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Comment by AyyEye | Hacker News Reader

Cox advertised gigabit to me. I always wanted it so I took the upsell. After six truckrolls (alternately telling me my signal was too strong -- installing attenuator, then too weak and removing it) for which I had to take a day off work every time, they eventually told me it was a mistake and my neighborhood didn't have gigabit.

Then the cherry on top was they wouldn't even put me back on my old plan because it "wasn't offered any more". So they tried to charge me an extra $15/month for half the speed I was getting before. I switched to a local wireless ISP that ended up being even more expensive for even slower service -- but at least they weren't liars and when I had a problem I could talk directly with the owner if it wasn't sorted (and no data caps).

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I can't but think this is the business practice of a dying technology, yet another example.

I won the fiber lottery where I live, and I will never go back to cable (I had a choice). Let's just call the rejected cable choice a "30 Rock episode".

And that same cable provider eventually was called out for advertising a "10G Plan!". Yeah.

Meanwhile my fiber provider advertises options based on symmetric upload/download speeds. And I think this is the key in these days when we send a lot of outbound data with video call and offline backups.

Put in place a rule that only the lowest speed can be advertised by providers.

Cox was terrible - they knew they were the only broadband provider in my neighborhood and they took full advantage of it. Then AT&T put in fiber (when they installed it they put the box on my property) and I had seven times the speed for a fraction of the cost. When I called to cancel, Cox tried to cut me a deal.

They don't call it Cox for nothing, damn you got hosed on that one. I've always been careful with upsells as there's always a catch, or a Cox.

They made the choice to name themselves after a bunch of dicks.

There's a lot to be said for the better customer service and straightforward treatment. Worth the extra premium you got hosed with in the end.

Did you sue? Isn't that false advertising?

In the US you could seek recourse via your state Attorney General. You might hope the FCC would care (but they don’t).

The GP already lost 6 days of work… how much would the likely payoff be to make it work their while to continue dealing with that company?

You can't buy the satisfaction that comes from forcing the phone company to do what you require.

> to do what you require.

"To do what they advertised to you."

An additional option to consider is to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

I had an issue with my wireless carrier repeatedly refusing to issue credit for a months-long ongoing problem on their end.

Within 2 days in filing a BBB complaint, I had a rep from the company asking how much I thought seemed fair and if I wanted a bill credit or a check.

The attorney general’s office consumer protection division in your state does what most people think the BBB does.

BBB is just a review website. Like Yelp.

Filing a complaint with BBB is like saying 'I left a bad Yelp review' ... useful, maybe.. if the company cares..

FCC can be surprisingly effective. My friend had a problem with his ISP randomly dropping routes to some of the ASs, and the support was useless, because all the speed test sites were fine

An FCC complaint got that fixed in two weeks.

When Comcast tried to screw me out of $700 the FCC solved it for me pretty quick. I'd at least recommend giving them a try even if in the end they may not help.

It costs many thousands of dollars to bring a lawsuit in the US, and you will almost certainly lose against a huge corporation with their own legal team. They can simply outspend you until you give up.

You can often take telcos to small claims for the few dozens or hundreds they owe you, and they won't bother to show up. You'll get a default judgement for the cost of court filing (varies, $20-$100 usually). If they don't pay, you bring the sherrif to one of their offices to start dragging out an equivalent resale value of equipment unless somebody writes a check in ahurry.

Not if the amounts are small enough for small claims court. The laws vary state by state but here in California, the max for small claims is $10,000 and the company can’t just hire a legal firm to defend it, they have to send a corporate representative. They can send a lawyer if they have general counsel employed by the company, but few companies are big enough to have that and those that are generally won’t send them out for small claims. Many times they won’t bother at all and it results in a default judgement.

The filling fees are in the hundreds of dollars and the judge are used to working with the general public as opposed to well represented plaintiffs with expensive lawyers.

Wasn't worth it, I just wanted internet.

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