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Reviews and Complaints

Time Warner just finished its "Roll Over or Get Tough" Campaign against the Fox channels regarding prices increases for Fox programming (Dec. 2009) in order to "hold our bills down."

This month (Jan. 2010) my cable bill from Time Warner was INCREASED by TEN DOLLARS! I called the TW billing department and it was explained to me that in 2009 I had been receiving a "special discount" of $10 each month for the year. How "strange" that no one had ever told me about this before!

I called again and spoke with a different person in the billing department and was told FLAT OUT that the $10 increase in my bill was due to a RATE INCREASE. Hmmm. now which of the two billing reps was lying to me?

I decided to call customer service and explained the two different responses I had received from the billing department. Now she told me that, indeed, I had been receiving a "special discount." I then asked her why I had NOT been told about this discount and its expiration date when I signed up with TW and why this "special discount" had NEVER appeared on my bill as a $10 credit. I then asked her to send me the documentation indicating that I had, indeed, received this "special discount" and when it expired. She told me, "We do not put things like that in writing." WHAT?

I guess, Time Warner puts as little as possible in writing so they can change the terms of their agreements with you as they see fit, whenever it suits them or whenever they want to SCREW YOU and raise your bill!

And, this is not the first time the employees of Time Warner have lied to me. I have battled with them over having to change my password to my email (almost monthly) because I could not get into my Roadrunner email (actually it should be called Road"Crawler") with my regular password. That is just one of the problems I have had with Time Warner's RoadCRAWLER. And, EVERY TIME I have called with a problem with RoadCRAWLER, Time Warner has blamed it on MY computer. They have NEVER taken any responsibility for ANY problems I have had with their internet service nor their cable service.

Our cable service was going off regularly about once a week, but THAT was not their problem either. They even blamed THAT on everything else- weather or signals or whatever- I can't remember ALL of their "excuses." Once, we were without cable for EIGHT DAYS as we had to WAIT for them to come out and fix it. For a few months, our picture on the upper channels kept breaking up into little squares and were totally unwatchable- even though they had "made the proper repairs."

BUT, their customers service people sure are GOOD at saying how "sorry" they are that you are experiencing problems. And that is all they are good for!

I am currently researching services to replace Time Warner and I am sure that ANYTHING will be better than the service I have received from TW. I am sure I will have a lot of free time on my hands in the future since I won't have to be "on hold" waiting to speak with the useless people that TW calls their customer services reps.

This is a complaint. this is the worst customer serivce i have ever experienced.

- No one takes ownership, every promised call back is never made and noone returns a call. 2 appointments have been made and noone has showed up. We ave wasted 10 hrs of our cell phone time being shuffled around and 24 hrs waiting for failed appointments.

- Mid August - Appointment made 15 days in advance, $10 fee
- Late August - Found out appointment never made, complain about $10 we lost, set new appointment. promise to call back and no call back
- early septemeber, 1 week later: we called to confirm to make sure we had appointment and we find out appointment was dropped. promise to call back and no call back
- mid september, 1 week later: we go ahead and try setting an appointment again that will be in 2 weeks
- mid september, i call and complain about this experience and i never get a call back
- late september day of final appointment: no one shows up. we call and cust service rep tells us tech lied and put down that they showed up at 8am but left no notes which shows they didn't do anything. they promise to call back and don't

Can we get some competency here? ownership? accountability? does anyone know what they are doing?

I am going to the better business bureau and will do my part to make sure people use their other tv provider options before wasting their time with Time Warner.

Anyone who's done business with TWC knows that their customer service is non-existant. Complaints do no good. Here's the solution: I contacted the FCC and was told that complaints need to be directed to Time Warner's local franchising authority for your area. Time Warner keeps this information a closely-guarded secret. I ultimately had to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau to get TWC to divulge the name. In Texas it happens to be the Texas Public Utilities Commission. Find out who that franchising authority is in your area and file a formal complaint.

