My favorite hobby is collecting Found Money—that’s money I can access outside my regular income. Anything from coupons to credit card points to cash I earn selling my clutter counts as Found Money.”
I hate making phone calls to negotiate prices on my accounts, but I hate losing money because I was too lazy to make those calls even more. Today I sucked it up and called my internet service provider to negotiate a better rate. Even though I’m paying more now for internet service, here’s why I consider this a Found Money win.
This post includes affiliate links.
We use Century Link for internet. I don’t recommend Century Link: I’ve spent more than 20 hours calling customer service in the one year we’ve used Century Link and the internet service stinks. But, the only alternative in our area is Cox. Both Century Link and Cox have huge problems delivering advertised internet speeds, and Cox charges twice as much as Century Link. That makes Century Link the lesser of two evils.
My introductory rate for Century Link was $30. Century Link recently started their “price for life” campaign. The price for the 80 mbps tier is $55 per month “for life”. (Just like the doubters Century Link portrays on its commercials, I don’t believe it’s the price for life either!)
How to negotiate the price of your internet service and end up with Found Money:
- Know the current offers.
- Century Link’s current offer is $55 per month for 80 mbps speed.
- I hoped to avoid calling in, so I chatted with Century Link after they raised my introductory rate 132% (yes, that’s one hundred thirty-two percent). The chat rep offered me $55 per month for 40 mbps—that’s half the speed of the public offer for the same price. Lucky for me, I’m not an idiot.
- Call in to customer service, i.e., don’t waste time with online chat.
- Ask for the loyalty department. Don’t give any information to the original rep—insist on speaking directly with the loyalty department. This is also called the retention department; “Loyalty” worked for Century Link.
- Don’t bother with threats. Just say you need to cancel service because you noticed your bill went up. Then stop talking.
- After a few moments of awkward silence, the rep will decide you might actually cancel service, and she will present you with an offer. It helps to decide beforehand what your price threshold is. Since I’d pay Cox (Century Link’s only competitor here) at least $70, I was actually willing to stick with Century Link if I didn’t get a price break off the new $70 per month bill, just to avoid the hassle of changing internet providers. That would be the lazy way to deal with this—to justify that both companies now charge $70 so I may as well stay comfortable.
- But, since I knew the public offer is for $55 for 80 mbps, I called in and knew that at the very least, I’d be getting that $55 per month rate at the end of my call.
- Right off the bat, the rep offered me a $40 per month rate and a $30 Visa gift card.
- Yes!
- But I didn’t yell, “Yes!“ — I kept that inside. I acted like that offer might work, but said I still had some concerns, and mentioned that I rarely got even half the speed I was paying for. Then I stopped talking again.
- After this second radio silence, the rep offered to give me a credit on this month’s high bill ($70) to bring it down to the $40 a month price. That’s an extra $30 in the bank just for trying.
- I tried my luck a third time. I play the “Make a complaint, then stop talking and see what happens” game until I think I’ve received the best offer I’m going to get. After waiting quietly for 30 seconds without a response, I decided the rep was done making offers, so I wrapped it up. Total time: 20 minutes, including hold time and telling the rep six different ways that we don’t need to bundle TV.
- I won two rounds of silence this game. My reward: a reasonable rate, a $30 Visa gift card, and a $30 credit.
- Get the rep’s name and department and a confirmation number, because if she doesn’t follow through, you’ll need to call again and you will get farther faster if you’re armed with info from your first attempt.
Found Money: Negotiating Internet Service Price
$33.94 Price I was paying at the intro rate, including taxes.
$78.99 New, jacked up rate I was about to start paying if I was lazy.
________
$45.05 more per month for the same crappy internet service!
Here’s what I ended up with after my 20-minute phone call:
$33.94 Price I was paying at the intro rate, including taxes.
$47.98 New price for life I will pay now.
________
$14.04 more per month than I was paying at the intro rate.
And here’s the Found Money bit:
$78.99 New, jacked up rate I was about to start paying if I was lazy.
$47.98 New price for life I will pay now.
________
$31.01 Amount I save each month since I Made the Call, and I won’t have to deal with calling in every 6 months or year, because it’s “price for life”! Supposedly.
Plus, I got extra money thanks to my impressive negotiating tactics (that is, not running my mouth or yelling):
$30 (plus tax) credit for the first month’s charge after they jacked up my rate.
$30 Visa gift card
_______
$60 that I never would have received if I hadn’t called in.
Even though this is “price for life” I’ll count the savings for just 1 year:
$372.12 that’s the $31.01 difference between the lazy price ($79) and the I Made the Call price ($48)
$60 the $30 credit plus the $30 Visa gift card
_______
$432.12 Found Money total!
Now, here’s the problem: since my new internet service price is more than my old internet service price, I’m not sure how to account for this Found Money. It’s not like I can put cash in the bank—my new bill is $14 more per month!
In this case, my Found Money win is in avoiding additional charges, as opposed to getting a discount.
I’ve pat myself on the back for:
- Saving my family more than $400 this year with one phone call, and
- Not yelling.
Found Money Total
When I get that $30 Visa gift card from Century Link I will definitely count that as Found Money.
I can also count that $30 credit as money in the bank, and move it into my Found Money Fund—I only got the credit because I Made the Call.
The $30 Visa gift card and $30 credit is the only hard cash evidence I’ll have for this victory, so for this Found Money episode, I’ll count it as:
Found Money Total: $60
even though I really saved $432.12.
Get loads more Found Money tips in my book Disneyland on a Budget: How Our Family Spends 30 Days a Year at Disneyland without Breaking the Bank!
More nerdy frugal tips:
Wallet Check! Gift Card Balances (I found more than $100!) — Found Money #2
My $240 Freebies Spree (no coupons)! Found Money #1
What’s Your Grocery Budget? Final Spending in January! Grocery Budget Tracking #2 Jan 16–31 2018
This post is featured here: Thrifty Thursday Link Party: Tips on Being Frugal at The Thrifty Couple.
