Our 12 month contract ended in May and our bill jumped almost $100. I called to ask for a lower rate, but they are still quoting me rates that are $40 more than what I was paying. I like our service package as-is.

What is the best way to get AT&T to drop the rate? Anyone have any success stories?

Tell them you're going to cancel it all.

When I cut the cord, it took me twenty minutes of arguing and trudging through special offers before they transfered me to someone who would actually cut my cable service off.

What Premid said....you have to threaten to cancel to get the new customer rates.

Agree with the others. You have to be willing to walk away. Wife and I just went through this recently. It took about a week to get a manager to call us back who was able to give us a better rate.

Sometimes when speaking which department you want go to (support, billing, etc) you can say "Retentions" and they'll take you straight to the person who is authorized to cut deals to keep you from cancelling. I've found that calling during the day (before 5PM EST) helps get to someone that is easier to understand and work with.

What I've found with U-Verse lately is that, even when threatening to cancel, they haven't offered anywhere close to new subscriber deals.

Actually go through the pain to cancel TV.


You'll get 19238 advertisements a week in the mail from everyone begging you to come back.

Cancel U Verse TV all together... I switched to dish and it's a better service and I pay about 3/4 less.

Better picture, better DVR, better remotes... The on demand is the only area UVerse was better.

Let me know if you want to switch & I'll get you a referral # so we can get $50 off both our bills on top of what ever package discount you can get.

All the above is true. When my contract was up I told them I didn't want to pay anymore that what I was already paying. Said they couldn't do it so I cancelled. A few weeks later I was getting those "bundle" offers since I kept the internet service (got 2x the speed I had for the same price) that were better than what I was asking for originally. Didn't take the deal and haven't missed cable at all since I cancelled 9 months ago.

Ask to speak to Customer Retention. It's a separate department that has access to better deals than the first few layers of customer service reps do. Simply threatening to cancel will lower your bill, but speaking to that department specifically will get you the best package.

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Ask to speak to Customer Retention. It's a separate department that has access to better deals than the first few layers of customer service reps do. Simply threatening to cancel will lower your bill, but speaking to that department specifically will get you the best package.

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This. Except it is called Customer Relations. You don't have to threaten anything. In fact several years back they said to just call every year and ask for them to skip all the bull****.

I just did this on Wednesday with AT&T.

I pulled up Comcast to see what their offer was, called AT&T and said that I didn't want to pay the $100 increase, and would cancel if they couldn't reduce the bill.

Walked away paying the same price as I was previously paying, and they upgraded my internet speed to the "max available rates" for my area (something like 25mb/s).

Depends on who you talk to. I tried it and threatened to cancel, and they said "well...bye." I had my fianc call the next day and they were suddenly falling all over themselves to give him a lower price.

Update: Got a phone survey on Friday and told them I was not impressed. Called yesterday and immediately told them I wanted to cancel my service on account of Comcast offering much better price/internet speed and AT&T not being able to match the price. They immediately offered to lower me back to the price I was originally paying and upgraded my internet to the fastest available.

Thanks, folks.

Why threaten to cancel? Just cancel. Next day sign up for new service with the same rate you were getting plus $300 gift card. Threatening to cancel at best gets you the rate, but no gift card.

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Why threaten to cancel? Just cancel. Next day sign up for new service with the same rate you were getting plus $300 gift card. Threatening to cancel at best gets you the rate, but no gift card.

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Because they keep records of you being a customer. If you try to sign a new deal the next day you won't be treated as a new customer. Most won't let you come back as a new customer for 1-2 yrs.

We just ditched Uverse. In my area of the neighborhood the signal was crap and the best internet speed they had was not cutting it. My wife was on the phone for 2 hrs trying to cancel. She kept getting sucked back by special offers, none of which were really any good. We had DirectTV install last week and Comcast internet being stalled on Friday.

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Because they keep records of you being a customer. If you try to sign a new deal the next day you won't be treated as a new customer. Most won't let you come back as a new customer for 1-2 yrs.

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My wife and I just switch back and forth being "new customers." Every year.

Having to constantly fight these companies to get a good rate is such a PITA.

Or....just cut the chord.

Amazon Prime + Netflix + Amazon Fire box = I can watch anything, anytime, anywhere.

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Or....just cut the chord.

Amazon Prime + Netflix + Amazon Fire box = I can watch anything, anytime, anywhere.

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Yeah, how about live sports on ESPN or SECN? (I mean without sponging off someone else who actually pays for TV service)

If you've got a way to do that, than please share - it's been the only thing keeping me from making the leap.

We just ditched uverse and I have been using Sling.TV for ESPN.

Watched the entire 16 inning Superregional game on my roku using Sling.TV. SECN is only a $5 add on.

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Or....just cut the chord.

Amazon Prime + Netflix + Amazon Fire box = I can watch anything, anytime, anywhere.

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Yeah, how about live sports on ESPN or SECN? (I mean without sponging off someone else who actually pays for TV service)

If you've got a way to do that, than please share - it's been the only thing keeping me from making the leap.

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...legally? go to a bar, which I was doing anyways. Or subscription to sling.


...illegally? Pirated stream.

Though I give it less than two years before ESPN has a separate online only subscription service. That day is coming....soon.


Then the real cable wars will begin.