Maybe if enough people do that TWC will change their ways. They're long overdue for a reality check.

Though I was assured an hdmi capable box when upgrading our charter cable service to hd, they were never able to produce one. An installer showed up with a component only box and tried to tell me that there is no difference between an hdmi and component connection to the tv. Fact is there is one big difference, hdmi is a true digital feed to the tv whereas component is a digital signal converted to analogue, then back to digital in the lcd tv's circuit. Some may not notice the quality hit from all of that transcoding, but I do and besides I was assured hdmi by their sales person, so just do it. I finally cancelled the upgrade after days of haggling with incompetent customer service reps who could only apologize then try to up-sell me on their "bundle" package. Yeah, right.

Charter is the worst cable provider i've come across, they make an excellent case for the dish.

Today Charter changed out our old boxes for new ones, they are doing this in my town in the state of Massachusetts. They said we are getting 7 new channels but what they didn't tell us is that they took away about 25 channels. After calling them, they now tell us if we want the digital view it will be $5 and for the whole digital view plus it will be $10 a month. This is unfair and deceptive. 10 minutes ago I was watching G4 and now that they switch out to a different box, the channel number changes and I have to pay for it. To name a few of the channels they now want us to pay for:

G4, BBC, Planet Green, DIY, Discovery Health, IFC, Sundance, Fuse, Biography, Military Channel...All these channels where included in my current line-up 10 minutes ago, now I have to pay $10 more a month for them. I think I will get the town together and have a class action lawsuit filed against them.

I have never been so aggravated in my life! Charter Communications is SO FAR behind in CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS they should not even be in business! I paid a bill over the phone a week ago for $85.85 and the young man who took my payment was laughing and talking to someone else the whole time (very rude and not doing his job). Anyhow the next day I went online to my online banking statement and realized that not only did he take out $85.85, he also withdrew $142.94 UNAUTHORIZED for a bill that wasn't even mine!

So you would think when you call a normal company like Comcast (wish they were in my area) that they would be very apologetic and credit your debit card and apologize for the error, right? OH NO! Instead I was on the phone for 2 hours getting bounced around to a million agents and supervisors who kept pushing me off on someone else. They kept saying they had no record of taking the money. Well duh, you didn't credit it to my bill, you credited to someone else but took it from my account.

So then I am given a fax# to a supposed "cash mgmt" dept and I was told to dfax them the bank statement as proof and they would credit my account. Nope, 2 days and alot of stress later, I heard nothing. Well at this point I have outstanding checks that haven't cleared and I know once they hit I am going to be hit with "insufficient fees" so I keep desperately calling Charter. I finally speak to someone else about the issue and they give me a different # to fax the info to, so I do that and NOTHING! Then I fax over my bank info so they can contact my bank to verify...still nothing. Now at this point it has been a week and NOONE cares that money was stolen from a valued customer and noone wants to help clear up the situation either.

Finally on the 7th day I speak to a girl, who seems to care (a little) and talks to her supervisor. Well again, I am given a 3rd number to fax over all the information to and my bank even faxes a letter. They call me back and tell me that they need the transmittal # on the withdrawal from my bank, so they can find out who the withdrawal was credited to. FIRST OF ALL, I do not care who it was credited to, it is NOT my problem, they made the mistake, so they should refund my money and then launch their dumb little investigation into that on their own. So I ask my bank and they insist that they do not get a transmittal number along with the w/d transaction, justa trace number. So needless to say Charter again says they cannot help me with out that.

