Hacker News Reader

Comment by brandonbloom | Hacker News Reader

I've done this several times with Comcast, but it failed with Time Warner when I moved out of NYC. They demand to know why you are canceling and have some sort of way to extract money out of you for every scenario, including moving out of their service area. In that case, they transfer you to another phone system that helps you find a provider at your new address and, presumably, nets them a referral fee of some kind. Meanwhile, if you try any excuse to quit that they haven't accounted for, they tell you "yes sir" and redirect your call to that service as a fallback catch-all. Truly despicable.

View on HN

Has anyone tried "none of your business" as an answer to why your are leaving?

Seriously. And if that doesn't work, try "I hate you"

My dad used to use "I'm unemployed and have no money" on telemarketers, with some success.

Though nowadays, in the era of pervasive financing and Wall Street investors that care more about revenue than cash flow, I wonder if that would even work. Maybe "I'm being investigated by the Feds and all of my financial relationships are considered suspect, and so would prefer to have as few of them as possible"?

> I'm unemployed and have no money

I've had people still try to sign me up when I've said this. I had just moved country, had no job, and was literally living off my credit card. I ended up getting stopped by some people on the street trying to sign me up for some charity, because I'm too nice to tell them to fuck off.

Even after I explained that I literally arrived in the country a week ago, and that I literally have no money, they were still trying to get me to sign up for a recurring donation. Sure, I understand that they get commission, so they want to make a sale. But not only is it extremely unethical to try and get unemployed people to sign up, it's also trying to extract blood from a stone.

Saying "I'm unemployed and have no money" will put you in the target market for certain products, like payday loans and diploma mills. Depending on the call center, you could find your contact info sold on to a new set of telemarketers. Win the battle, lose the war.

> My dad used to use "I'm unemployed and have no money" on telemarketers, with some success.

I've tried telling the truth, I've tried assertively stating I'm not interested, I've tried so many things...

...at this point, when I pick up a call, I wait for the other side to introduce themselves, and if they call with an unsolicited offer, I just hang up without saying anything. Am I a bad person?

Not at all. My current method is to block all numbers not in my contact list.. if they are important, they'll leave a voicemail. Works surprisingly well, actually.

Effectively the phone equivalent of grey listing for emails.

I was helping my grandmother cancel her twc cable package since she doesn't watch it and only watches a few shows on Netflix.

I told the agent that same thing, and he said "Is that really what she wants, or is that just what you want?"

I kept things polite, but he really had me boiling by the end of the call, which took way too much time.

"I'm planning on committing assisted suicide." (Not actually). You're move Time Warner.

We have great offers on caskets in one of our in-house funeral homes - let me connect you with a representative.

"Go on, sign up anyway. Why would you care if you're dead?"

Comcast and SiriusXM are by far the worst I've ever come across. They demand explanations, try to cut you deals, claim they have to transfer you to their manager who attempts to up sale you. I seriously had to get one of my debit cards reissued in order to get charges to stop and to get my XM radio account closed out.

I just cancelled SiriusXM earlier this week. They asked why and I said I just don't listen to it enough. They offered a month of a different package free. I said no. And that was it.

Leaving out of the country is generally more effective than leaving the service area - the arrangements you're describing rarely cross international borders, certainly not within North America (EU might be different).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com