Posted on 05/26/2006 2:21:16 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A Texas City woman says a cable company is putting the squeeze on low income people. She says poor people are getting taken for an extra dollar by Time Warner.
Time Warner is charging more to folks who can least afford to pay. Geneva Hurst, 82, is upset because she had to pay a dollar extra when she paid her cable bill in person at a Texas City service center. She doesn't have a checking account or credit card and cashes her Social Security check to buy food and pay bills.
Geneva said, "I goes there. I don't have a checking account but I pays it in cash. And I walk in there one day and I paid it in cash and she says when I paid -- 'Oh, you know, we have to charge a dollar extra.' ... It's a sad thing. It's so sad, 'cause poor people, we just barely getting by with what we're already paying."
John Stokes, 81, also survives on Social Security. He keeps a detailed ledger of all his bills.
Stokes says as soon as he gets his Time Warner cable bill he goes right over to the Time Warner service center and pays his bill. And that extra dollar is hard on folks who don't have enough dollars to begin with.
Stokes said, "My Social Security, that's what I'm living on, you know. I have to watch what I'm doing."
"A dollar's a dollar," said Geneva. "But you take it like that, that's 12 dollars a year and you have a lot of poor people paying cable bills."
There was a time when we had only one telephone, light and gas company in town and if we didn't like it, we had to lump it. The same goes for cable -- there's only one cable company in town, Time-Warner, and if you don't like it, lump it. Don't you think it's time for the city to break up the cable company and have more than Time-Warner? Why should the elderly and poor pay a dollar just to pay their cable bill in person?
/sarc off
Wre ALL pay an extra fee - call postage.
Almost 40% of a dollar to just pay our bills.
Marvin ZINDLER! is still around!
If you told her to think about time-warner's overhead, she'd look up.
It bad customer service and even worse public relations. The money they make on a cash surcharge is absolutely not worth the goodwill destroyed.
It will come back to bite them.
Winner!
Maybe the reason you are so poor, Geneva, is that you never learned how to properly speak English.
Yeah! Marvin "LaGrange Cat House" Zindler.
How much does it cost to get there, and why haven't you learned english in the past 80 years?
Exactly!
Give me a break...
I thought social security REQUIRED a a checking account because the government only does EFT now.
You mean "poor" people can afford cable?!?!?!
We must have different meanings for the word "poor".
People who can afford cable are not poor.
Sorry everyone, but I am on the side of the person being charged that dollar. Yes, I pay fees to, but no one should have to pay a "fee" for paying a bill in person and in cash.
Some cable companies have a monopoly on a certain areas. People may not have another company they can switch to.
And as far as Time Warner opening a service center, too bad. The opt to open it, plus part of the cable service should include being able to use it. A company this big doesn't need to milk every cent. It already charges too much anyway.
So what happens next...they decide the service center needs $2 or $5 for each cash paying customer???
Why would the poor spend what little cash they have on cable? When did cable become a necessity? Geesh! Talk about your screwed up priorities!
Cancel the cable, save the dollar plus about 50 more. Nobody needs cable.
The thing that scares me it that this will be the perfect opportunity for some do-gooder to come up with a new law.
Proudly cable and dish free for one year.
Some one gets it. :)
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