Can you believe it? They have 2 letters from my bank, my bank statement and all the verification they need to credit my debit card and they still will not. How do you figure that works for them? I mean clearly..when I get my money back I will be immediately cancelling thier service and going with Verizon, who I am POSITIVE would not put me through this and waste all of our time for 7 days. Just wondering how this works for Charter? I mean they basically stole from a customer, then they continued to show POOR service skills by not apologizing and refunding my money and now I stand to bounce 3 checks because of this because they have not cleared yet. So those will cost $29 each (bank fee) and then probably $25 each (fees from those who I wrote the checks to) and believe me when I tell you Charter will end up paying for all of it. So again, how does this work for them? By not doing the right thing and refunding my money they 1. will lose my business 2. have to pay at least 6 insuff fund fees on 3 checks. 3. I have filed an affidavit with my bank accusing them of unauthorized transactions 4. filed a negative consumer report 5. Blogged everywhere that I could about the situation to warn others.
I will just never understand...pathetic.

Around 6 months ago I was offered a deal, which required me to sign a year agreement with time warner, that lowered my bill. This offer was a loyalty offer to keep me as a customer because another company was coming into town. Time warner told me that it would be transferable if I were to move. I then moved about a month ago, but I move out of the state and outside of time warners marketing area. On October 3rd I called customer service and spoke to a rep who said that I would owe a cancelation fee. I found this unacceptable since the only reason I was canceling was because that could not transfere their product to my new address. I then told the rep I wanted my cable shut off on the last day of the billing cycle (Oct. 25) She then put me on hold and a man came on the phone. He stated that I would not owe a cancelation fee due to the pricing program that I was in, and then asked when I would like to have my cable canceled. I was not moving till the 1st of November so I had him extend my service till then. That cost me an extra $27 dollars. Well, on November 27th I decided that it would be a good idea to check my bill online. It showed a $95 early termination fee on it. I called time warner and they said there was no record of the man I had talked to saying that I would not have to pay the fee. I feel taken advantage of by this company and I would never do business with them again. I have sice filed complaints with both the BBB, and the Public Utilties Commission.

I signed up for Time Warner Cable service for my phone, TV and internet and was promised a $300 rebate for either gas or groceries through Saveology. The two appeared to be connected (Time Warner and Saveology). Their printed materials promise a voucher will arrive in 6 to 8 weeks. It has now been over 7 months since I sent in my request (with first month bill from Time Warner attached) and I have called them 5 times, been told each time that it is "being sent any time now", but it never arrives. I was also told that it was already mailed out but I must have missed it because it looks like "junk mail". However, I am sure that was just another lie. This is a phony offer, stay away from it. I don't understand how Time Warner allows this to continue to be tied to their name, very disreputable.

Earlier this year my wife was sexually harassed by a time warner cable technician that came to our house. As to date nothing has been done to resolve this situation, despite people at time warner telling us otherwise. We have had nothing but issues with this company lying to us, giving us the run around and playing games. Not to mention our service issues with them. The only reason we have time warner still is because they have a monoply in the area and you can't use anyone else. To this date our phone, internet and cable still do not work properly. Do not trust anything this company tells you

Internet services is slow as molasses. Great variance in download/upload/ping results, i.e., 2.06/1.06/19. Slow download and upload. Constant problem since installation over two weeks ago. There help line is worthless. Told by the person responding, " I don't know anything about the internet; I deal with cable. I will transfer you to India!" This is disgusting service. You get an Indian who doesn't know which end to wipe or blow. I am going to pursue my compliants higher up. The service is not user friendly.

Just a warning about this company. For the past 3 years since they came into the Pendleton area the service has been poor. I subscribe to the entire package -phone and every evening between 6 PM Pacific and 1 AM Pacific download speeds dropped to less than 1 meg on a 20 Mb connection. During the summer time however this issue didn't seem so bad. Dropping but not near as bad. Now after 3 years they tell me last week they added a new node to the north hill because there was so many people on the other node that it was causing poor speeds. However upload speed (which by the way during the 3 years has always been a solid 2 megs up) decides to be the speed dropping and download speeds remain solid at 18 plus megs. The technician who showed up last week did a drum test and found the SNR and USNR signals flucuating badly between 17 and 28 flucts per 10 min period. He said they would correct the issue within 48 hours and to call back if they didn't fix. Well here it is a week later and I just got hung up on 3 times while trying to speak with a supervisor or at least someone who what DRUM report rx/tx snr and usnr meant. While on the phone I told them not to reset the modem as it would cut the call. They reset it anyway. Then in the 2nd call they actually transfered me to someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about until he said ok all your signals are fine so I don't know what to tell you. The issue isnt the signals its the SNR/USNR I tell him and he then hangs up. I've had it with the poor service this company provides and really wish comcast or verizon would come to my area. In the cable dept I have a dvr and can't begin to tell you how many inccorect shows have been recorded or cut short on recording or even worse have the EBS emergency broadcasting signals in them.

