Home owner refuses to pay cable company's hook up fee and gets cable for free.

I scammed my cable company into giving me four years of free cable because they refused to waive their hookup fee.

RealSaltyShellback writes:

I had just purchased a house and met the previous owners while they were moving out. They were really nice people and we had a friendly conversation about the house. The previous owner mentioned that the cable bill was paid up until the end of the month (about three more weeks), and that he had already turned in his cable box, but the cable signal should still be active til the end of the month.

I told him thanks and we let him finish packing up. We moved in the following week and when I hooked the cable to my TV I got all the basic cable channels which was all I was planning on getting anyway. Come the end of the month, I called the cable company and asked to sign up for basic cable.

The sales rep told me that there was going to be a $100 hookup fee. I told them that the previous owner had left his account active and that I was literally watching cable as we speak, so there should not need to be a hook up fee because the cable was already hooked up. They just needed to start billing me for basic cable.

The rep then clicked on her keyboard and told me that her data showed that the address I was at does not have cable and that they will need to send out a crew to activate the signal. I told her that I was not paying $100 for a hookup fee and said never mind, I don't want cable.

I waited another month (still had cable) and called the cable company back to ask what it would cost to get basic cable? A different operator from before said it would cost something like $30 a month and a $100 hook up fee. I asked why the $100 hookup fee? She said that it was because my address does not currently have cable.

I told her never mind, I don't want cable unless they waive the hookup fee. She said she was not authorized to waive the fee. I just thanked her and hung up. 4 years later, we still had cable, but we ended up moving out of state for work.

Here are some of the top comments from the post:

SailboatAB says:

Back in the early 2000s, I had cable in an apartment. The cable company made us sign an ironclad agreement that included a specific admonition: I could NEVER REMOVE THE CABLE BOX FROM THE PROPERTY under penalty of law!

When I moved out, I set up one of those infamous appointments where the cable guy would be here to take possession of the cable box "between 8 am and noon," and I had to stay on the premises in case he showed up.

Of course, he didn't show. Despite it being a huge problem for me, I hung around until 5 pm, in case he arrived, even though I had to move everything I owned to a new place.

The next day, I called them and complained. They said, "Oh, that's alright; you can just bring it in and drop it off."

Nope. Cue the malicious compliance (or is it non-compliance in this case?). I told them I am legally forbidden to remove the box from the apartment.

Later, they had someone call me back and insist that I bring the box in. Nope, no can do! They said I would get in trouble. Sorry, I'll also get in trouble if I remove the box. "No, you won't," they claimed. "The lawyers don't really mean that." Oh, are you a lawyer? "No, not actually." Okay, I won't take your legal advice then. I'll abide by the signed agreement.

By the way, I had to give up the key and be gone Sunday afternoon, so your guy better be here before then. "He can't," they said. "The schedule is too busy." Oh well, I replied. Sunday afternoon, a cable representative showed up at the last minute, and he was mightily pissed off.

Peterthinking says:

We wanted cable and my dad didn't wanna pay the hook up fee either. So he opened up the green box on our property and just screwed the little cable with our house number onto one of the cable connections.

Turns out that is all that was needed for there to be cable at the house. So he hooked up every house in the entire box. Free cable TV for everyone!

Nobody ever complained and we lived there with free TV for about 10 years. Now when they unhook your cable they squish the connector with pliers so you can't just hook it up yourself.

UnhappyJohnCandy says:

My aunt had free HBO for years for some reason. Not complaining; back in the day she’d tape any movie I wanted to see and bring it over for me.

What do you think? Was OP right to get cable for free or should they have paid the hook up fee?