All To Their Advantage

Trey Smith

In order to watch television in our rural county, a person or family must contract with a cable or satellite service. I suppose an antenna could be mounted on the house and, when the skies are clear, we might be able to pick up a station or two either from Portland or Seattle, but in certain parts of our county -- South Bend included -- that's an iffy proposition.

Our carrier -- I won't say which one it is just to be sure they won't retaliate for a negative blog post -- recently sent us an updated Service Agreement. It doesn't look substantially different from the old one, but reading it over simply reminded me how these agreements are written all to the corporation's advantage!

Said agreement states that terms and rates can be changed AT ANY TIME at the sole discretion of the carrier. This means that a customer can sign a two-year contract for services for a particular channel package at a specified price and the carrier can later change the package AND the price.

What if the customer doesn't like these changes? Well, the magnanimous carrier will allow you to opt out of their services, but -- and this is a big B-U-T -- the customer is still liable for all the charges remaining within the 2-year contract term PLUS a deactivation fee. In other words, the customer can opt out of receiving the service, but cannot opt out of any payments for the service no longer being received!!!

These one-way terms really sort of negate the whole concept of a contract. Usually, when entering into a contract, the terms spell out the rights and responsibilities of each party. In terms of providing a service, the customer agrees to pay x for something spelled out in specifics by the provider.

Let's say that you need a plumber to fix a clog in your toilet. The plumber comes to your home and you agree to pay him/her x in exchange for the clog to be removed. If plumbers behaved like cable/satellite carriers, they arbitrarily could decide not to fix the clog in your toilet and instead install new pipes under your kitchen sink for two times the cost of removing the clog.

If you balked at this change in service, the plumber would remove the new pipes under your kitchen sink and then charge you for the costs of installing the piping you didn't request PLUS the labor for installing AND uninstalling it! On top of this, you would still have the clog in the toilet!

What we basically have here is a one-sided contract. The customer is bound by the original terms and any that are added for the length of the agreement, while the provider can change the terms at will and negate any terms that are not in their favor. It would be one thing if we were talking about a rogue carrier, but we're not. They all do it and the reason they all do it is because they know that our government and courts will allow them to do it and not be penalized or held responsible in any way, shape or form.