CABLE THEFT
People like
to complain about cable TV. It is
expensive and the service is often poor.
In the early days of cable it was even worse.
In the early
days of cable TV you did not have a choice in where you got your service. There was no satellite TV, there were no
competing cable companies. There was one
company licensed for your area. You got
40 channels and had to pay extra for ESPN and HBO. HBO had one channel showing about 10 new
movies a month. There was no ESPN
2. There was an extra monthly charge for
every TV hook-up in the house.
The extra
hook-up charge was more than I could handle.
In those days you did not need their cable box if you had a cable ready
TV. All the new TV’s were cable ready
and gave you the same 40 channels the cable box gave you. The cable company charged $3.50 a month for
each hook-up in your house.
This charge
was a rip off. I figured I paid for the
signal into my house, what I did with it was my business. With this philosophy I managed to override my
usual law-abiding “do the right thing” instincts.
Cable wire
was cheap. Splitters were cheap. Labor (me) was cheap. I wired my house for three additional
hook-ups for about $20 and saved myself $10.50 a month. The only issue I had was after about three
weeks CBS and NBC did not give a clear picture.
These channels came in fuzzy and the color tended to be a bit
blurry. For $10.50 a month I could
endure poor reception on the two predominant stations in the country. There were 38 other channels including HBO, I
was still in TV heaven from four different rooms in the house.
About one
year after my DIY wiring I received a call from the cable company.
“Mr. Hagy?”
“Yes”
“This is Mr.
Jones from the cable company. Our maintenance
checks have determined there is a problem with your service…have you noticed
any signal weakness?”
“Oh shit,” I
thought to myself. These guys have a way
to determine I have extra hook-ups. If
they come in and spot my handy work they are going to charge me $10.50 times
the 14 months I have had the hook-ups plus penalties and probably threaten me
with theft of service.
“Ah…no, my
service is perfect, no need for you to come and check anything. Really, I’m good.”
“Hmmm, well
that is surprising sir because we are detecting issues. We will have to come out and check. Would Tuesday be OK?”
“Er…ah, well
there is no need to come and check, my service is just fine.”
“Well Mr.
Hagy, we do have to check it out, FCC rules you know.”
“FCC rules,
what do they care?”
“Well
believe it or not, if there is signal leakage it can interfere with instruments
of airplanes passing overhead, so we will have to come out and check your
entire system.”
“Ok…ah…sure…airplanes…really…I
guess Tuesday would be alright.”
What a crock
of crap! Signal leakage effecting
airplanes overhead. These guys have
somehow detected that I have been using multiple hook-ups and they want their
pound of flesh.
Damn…500+ words…going to be a two
part post. Come back tomorrow for
Part Two – CABLE SMABLE
That's freaking funny.. will come back tomorrow to find out what happened.
ReplyDeleteFunny stuff. I have cable and it is a major rip-off but my husband would die without his gazillion sports channels I was sent over to check out your blog from My Daily Jenn-ism & glad I did! http://Menopausalmother.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteYou mean until then you hadn't noticed all the planes falling out of the sky?
ReplyDeleteS
Busted.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what would have happened had you refused to allow them in your house. I'll be waiting eagerly to learn what happened.
ReplyDeleteHow well I remember this. We actually had them come out one time unannounced and remove our splitter from our premises! Same issue with phone service back then, a charge for each phone in the house! Imagine if we now had to pay for each gadget that draws from our INternet service, at last count we had eight! Eager to see how this story ended for you :-)
ReplyDeleteI thought it was theft only if you climbed the pole and stole it
ReplyDeleteThese two parters are too much. But, I'll wait for the surprise ending.
ReplyDeleteWhat a scofflaw you were....I'm pretty sure we did the same thing, but I don't remember ever getting busted. I hope we read tomorrow that you didn't either.
ReplyDeleteNow you've got me curious to find out what happened! I'm guessing you found a way around getting busted!
ReplyDelete"Signal leakage effecting airplanes" hahaha! Sooner or later everything turns into b.s.
ReplyDeleteI smell a conspiracy.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing what people will pay a month for TV! There are so many cheaper ways! Some of them are even legal!
ReplyDeleteI have a sneaky feeling I know where this one goes, but I reckon I'll have to come back to find out for sure. Ya know, it's pretty sneaky breaking your post into two parts without investing in the properly configured post-splitting devices.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, this is utter horseshit. Only benefit is the cable guy is almost certain not to give a damn what you do in your house. I did the same thing, and the serviceman who came just shrugged and added a booster free of charge.
ReplyDeleteThreaten to move to satellite. It's amazing how accomodating the cable guys get when they think they're losing your business.
Hilarious and I'm sure if it caused planes to fall from the sky, they'd be going down everywhere, but I am wondering if this was the cause of all the birds that kept falling from the sky in mass numbers for awhile?
ReplyDelete