Spectrum.com

The cable service is atrocious and is down at least every week. They say they're giving you a credit but you rarely get it. The customer service reps. are the most rude and obnoxious people I've ever dealt with. You ask to speak with a supervisor and once again, you're put on hold and good luck to you if you actually get through to one. When you do, it is excuse after excuse, after excuse. When we had Comcast here in LA, it was rarely down and when it was, you were credited immediately.

This is a prime example when monopolies are created and they are are left to their own devices without any real policing agency overseeing their shady practices. DO NOT sign up with Time Warner if you can at all help it.

SUMMARY OF PROBLEM From 6/14 to this writing (7/3) I have no digital cable. I have spent the last 3 Saturdays waiting for Time Warner technicians, with 1 or 2 more Saturdays to go. Two of the technicians have diagnosed the problem: the signal from the building’s cable room is too weak to run the digital cable box. The service to the building has to be upgraded. However, I can't get an appointment with Maintenance to do the upgrade. Instead, a third technician is scheduled to come this coming Saturday 7/5 to diagnose the problem again, then make a referral to Maintenance. So I think I won't get cable service until Saturday 7/12 (I work during the week so I can only let someone in on Saturdays.) .

CHRONOLOGY OF ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN DIGITAL CABLE

5/16/08 I called to arrange for digital cable TV service in my new apartment, made an appointment for 6/7/08.

6/7/08 A technician came to install the digital cable. He needed to get into the apartment building cable room and I didn’t have a key (didn’t know there was a locked room). My fault. I now have the key. I then called and made an appointment for 6/14. (I work Monday through Friday 8 to 6 so I can only let people in on the weekends.)

6/14/08 Another technician came. He installed the digital cable box. He said the signal from the building’s cable room was too weak to run the digital box. He said the service to the building would have to be upgraded and made an appointment for me for 6/21.

6/17/08 I came home from work to find a phone message from a technician who had tried to come by that morning to fix the cable. I called the main office and explained I work during the week from 8 to 6 so I can only do it on weekends. She said they’d had a crew free and tried, but I was still on for Saturday 6/21 between 10 and 7 because it was a major rewiring.

6/21/08 At 1:30 I called to see when and if the technician was coming. The first person I spoke to said
a) there was no record I had an appointment [despite what the 6/17/08 person had told me],
b) that I must have “made a special arrangement with Maintenance, ” and
c) that there was no way I could get in touch with Maintenance by phone to see when and if they were coming. I said I didn’t want to yell at her but I needed to speak to a supervisor because she was not giving me the information I needed to solve my problem. She said I could yell at the supervisor and transferred me. The second person I spoke to said his records showed that a technician had come on 6/18, fixed the cable, and that the service order was closed, therefore nobody was coming on 6/21. I asked how someone had gotten into the locked building and locked room to fix it and why, if the problem had been fixed, I still couldn’t get internet service or digital cable. He tried sending signals to the digital box but it would not display any picture or information, so we set up an appointment for 6/28.

6/28/08 Another technician came. I told him the story on the digital cable box. He discovered that the cable box brought by the 6/14 technician was not working and changed the box. He also looked at the cable room in the building and agreed with the 6/14 technician that the cable service within the building did not provide an adequate signal for my digital cable (so obviously the claim that the problem had been fixed on 6/18 was incorrect). He called someone at Netsource Communications and suggested they send someone the same day to see if an amp could be installed in the cable room, otherwise
Maintenance would have to come and change out the cable. He said Netsource would call me back within an hour but he left me a phone number. I called them an hour later and spoke to someone who said he would get back to me within 5 minutes. He never called back.

6/30/08 I called the main Time Warner number to make an appointment with Maintenance for the cable change out. After 40 minutes on hold I spoke to a supervisor. First he said the record showed I’d already had a visit from Maintenance on 6/18. I explained that was not true because: there was nobody here to let them into the locked building lobby, there was nobody here to let them into the locked cable room, I still can’t get digital cable, and the 6/28 technician confirmed the work had not been done. The supervisor then said the 6/28 technician had not written a referral to Maintenance so he would have
to send a third technician over on 7/5 to diagnose the problem (yet again) and write a referral to Maintenance. He said he would send an e-mail to the 6/28 technician to see if he could get the Maintenance referral from him and someone would call and let me know. He said if he didn’t manage to get in touch with the 6/28 technician, to let the 7/5 technician know he/she should write a referral to Maintenance on the work order. Maintenance would then come the following Saturday, 7/12. I asked if I could talk to this person’s supervisor to see if we could skip the step of the technician coming for the 3rd diagnosis of the same problem and just go straight to the Maintenance appointment, but he said his supervisor would not be able to do anything.

As it stands now, a third technician is scheduled to come to my apartment on 7/5, diagnose the same problem for the third time, and give me a referral to Maintenance. I've e-mailed Customer Service to ask them to get Maintenance to come on 7/5 instead, so I can get service this weekend, but all I got was a rote reply saying how much Time Warner cares about customer service, but a field technician has to come out to schedule a maintenance appointment. I also wrote this whole saga to the TWC Executive VP of Operations for the West Division, pointing out that this fiasco is costing them money for multiple visits for the same problem, plus I won't pay for service that I'm not getting. So far no response.

Charter cable have bad service both in picture quality and customer service. We are switching from Direct TV to Charter Cable because they were offering the Cable TV, Internet and Phone service bundle. It's cheaper by $10.00 from our previous providers combined. Very bad decision. First, when they installed, they used Direct TV's existing cable that goes inside our house and to the TVs. After installation, the picture quality was so bad and the internet was not working. We waited for some days for it to improve and start working properly, no luck. They sent another technician to look into the problem, he got the internet working but the picture quality was still bad. He said it's their line, so wait for few more days for it to improve--We are not willing to wait few more days to get results! We were okay with Direct TV if not for that $10.00! So we called to get it disconnected. The rep specifically said that they will put back out Direct TV service but when the technician came he said his instructions was to just pick-up the box and modem. He cannot reconnect Direct TV because it is not their service. I totally understand, but we were promised something that they cannot do! We would have understood if it was explained properly in the first place. I hate Charter!