Some victories taste sweeter when you win them against corporate stubbornness. A Redditor from upstate New York shared a story that perfectly captures that feeling—the kind that makes you grin every time you pay a bill.
When he and his wife moved into their first home, their internet provider was dangling an irresistible “new customer” promotion: faster service for half the price.
But when he asked for the same deal as an existing customer, the company smugly declined. What happened next turned into a masterclass in harmless, hilarious revenge and Reddit users are loving every second of it.
A husband and wife in upstate New York discovered what happens when bureaucracy meets creativity
Economists call it the “loyalty penalty”, a phenomenon where long-term customers end up paying more than newcomers.
According to a 2022 Consumer Reports investigation, many telecom and insurance companies quietly raise rates over time, betting on customers’ inertia.
A UK Competition and Markets Authority study found that loyal broadband users were paying up to 20% more than new signups for identical service.
Behavioral finance researcher Dr. Stephen Wendel from Morningstar explains this perfectly: “Companies rely on the friction of switching, paperwork, hassle, uncertainty to keep customers from leaving.”
It’s not incompetence; it’s design. When customers threaten to cancel, retention teams are trained to follow rigid scripts that keep discounts exclusive to new accounts.
From a consumer-ethics standpoint, what the Redditor did wasn’t wrong, it was smart negotiation within a broken system. By waiting for his contract to expire, he avoided any legal breach and simply created a genuinely new account under his wife’s name. “Gaming the system” in this case was just reclaiming fairness from a monopoly that relied on customer fatigue.
In markets with minimal competition, like regional internet providers, these micro-rebellions are often the only form of leverage consumers have.
As The Verge once reported, many U.S. ISPs operate as de facto monopolies, leaving millions of households with just one available option. For those customers, “cancel and reapply” becomes not deceit but survival.
So the next time a rep insists you can’t get the new customer rate, remember this story. The power isn’t always in confrontation, it’s in creativity, timing, and knowing the rules better than the rulemakers.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
These Redditors celebrated OP’s clever workaround, calling out how cable companies often punish loyalty instead of rewarding it
This pair shared detailed strategies for cycling new customer discounts, alternating account holders, returning old equipment, and reusing network names
This commenter added humor with a classic legend
These users criticized the system itself, pointing out how monopolies exploit customers and force pointless retention scripts
These commenters shared similar tales of unfairness and small wins
Would you have done the same? Or do you think companies are justified in protecting “new customer” deals? Either way, it’s a good reminder that sometimes the best way to win is to play by their rules, better than they do.