Time Warner cable has for some time been providing TERRIBLE service to cable card customers by removing channels and not crediting for lost service and generally not providing quality cable service. In the latest problem, they sent out a cable card update in the middle of the day which causes the TV to display a black screen with an "Updating Firmware", "Updating Channel List" message and nothing else. My $1000 plus HD TV is reduced to a boat anchor. The advice of their tech support was first to wait a couple hours. Next was to schedule a call sometime in the middle of the next day. Since both my wife and I work and Time Warner habitually misses calls I found this unacceptable. They have not yet been able to fix a cable card problem with a service call. The problems are always in the head end. Time Warner has virtually nobody in the entire company who knows anything at all about cable cards. They would prefer to sell you a box. Terrible company. I wish there was a viable alternative

Charter ad at www.charterspecial.com promotes TRIPLE PLAY special: Charter Cable TV® * 70+ Channels including all local channels * Get the shows you want in crystal clear quality * Upgrade to Digital Home and get On Demand included, plus you can add premium channels! Charter High-Speed® Internet * Up to 5Mbps speed * Up to 90X faster than 56kbps dial-up * More than 3X faster than 1.5Mbps DSL Charter Telephone® * Talk all you want for one low price! Get unlimited local and long distance calling in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico plus voicemail and 10 popular calling features all included for Only $69.97/mo.for 12 months with $150 REBATE. On the website and through the process of ordering the services on the phone, no where and no one mentioned it not 70+ channels but 20 channels (it only says Cable TV Limited Basic, if you know what that means). Only after ordering the services and only when I was scheduling the installation (a separated call) was I told that it included only 20 channels. I went back to the webpage with the ad and confirmed that it did clearly say 70+ channel. I then called Charter again to claim for the 70+ channel service instead of 20 channels. But after long and arduous reasoning and escalating to the supervisors, they still refuse to honor what was advertised. This is a scam, or at least a deceiptive advertisement. I want Charter to honor what it advertises!

Time Warner Cable is temporarily disconnecting users without notice based on emailed 3rd-party allegations of "making available".

The user is given ZERO means to contest the allegations, and is forced to click through a web page stating that they understand the problem and will correct it, if they wish to regain internet service. This page is presented to the user if they open any browser, all other software/applications remain disconnected. (Image attached, typos and all.)

These emailed allegations are based on IP presence on certain BitTorrent trackers, regardless of actual data transferred and are coming from a company in California called BayTSP.

Merely connecting to a BitTorrent tracker does not constitute "making available", and certainly doesn't equate to distribution. Furthermore, according to current U.S. case law, making available does not constitute copyright infringement.

I had Time Warner Cable TV service. I decided to add Roadrunner and Digital Phone service. It was installed on October 23, 2007. As soon as the installer walked out the door, I had no Roadrunner or phone service.

The first service man was out on October 27, 2007, to fix it and it worked for one minute after he left, and it was out again. Then a third service man came. He was very thorough and said that if it does not work now, it is not going to work. It took about and hour and it didn't work.

On November 10, 2007, just 2 weeks and a couple days after the install, I called Time Warner and told them I wanted to cancel the Roadrunner and digital phone service. I disconnected the phone, returned the Modem plus a TV Box they said I needed and charged me $5.00/mth for to the local office. My phone company said that to keep my phone number, which I've had since I moved here, Time Warner has to "port" the number back to them. I called TWC about this and they said it will take about 10 days. They never ported it back and I finally had to have my phone number changed. This was a problem because I have a non-published, non-listed phone number, so now nobody knew my phone number.

