| Should Cablecos Support Sucker Websites? |
| Sunday, 18 January 2009 15:00 |
 For $98 for 12 months, Time Warner will sell you a triple play package. But hurry. You only have until January 31 to get the special price of $124 for a similar package at timewarnercableoffers.com/ A Comcast selling website currently is offer a rebate of $125 to customers who want to try Comcast's $19.95 cable modem service, even if they cancel in a few months and collects the difference. They even say "No contract required." A few months ago they $19.99/month for six months is $119.94, leaving you $30.06 ahead when you get your $150 check.
Do I have a story that Comcast is really being aggressive on price, or is it simply deceptive? Is Time Warner so desparate for customers to keep the numbers up for wall street they are willing to lose money? The FTC and the FCC are looking to clamp down on deceptive advertising. Is this for them? I spent more than an hour reading voluminous fine print on the sites, and didn't find any limits. But there was so much obscure detail I'm not sure. If a pro in the business can't figure out the regs, it's a good guess many consumers will be mislead. I've no way to test whether they actually honor these promises, so I don't no if these remarkable headline prices are false advertising or merely bait and switch One of the key reasons the FCC ruled against Comcast on throtling is that they did not clearly inform their customers of important aspects of their services. Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman, is a strong supporter of truth in advertising. When I told him about a problem at another carrier, his first question was, "Did they clearly disclose everything." If even business-oriented Republicans don't like misleading advertising, would you want to defend your practices before the FCC or FTC. I'm sending this to a contact at Comcast pr. If it's legitimate, I'll happily publicize and point readers to a good deal from Comcast. I'l even include a writeup about advantages of Comcast, specifically including that have a bandwidth cap at 250 gigabytes and that's not unreasonable. I'll also have a nice story about how Comcast is discounting prices. I'll ask about the qualifications and and rules for their authorized agents, and how they enforce them. I'll ask about the qualifications and and rules for their authorized agents, and how they enforce them. |