How to get some money back when your cable or internet goes down

When your cable and internet goes down, even temporarily, it can be a major hassle.

Imagine the scenario. You were just about to sit the kids down in front of their favorite cartoon and snag 30 minutes to yourself when you realize you’re out of luck. Or you hop on the internet to be the first in the virtual line to buy those concert tickets, only to discover you have no connection.

Having your cable and internet go down can be much more than a nuisance as well. If you work at home and depend on the internet for your job like me, an outage can translate to wages lost. On Nov. 6, customers across the country (myself included), found themselves without cable and internet, thanks to a “misconfiguration error.” Multiple providers were affected by the error, including Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, Cox and RCN.

If you were affected by the outage, it turns out you can actually get some money back.

Like almost everything these days, it turns out there’s an app for that. It’s called Trim, and it’s a bot that can act as your virtual financial assistant, handling everything from cancelling unused subscriptions to flagging refunds for price drops on Amazon to yes, negotiating your cable and internet bill. Trim works with a variety of providers, including Time Warner, Charter and Comcast.

People on Twitter seemed pretty satisfied with the product:

@ask_trim I thought trim pulled a quick one on me. I was wrong! Trim saved me $200 on my Comcast bill! I simply cant believe it. Thank You! pic.twitter.com/xtPzY5oqsm

— Schwifty (@Trmplstilskn00) October 20, 2017

@ask_trim Great work on my Comcast bill! Thanks for the $47 in savings!

— MrRoper (@JMD4733) October 16, 2017

Trim does take 25 percent of the savings, but it’s free to sign up.

Call Yourself

If you don’t want to leave it up to Trim (and/or you don’t want the app to take a cut of your refund), you can always pick up the phone and request a refund yourself. In fact, that’s what Comcast says you should do.

In the past, Comcast spokesman Steve Kipp has said that customers  should call the company to request a credit.

“Because outages impact customers differently—one customer may not even be home during an outage while another customer may have lost valuable work time—we prefer to work with customers individually to satisfy their concerns,” he told The Stranger.

Best of luck getting back some of your hard-earned cash!

[h/t The Penny Hoarder]