Ideas to protest cable company?

Question

There are two big things that cause me to hate my local cable company:

1) They are a government-forced monopoly. They have an exclusivity contract with my local government where they are the only cable company in town. As a result, prices and customer service absolutely suck.

2) They continually send me spam mail about their "digital telephone" service, despite the fact that I have consistently told them that I'm not interested. That's not too bad, except that they won't stop calling me, either. At one point, I was getting 2-3 calls per weekday about this service. I don't want to block them from my phone, in case there is something important.

What can I do to express my discontent? Obviously, there is letter writing. Unfortunately, I cannot stop using them, since they have no competition.

I had seen on TV that some guy was protesting his electric company by paying his entire bill in pennies - that's pretty awesome! Any other sweet ideas? :P

Answer 1

Go over the cable companies head, and find out what government agency licenses them. Usually there's a cable commission with the city, county, township, etc. Complain to them, both in writing, and in person. Lobby the commission to allow 2-3 cable companies to serve the same area. Every time this has been done, cable bills plummet, and service skyrockets. But to get this to happen, you'll have to raise a big stink in your area to make other people aware that this is even possible. That means letters to the editor of the local paper, a grass-roots committee, maybe mass mailings to the local citizenry, etc. If you make enough noise, maybe your cable company will be pro-active and improve before it can be changed.

You can stop the phone calls by telling them you want to be put on their "Do not call" list. You need to use those 3 specific words to make it work. They are required to add you to this, and to consult the list when they make calls. It may take a week or two for this to filter down to the lists that the callers work from, but tell them to add you every time they call, and the calls should end soon.

Answer 2

Buy stock in the company, go to the shareholders meetings and tell them better ways for the company to make money.