Official Earthlink raising prices rant!!!!!!!

[de8212]

I got an email monday notifying me they are increasing monthly service costs by $2.00. This is only for people who currently receive an email invoice. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't they already charge us an extra $1.00 for email invoices? I'm at work now so I can't check any of my past bills.
THis is ridiculous. The only way to avoid it is to let them DRAFT money directly out of your bank acct. or charge to a credit card automatically. THere's not a chnce I'll let them draft money out of my acct. They have screwed up transactions with checks I have sent them so I sure wouldn't let them do that.
THese people are evil. They are gonna keep raising prices one dollar here, two dollars there, until we pay $100.00 a month. I know what you're thinking, "No one is forcing you to stay, just go find another ISP". Well, I have had the account since 1996 so it would be a hassle to change now.
Ok, that enough complaining.
de

 

[Freejack2]

Why don't you just get a paper invoice then? I must admit I'm rather suprised that they are charging more for e-mail invoices than paper invoices.
Wierd.

 

[blahblah99]

i dropped them a few months back when they had their nationwide dsl problems. Seems like this is their way of making up money for the expenses they had during that fiasco.

 

[IGBT]

I dumped them last rate hike..crappy service and slow connections. Oversold their capacity here in SF.

 

[de8212]

<< Why don't you just get a paper invoice then? >>


Maybe I wasn't clear. I am currently recieving an email invoice. They charge me an extra $1.00 for that. The notice I received said they are doing away with the email invoices and sending a paper invoice via postal service. For the paper invoice they will be charging an extra $2.00.
de

 

[QTPie]

<<I am currently recieving an email invoice. They charge me an extra $1.00 for that. The notice I received said they are doing away with the email invoices and sending a paper invoice via postal service. For the paper invoice they will be charging an extra $2.00. >>

WTF? They don't wanna send out the invoice by mail and email for free? That's stupid. Sue them or you can ask them to fax it to you, hehe.

BTW, what makes this thread a "OFFICIAL" rant?

 

[dmcowen674]

I hate to be a conspiratist but what you are seeing here is an apparent uncovering of what Govt and Big Companies have decided to do behind closed doors to subsidize the Postal Service. All the Big Companies seem to be either charging extremely high "fees" for "electronic" transactions (which we all know costs the least) or doing away with most "Electronic" forms of payments and going back to plain old paper via the Postal Service. All this while they continue to raise the Postal Service fees at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if the Govt was behind the huge jump and increase in Spam lately to try and get everyone so pissed off at E-mail that people would prefer to go back to paper and the Ole Postal Service for everyday communications.

 

[kranky]

I understand why you don't want to change ISPs, but when a company raises rates and doesn't lose any customers, they are encouraged to raise them again.

AOL raised their rate $1.95/month in 2001, and that meant an extra $690 million a year! That paved the way for other large ISPs to raise their own prices. They lost very few customers.

Some industry analysts believe the average consumer will accept price increases as long as the rate remains lower than basic cable. Not because there's any connection between cable and an ISP, it's just a psychological thing. That might be more applicable to AOL, though. A lot of AOL customers believe that AOL = the Internet and if they switch, they would lose a lot.

I expect AOL to raise their rates again before too long, as long as they can point to additional services to justify it.

 

[reitz]

<< I hate to be a conspiratist but what you are seeing here is an apparent uncovering of what Govt and Big Companies have decided to do behind closed doors to subsidize the Postal Service. >>

Whoah, you might want to lay off the X-Files for a few weeks. Earthlink's price increase has nothing to do with subsidizing the USPS, the decision is all about raising money. Like kranky said, every time a company raises rates and doesn't loose customers, they know they can raise them again. Earthlink is only following a national trend by increasing its invoice charges.

It may not cost Earthlink much of anything to send out an invoice, but there's no way the company can guarantee payment. When a customer uses a credit card or direct debit, then monthly payment is guaranteed, and the company can easily (and automatically) shut of an account if the charge is declined (and direct-debit is treated just like a check, so they can slap you with an extra NSF fee). If a customer is unable to pay a monthly bill, the company can still try put the charge through pretty much as often as it likes. Also, people who use automatic payments that show up only once on the monthly statements are far more likely to "forget" what they're paying for, and how much they're paying...you'd be amazed at how often I speak to customers who haven't tried to get online in several months (or longer) yet are still paying for the account.

With invoiced customers, the company loses all of those advantages. It's much easier for a cracker/spammer/stalker/etc. to continually sign up online for invoiced accounts, and then just not pay once they're shut off. It's also much more difficult to collect past-due charges, and customer's are far less willing to accept "Sorry, we will not reactivate your account until payment is received..." when they've already sent a check.

Most larger ISPs have already raised the fees for invoiced customers to recover the losses from the accounts that were never paid for, and to encourage customers to switch to automatic payment options. The company I work for raised the invoice fees (from nothing to $2/mo and a one-time $10 invoice fee) roughly 9 months ago. It definitely ticked off a few customers at first, but now we have far fewer invoiced customers, and we're almost making as much off of those that remain as the customers who use an automatic payment option.

 

[rahvin]

Jeez, let them autocharge a credit card. Get a good one with a good dispute policy and all your troubles go away, they mischarge or fvck with you and don't even bother with them, dispute the charge.