Hidden Cable Fees - There's A Remote Chance You're Not Paying Them

I made the move away from Cable-TV last year. I didn’t make the move lightly as I was also receiving my Internet from the same provider and had been for many years. But I was going to start Lower Tech Bills, so I had to put my money where my mouth was. I had the same fear as I did when I got rid of my home landline around seven years ago. For many people, there’s still something comforting about having a telephone plugged into their wall. In fact, many years ago, I bought an old dial phone from an antique store, hooked it up in my bathroom and it worked. It was fun watching guests recall what a pain it was to dial a telephone. Talk about bathroom humor.

But let’s get out of the bathroom and into the family room. One of the nice things about my previous cable provider is that they offer a remote control that you can speak into in order to go from one channel to another. No remembering numbers. Just speak “ESPN 2” into the remote and it takes you to the latest cornhole championship. Ah the magic of technology!

But, like all magic, there is some slight-of-hand at work. In the case of my cable provider, it's the so-called hidden fees. While those fees can be seen on your bill, it’s cable’s version of a shell game trying to find and understand them. One of my clients recently shared his 5-page bill with me. Sure enough, those fees are there on page three. Let's remove the cover from these fees and shed a little light on them.

First, under “Equipment and Services”, there is the “TV Box + Remote” fee of $10 a month. He has five TV boxes, so that’s $50 a month for the ability to say howdy to ESPN. Then, there’s the “Internet/Voice Equipment Rental” fee of $15 a month which is basically renting an internet modem. Finally, there’s the “DVR Service” fee of $10 a month, so he can record and store his favorite shows. That’s $75 a month for equipment and services. While there are some workarounds to get rid of some of those fees, it requires purchasing equipment and the technical knowledge to install said equipment. However, if you want your remote to listen to you, it will cost $10 a month per TV with no workaround.

Then there are “Service Fees”. His provider charges $21.50 for the “Broadcast TV Fee” and $18.35 for “Regional Sports Fees”. So, that’s another $39.85 each month which he pays whether he watches those local channels and regional sports networks or not. Add on the “Franchise Fee” and that’s another $6.51 per month.

So, in this client’s case, before he even watches a channel and fires-up the Internet, he’s already paying $121.36 every month to his cable provider. This comes out to $1,456.32 a year in fees. All so he can subscribe to a very large cable company whose name rhymes with bombast. That seems like a lot of money in order to tell his TV to tune into ESPN. I’d just as soon tell it to go someplace more otherworldly.

The good news is, as the Beatles sang on “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, it’s getting better all the time. These days, there are several alternatives for both TV and Internet that can save you many of those fees. Streaming services provide options with viewing experiences that are getting closer to the way we’ve been watching cable. In fact, one has pretty much leveled the playing-field and allows you to do that voice into the remote trick. There are also new options for home internet that are far less expensive. Like as low as $30 a month all in. While those services aren’t available everywhere yet, more and more areas have new internet options.

In my case, I now save over $150 a month on TV and Internet costs from a year ago with similar services as I did back then. That’s over $1,800 a year in savings on just TV and Internet. I also save another $600 a year on my cell phone costs from last year. Plus, I get free Netflix, Apple+ and a subscription to MLB.TV. Those three services add another $425 in savings a year. The best news is that these are not one-time savings. They are on-going. What could you do with an extra $2,825 a year?

Since I retired from the radio business, I have been doing both in-store and online research, finding savings in Cellular, Internet and Television costs. I’ve saved myself and others from hundreds to even thousands of dollars a year. If you would like a free look at your bills, let’s talk. Email hmwellsradio@gmail.com or visit lowertechbills.com because you may not have the time to find all these savings, but I do.