Experiences with bill negotiation services?

July 31, 2021 11:27 AM

What are your experiences with bill negotiation services like Truebill or similar? Have they successfully negotiated cheaper internet service for you? These services work by taking a portion of the savings they negotiate. Over what length of time is that calculated?

This is firmly in the category of "things one can do for oneself", but I hate telephones, fear confrontation and while I had an appointment at the Spectrum store to try to negotiate more than a year ago (having been told by people in my neighborhood to go in person rather than phone), I cancelled it due to the pandemic and have never rescheduled. And, honestly, I'd be willing to pay someone to just get it done.

A few notes:

• I don't really want advice on doing this myself
• I can't change ISPs, so there's no leverage there.
• Internet service is the one bill I have to negotiate, unless ConEd is magically going to give me a break. (My cell phone is on a family plan and honestly my brother needs to renegotiate the split with me--I'm getting a good deal right now.)

posted by hoyland to Work & Money (2 answers total)

Not sure about Truebill, but you can lower your ConEd bill. ConEd is both a service provider/distribution network as well as energy provider. You can switch who you buy your energy from. ConEd is obligated to deliver from whomever you choose. I think ConEd is the default. Some decide to go green and only buy from say wind or solar. That may be more expensive. My point is you can shop for better rates or for how your mix of electricity is generated.
posted by AugustWest at 12:54 PM on July 31, 2021

I did Billshark which is similar to Truebill - they did reduce my internet bill by $20 a month and it worked ok, but paying them 20% of the reduction for the 2 year contract all at once was annoying and made me feel like I wasn't saving anything at all.

They also renegotiated my cell phone bill and it ended up being a pretty significant change from unlimited to limited data which I didn't realize until I went over the data limit one month and my bill almost doubled. I needed to call back and have ATT&T switch me back to my previous plan.

Overall it was not worth it for me
posted by elvissa at 10:29 AM on August 1, 2021