Court Rules Users Can't Demand Refunds After Retrans Blackouts

[HardOCP News]

Crap like this is why you should always read the fine print. I guess it also depends on which cable company you are with as well. When Cox in Las Vegas had a dispute with CBS earlier this year, the company issued a credit to its affected customers.

"You are not entitled to any refund because of deletion, rearrangement or change of any programming, programming packages or other Services" and "Neither we nor out third-party billing agents will be liable for any interruption in any service or for any delay or failure to perform, including without limitation, if such interruption, delay or failure to perform arises in connection with the termination or suspension of DISH network's access to all or any portion of services."

 

[Master_shake_]

itt cable providers should bend over backwards to satisfy their REMAINING customers.

it's current year it's not the 90's anymore.

you are not the only game in town any longer.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

I don't get this. If you buy a package and that package includes channel Y. And you have a multi year agreement, wouldn't the cable company be guilty of violation of agreement if they refused to release you from your contract.

My mother watches only CMT, HSN, and Hallmark. If they pulled those channels she would be on the hook for something she doesn't use.

 

[Shotglass01]

Another reason to cut the cord.

 

[Great Tiger]

I don't get this. If you buy a package and that package includes channel Y. And you have a multi year agreement, wouldn't the cable company be guilty of violation of agreement if they refused to release you from your contract.

The fine print probably says something to the attune about early cancellation fees.

 

[Advil]

That can't be worth the paper it's printed on.

They're saying they could lose 25% of their channels during your contract and you'd still owe the whole amount?

Eh...

 

[westrock2000]

That can't be worth the paper it's printed on.

They're saying they could lose 25% of their channels during your contract and you'd still owe the whole amount?

Eh...

Well I'm sure they would compensate you by adding 25% more exciting channels from emerging markets, such as Latin children's book reading channel.

 

[dandirk]

The fine print probably says something to the attune about early cancellation fees.

With mobile services, changes in contract or services are used to get out of contracts... Many people would use change in txt prices as a loop hole to get out (companies would change them all the time).

Whether loss of channels constitutes change of contract not sure. Customer doesn't get crap but usually they can get out of the contract without an early termination fee at least.

Either way it is shitty and not consumer oriented. While I understand contract dates of customers in relation to channels is no where near in sync, nor can they be. Companies should at least have to prorate billing for channels not available in some fashion. Especially considering lack of competition in a lot of markets.

I find it awesome that companies routinely have clauses of "we can atler or change service at anytime"... What I want to see in return is customer can change payment amount at anytime...

 

[Exavior]

I don't get this. If you buy a package and that package includes channel Y. And you have a multi year agreement, wouldn't the cable company be guilty of violation of agreement if they refused to release you from your contract.

My mother watches only CMT, HSN, and Hallmark. If they pulled those channels she would be on the hook for something she doesn't use.

That can't be worth the paper it's printed on.

They're saying they could lose 25% of their channels during your contract and you'd still owe the whole amount?

Eh...

they can't promise you stations. Do me a favor, go turn on ABC family, TechTV, Court TV, G4. Stations can go away at any point in time because of changes to channels being available. So that alone prevents a promise you will have every station forever. If they add or remove stations from a lineup that is dynamic and you get whatever is the lineup at that point in time. Which is subject to change at any time.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

they can't promise you stations. Do me a favor, go turn on ABC family, TechTV, Court TV, G4. Stations can go away at any point in time because of changes to channels being available. So that alone prevents a promise you will have every station forever. If they add or remove stations from a lineup that is dynamic and you get whatever is the lineup at that point in time. Which is subject to change at any time.

Yes but at the same time, the cable company is no longer paying for those channels. How can they if they don't exist? As such there is no incurred loss to them if they cut you a break on your contract and let you out of it for failure to deliver.

 

[Exavior]

Yes but at the same time, the cable company is no longer paying for those channels. How can they if they don't exist? As such there is no incurred loss to them if they cut you a break on your contract and let you out of it for failure to deliver.

Letting you out of your contract does cost them as they are losing a customer then which they had already assumed they would get X money from you.

As for the rest, you aren't paying 100% for just content, there is some profit room for them also so they can keep charging you whatever they want and just keep more profit. Even that aside they are now having to pay for lawyers to try to get your content back. Keep in mind that you didn't lose the stations because the provider decided fuck you we don't want to offer CBS or AMC or something like that. Instead they were paying say $9 per person that gets that bundle of stations (just making up a number of a reasonable amount) and the other end came back saying for our next contract we think you should pay $29 per subscriber. The cable company then comes back saying no, we will pay you $12 but that is it. The other side says fuck you if you don't pay us at least $25 we are cutting off your access to our stations. They then cut off access and then legal fun starts to get to a middle ground that everyone can be happy with. So at some point you are paying lawyers to fight instead of paying for TV content. There is also the possibility that you are paying less than the current rate due to a grandfathered contract and in the background prices have already went up due to the times that new contracts are signed without issue. Which means that in cases like that even without you paying $9 to CBS maybe you should have been paying an extra $3 to NBC / Universal, an extra $2 to Disney and a extra $1 to AMC so your $9 is really now only you over paying $3 and not $9.

That said some companies are nice and do give you a break. As the OP stated Cox did give credit over the CBS issue. DirecTV has given credits / free stations for stuff like this before. I think I got a free month of HBO due to some blackout once, my sister got a few dollars off her bill. So they can do this if they want. All this ruling is saying is that there is no legal requirement for a customer to be given money back if station line ups change for any reason as long as that is part of their contract that the cable company isn't responsible for the channel line up always being the same. If they did have to be then were do you draw the line? Back when I had TV service I only watched two stations for the most part. Watched about 10 or 12 shows between the two stations but that was really all I watched. Once all those shows ended their runs I had nothing really to watch anymore. Could I demand a refund as since these shows ended I now don't have as much of a need? There does need to be limits. Which sadly are going to be ones that do screw the customer out of money if you want to view it that way. But it has to be otherwise the customer would start making crazy demands. There has to be a line drawn that they stick with. Just like you can't argue that you should get 1/2 your internet bill reduced because you couldn't get to web sites Friday this your ability to use the internet was reduced. And yes people ask for stuff like that.