disconnected - even though we're paid up until the Th.
It's useless to even try calling Dish. All I get is a busy signal.<- I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up to all the recent storm activity.

I ordered a "bundle" from Direct TV. I already have AT&T phone and Internet, which is what the Direct "bundle" includes. My bet is that AT&T will tell us tough beans - that's for new customers only.

Last week we applied for a refinance loan at the bank we've been using for an existing loan. They told us the 3.5% rate on the sign was for new customers only. The best rate we could get was 3.99%. I went down the street to another bank where I'd be a "new customer" and they gave me a printed quote for 3.54%.- plus closing costs ( a few hundred dollars). I took the printed quote back to bank "A" and the best they could come up with was to drop their closing costs - that had somehow gone from $250.00 to $350.00 - but the rate would stay the same @ 3.99%. We went to yet another bank where we're "new customers" and we get a flat rate $111.00 on the closing costs and a rate of 3.89% on a 180 month note/3.49% on a 120 month note.

By far the worst thing though is what our main bank has done. We deal with one bank where we've been dealing with them for the last 26 years.
Our online account is always kicking us off & giving us messages about an invalid password. It's been doing this for the last six months. After repeated calls to customer service, one of the more astute ladies noticed our account number only had 9 digits. :roll eyes:,,,all of the other people had been telling us we were missing a digit when we gave them our account number..
Turns out, the online banking software can't understand a 9 digit account number,,,it's written for a 10 digit account number.
I mentioned to her that, since we were old loyal customers, that had an old 9 digit number we were being penalized for it!
She of course disagreed..at first anyhow...but finally did admit that if we closed the account and opened a new one the problem would probably go away.
I told her if I had to go to that much trouble, I'd just go somewhere else.
She didn't say much to answer that.


Grrr....frustrating....