On November 23, 2008, the company of my choice installed the phone with a new number and for the first time in a month I had a phone.

Then the bills started coming. For their service from October 23, 2007 to November 10, 2007, my first bill due December 10 was $294.99. I called and they told me I had to talk to a supervisor, BUT, there are no supervisors around, they will call me back in no more than 2 days. No Supervisor ever called back. I did send in $65.00 for what I thought should cover the TV Cable.

Then the payment due January 10, 2007, was $454.91. How did it go up $159.92 when all I had was TV service and I paid for that. Again I called, they couldn't figure it out and said a supervisor will call back, never did. Again I did pay $65.00 for the TV cable service.

Then I started coming home to messages on my voicemail saying it was Time Warner and I better call them back or they will "interrupt my service". There were 3 to 4 messages per day. I knew that I was paying for the TV and that was the only service I had. I couldn't deal with them on the phone anymore. It was really making me physically sick. It was like talking to a wall.

Finally on February 13, 2008, the service was turned off. I could live with that, but I cannot even get my local channels without paying $6.71 for "basic" service. I called again that day and they said the only way I can get my service turned back on was to pay them $294.99 for service I never had.

In addition to these ridiculous bills, I lost 3 days of work waiting on their service men (I am payed hourly); I also work at home at night on the phone. Needless to say, without a phone for three weeks I had a substantial loss on that and almost lost the job. In total I have suffered a wage loss of approximate $1, 000 over this.

I just want my TV back!

Value Buzz Savings Club offer of $300 in groceries at my favorite grocery chain if you signed up and and Timewarner service was activated in your home you were given a activation code to go to www.claimyourvisacards.com to register yourself. After I registered they sent me to www.valuebuzz.com. I'm supposed to print a voucher each month for 12 months. Then I mail the voucher in along with $100 of grocery receipts and they are supposed to send me a visa card containing $25. I sent in the voucher with receipts for MARCH'09 and I'm still waiting for my visa card. Also, now I can't access their website and their phone is a nonworking number. Who do I report this scam to?

I have been a Time Warner cable customer for a number of years. For years now, I have been making post dated payments for my bill because they cannot debit my checking account on the specific date I required based on when I receive a monthly disability check. So, my arrangement with them was for me to call them monthly, or wait until they called me, so that I could give them my debit card for payment for a specific date.

Their customer service has always been lacking, but yesterday I found they've added a new wrinkle. I called "customer service" two days ago to make my usual arrangements for a post-dated payment. The young lady took my info. I asked twice if the payment would come out on the designated date and that my service would remain on. Both times she said, "Yes." Although I was a little uncomfortable with this rep's response, I took her word that she had performed what ever task Time Warner requires her to do to prevent the interruption of my service. ... WRONG !

Yesterday morning, my service was interrupted. I called "customer service" and spoke to a woman who did take the time to review my payment history, confirm that I did indeed make payments every 3rd Wednesday of the month, apologized and restored my service. I thought, "OK, problem solved."

WRONG! Guess what, my service was off again this morning. So, I went through the same routine again and called Customer Service. The rep I reached this morning would not re-connect my service because the rep that I spoke to last week did not enter the post-dated info correctly, and if I was unwilling to make a payment today, my service would not be restored. I was directed to call "Collections" again.

Again, I called "Collections." I had left a message yesterday morning for a callback because you cannot speak to a human being when you call. You must wait for a callback. Well, they called this morning. I reached the phone too late, tried to call back, once again I got the recording to leave a message.

It takes 24 hours for a callback from a supervisor. And, if you are on another line with another call, or, as in my case, outside talking to a neighbor, you will have to wait another 24 hours for your call to be returned.

I am going to wisely use my 24 hours. As soon as I complete this entry I am calling AT&T to have them install U-Verse.