My cable company supplies me with cable tv, internet, cellular service and a land line. All on the same bill.

It's not that bad if internet is bundled together and OP has HD channels and a DVR. TV can get pretty expensive. That's why a lot of people are dropping cable and just subscribing to Netflix and Hulu...

Oh I guess that's true, I never thought about it that way. I don't watch TV, and only recently got internet at home, which is $50/month.

I have extreme speed internet, cable (200+ channels with all the movie channels) DVR & home phone. All $160 a month plus fees and taxes. It's pretty average compared among TV/Internet providers. But in OP's case, the refund check should go to them, not the roommate since they paid it. Smh.

Ya, we had cable (hd & specialty channels), dvr, high speed internet, landline and cellphones all from the same company. We just recently dropped our landline and cable because we were paying a fortune for it. Op could have something like that, or it could be bills that were accumulated over several months. It could be that the account changed 2 months ago, op payed for the last month, paid this month and then realized that everything was screwed, thus owing 2 months fees.

Refusing to pay a utility bill is an excellent way of guaranteeing that the utility will be turned off.

If OP refuses to pay, then the cable company can, and will, send the bill to a debt collector. The situation sucks, but OP tanking their credit score because of $170 would suck even more. It's better to pay the $170 now than to pay the $170 later and deal with the damage it will cause to their credit score. That damage can take years to fix.It's not like the cable company is going to be okay with them refusing to pay and forget about it. It won't matter to them if they lose OP as a customer as a result. One customer hardly makes a difference in a company that big, so they're going to do whatever it takes to get the money they're owed.

Tell that to the customer service reps who will practicaly come pleasure you to keep you using their service.

Cable providers are huge corporations. All they care about is making money, even if they have to stroke your ego a little bit and make you think they actually care to do it. At the end of the day, they aren't going to be crying over someone who is costing them money. It defeats the purpose of any business. If you leave, it's not like they're going to have any trouble finding a new customer to not only take your place, but a better one who won't cost them money by refusing to pay their bill

If I were you I would be speaking with with a manager about the fact that the account changed, and yet they didn't notify you of any change. Tell them you got nothing in the mail, no phone call, voicemail or email and then ask them how any of this is your fault if you weren't notified. I don't know how it is in the states, but with my cable company, they are really good at knocking down fees if you're unhappy with the service. They are in a huge rival with another top company here and know if you leave them, chances are you're going to the other big company. If you threaten to leave they usually throw in services or will allow a deduction that month because you're unhappy with the service. They're actually really good with doing stuff like that when something's gone wrong and it's why I continue to stick with them even when there's a problem.

Are you an undercover Dish Network employee?

DirecTV

That or CenturyLink. Worst company ever!

EX-roommate.

it is more likely the ex-roommate moved out since OP still has the cable service

....thus the address on the account should remain the same.