What happened to Fubo TV?

 

INSTANT VERDICT, SUBJECT TO CHANGE:
The Good: Wide selection of channels. Good selection of sports. 
The Bad: Slow streaming, scammy-feeling price increases, long hold times with customer service, wonky issues with your locality changing without warning. 
The Verdict: If you can make do with any other service (i.e., if you don't need sports) then go with the other service instead. 

Last year, we cut the cord in our household and signed up for Fubo TV. We were able to get all of the channels that we had with our old cable system for approximately half the price. For the first several months, we were quite happy with the service, even going so far as to recommend it to my parents.

After a while, we started noticing slowdowns and buffering. We use a Roku to stream, and the slowdowns were only happening on the Fubo app, and not on Youtube or any other streaming service. If the service didn't stop completely, the quality would drop down to what looked like 240p and was nearly unwatchable. Resetting the Roku to factory didn't help, neither did switching out the Roku for a new one. 

To add insult to injury, when I looked at this months bill, I found that it had increased from $79.99 to just shy of $100. 

Of course, I had been sending all of Fubo's emails directly to my spam folder, so I missed the notification. I did this because they sent an excessive number of emails. 

So naturally, I missed the one informing me of the rate increase. The justification was a $5 base rate increase to $84.99, plus a $10.99 increase for the "regional sports network", and an additional $3 for an additional RSN. Doesn't matter if you want it or not, or whether you watch it or not, if regional sports networks are included with your package (such as the Elite, which we subscribe to) you MUST pay the fee. It's not optional.  So, they'll advertise their price for the Elite as $84.99, but they'll add on the regional sports fee to push that right to $100. And that's not even the top level service.  

So, Fubo literally increased our rates by almost 25% overnight. That's scammy. 

Of course, they tell you that the fee isn't mandatory if you live in an area where there are no regional sports networks. How many areas in the country fit that description? I'll bet it's less than a dozen. 

Here's a good one...this evening, we noticed that our local networks had changed. I looked up the call letters on the ABC affiliate and found out that it was over 450 miles and a whole time zone away from my house. I was on hold for 1/2 hour before I could get the issue straightened out, and it involved a callback and an email to fix. 

Unfortunately, it's starting to feel a lot like the bad old days of cable and satellite. Bundling services you don't want, scammy business practices and phantom price increases. 

Disgraceful. If you don't need the sports programming, my advice is to look elsewhere.