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Breaking Up Is Hard—Especially With Your Cable Company

Canceling your cable service may take more effort than you might think.

Over the last few years, the cost of cable has gone through the roof. As a result, people are looking for cable TV alternatives, and cord cutting is on the rise. But as with most relationships, the breakup isn't as simple as saying "I'm done" and walking away.

When you finally make up your mind that it's time to end it, you have to get up the nerve to make the call (sorry, no texting Comcast). But don't expect it to be a quick one.

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"I called them to cancel, and they transferred me to the retention department where I went in circles with the agent for 30 or so minutes," Joseph Teegardin told Motherboard. And that seems to be the best case scenario, as others experience trouble even getting that far.

"The first hurdle was to get to a representative," Rachel Segal said. "When I finally reached one, I was put on hold, and the call was disconnected. I waited for a call back but never received one. So I called again."

Why does it take so long to cancel? According to Segal, the customer service rep made "multiple attempts" to convince her that "having internet win combination with a phone and cable will be cheaper" regardless of how insistent she was that she hadn't "used a home phone in ages."

Of course, this is nothing new. Evidence of the great lengths cable companies go to in order to retain customers has been around since Comcast's retention handbook leaked years ago. It's such a known (and annoying) fact that businesses have started handling the task for disgruntled customers (although it looks like one of those businesses, AirPaper, is no longer taking new customers).

But canceling cable is only half the battle—your cable company isn't going to give up that easily. Once you finally cut the cord, they'll try like hell to get you back. And that means retention spam.

"I don't have cable anymore, but they still sent a message saying they'd be checking once a month," one reader told cord cutting website CutCableToday. "I don't think they have a right to do that."

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Both Teegardin and Segal cited similar follow-ups, with day-after calls looking for "what they could have done differently." Segal got another call a few days later "in addition to the emails and regular mail" with special offers designed to bring her back.

What sort of offers do ex-customers receive? Most revolve around trying to suck you back into bundling services together--services you probably don't even need. "The funniest part had to be that with each other offer they were throwing in landline service as if it was some huge, huge perk," Teegardin recalled.

But in the end, it's really just sad. "They offered me a nice or so deal, which is sad that their regular or loyal customers have no access to," Teegadin told Motherboard. But the bottom line is they just "didn't understand" why someone would want to cancel.

Yep, the spurned ex looking to drag things out as long as possible. Just hoping for the chance to get the conversation going again to try and convince you that you should miss them.

How can you deal with it? Keep the break clean and ignore.