Check Your Bills for Mistakes And Save Money

My advice to all my readers: Check your monthly itemize bills and don't be afraid to call customer service.

If you're like me, you have some of your monthly bills set for auto payments. When is the last time you checked what you're paying for? Today, I called my cable company's customer service and am now saving almost $20 per month ($17.95+tax to be exact) because I was being double billed for one of the itemized categories. I also got a credit for the time I was charged the extra amount which was about a year.

Are you wondering how I could have been double billed without knowing? It's simple. My homeowner's association has a contract with the cable company for basic cable. Each unit is given the most basic of cable packages at a discounted rate. You are allowed to upgrade which of course I did because I wanted a DVR and I needed Internet access. When I chose to upgrade to the DVR, I was also required to upgrade from basic cable to digital cable. It turns out, a year ago my community renegotiated the contract to include digital cable. This is when I unknowingly started double paying. As a community contract, my personal bill did not change, nor did the fee I was paying the HOA. However, they were providing us a better value for being loyal customers and providing them with over 300 contracts (the number of units in my community).

New residents that were purchasing condos automatically received this new contract, however their computer system didn't change it automatically in the system and it wasn't well advertised to the owners. Therefore, I fell into a pit of ignorance. I didn't know I wasn't suppose to be billed so I never complained. While listening to my new neighbor complain about her customer service experience the other day, I was confused why she wasn't being billed the same upgrades as I was so I called. The customer service representative was polite and checked the community's contract. After seeing that I was correct about being charged extra, he said he had to go back and see when the contract was last updated. Digital cable was added in March 2013.

From the time I dialed the 800-number until the time I hung up was less than twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to save over $200 per year, plus be credited the $200 I already paid extra. I wonder what other bills I'm paying too much for.

Yes, I know many of you that are still reading this are probably saying things like "why do you still have cable?" or "why do you have a DVR? You can watch shows you missed online." The truth is, I'm set in my ways. love my DVR because not everything I enjoy watching will stream online. I have series set to record so I don't forget when the new season begins and I don't miss specials. I also don't like watching on my computer. Yes, I can buy one of those wifi adapters for the TV, but it's just not the same. Perhaps if the cable bill continues to rise I will consider getting ride of cable, but for now I'm just an old soul whose stuck in her ways.