Sometime last year I received a letter from the property management at my apartment complex saying that they’ve done an audit and found that I was not subscribed to my cable TV service through them, and that they were going to shut it off. Well, I wasn’t expecting cable TV. My wife and I don’t even watch television, but I was signed up for cable internet. Before making a fuss about my internet getting shut off for no reason I decided to wait and see what happens. Sure enough, the day they said it would be shut off, I stopped receiving internet connection.

I called up to the office and was basically told that I had to sign up for their partner’s cable TV service in order to get a connection. I don’t think so. I’m not going to pay an extra $40 a month just so they will leave my connection open and I can pay someone else for my internet.

I started calling my ISP. At first I was asking about the deal they have set up with my apartment complex. Either no one knew what I was talking about or “couldn’t say” what was going on. I gave up and decided to try a different approach. I’m going to play stupid and pretend like I don’t know the cable TV and my internet goes through the same line. So I called them and just told them that I wasn’t able to connect. Nothing more. I went through the whole schpeel of turning my computer off and back on, power cycling the modem and router as well until they decided that there was nothing they could do except for send a repair person out.

I patiently waited for a few days until someone could come out and run all of their tests to tell me what I basically already knew: the line is dead. He went outside for a few minutes and viola! my internet is back on.

I was fine for 6 months, until there was another audit and I received the same letter again. It was like deja vu. I did the exact same thing: played stupid and called in to service, they went through all their troubleshooting steps, and scheduled a service call when they couldn’t fix it from their end. The service guy went outside for a few minutes and my internet was back on.

I basically considered the patience I had to endure every 6 months an ok alternative to having to pay the extra cable fees my apartment wanted to charge. Until they got smart that is… two weeks ago I received a different letter. They basically said that I was in breech of my contract with them and I had 14 days to correct the problem or leave. wow! Well, I gave the office another call, and this time they actually pretended to listen. They gave me the number to the corporate office and they thought there might be a filter that can be put on the cable line to make sure I’m not getting TV channels. A few days later I get a call from them saying that there actually isn’t a filter and that the same rules that apply to everyone else apply to me as well.

The rest of the details do not matter so much. Basically my cable ISP has lost a customer because of a reseller deal with my apartment (I believe most apartments make the same sort of deal so they can offer free cable as one of the perks).

As for me, I’ve switched to DSL. It turns out that even with having to get a phone line it ended up being cheaper. But I’m still very upset that the company who managers our property would rather us be unhappy and make a few extra bucks on the side.

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