Time Warner Cable, you're the best.

We have tried not to use the blog for personal rants, but we have not always succeeded. This morning we are not succeeding.  We're filing from a Starbucks -- for the second morning in a row -- because our Internet service, provided by Time Warner Cable, is down. Off. Kaput. Not working. No cable either.

They fixed the problem yesterday, but there is a new problem today.

We mention this because, well, it seems to happen often. If you added up all the problems we have had with all the other services and products in our home -- the two cars, the electricity, the Apple laptops, the two cellphones, the land line phone, the heat, the water -- the total inconvenience wouldn't come anywhere close to the problems we've had with good old Time Warner Cable.  We rarely had problems with Adelphia, by the way.

So -- anybody out there care to weigh in on the quality of cable service? Just wondering.

Comments

[Alan]

I recently moved to an apartment in the County of LA (unincorporated part of Whittier) and set up Time Warner Cable service. It took them 1 month to set up my cable after I had already moved in. I was supposed to have cable service within 3 days of moving in.

I called repeatedly and even stayed home several times missing work in the process so that I would be there. But every time, they could not get my cable up and running. Their technicians finally figured out the problem after 1 month. The solution was flipping a switch or changing a wire or something (I don't remember). I do remember the solution was very simple. Why it took 1 month to figure this out I have no idea. After they had installed cable, Time Warner asked if I wanted internet. I told them to get lost because my internet from Verizon was already up and running weeks ago.

[Gerald Zollar]

Time Warner (Optel service account)

2 June 2008

North Division
Time Warner Cable
Customer Care Communications
9260 Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Chatsworth, CA 91311
South Division*
Time Warner Cable
Customer Care Communications
3430 E. Miraloma Ave.
Anaheim, CA 92806

c/o Office of the Corporate Secretary
Time Warner Inc.
One Time Warner Center
New York, NY 10019
One Time Warner Center, North Tower
New York, NY 10019
Phone 212.364.8200 1 CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone 404.827.1700

Not having a clear entity which to send my concerns to I have to mail to as many as I think is sufficient to have my issues addressed. Optel has no website or other contact information and I have no idea how to contact them if I should.
Is there a statistical relevance here? If this is happening to me how many others are having the same problems. I realize this may not be an issue for legal recourse but when is the kind of customer service portrayed here going to become a class action?
There are issues with the technical service and the customer service of the company with which I have no other choice but to use their service.
Because of the location of my apartment I can not use and satellite based services such as DISH or DIRECTV. The owner of the building will not allow wired cable access, while the only thing I can do is to move, a lack of television service does not validate the expense and trouble. So I am struck with Time Warner-Optel. Since Optel business is to set service in MDU’s is appears they have an arrangement with the owner that may or may not be considered exclusive.
On occasion the signal received wavers momentarily or I will lose connection to a particular channel completely. Now on 22 May 2008 my channels degraded and the signal was lost completely to all non-broadcast channels. 2,4,5,7,9,11,and 13 I was able to receive then the AM stations channels 2 to 5 loss signal strength then reception. This was follow in two more days by a complete loss of signal.
My calls for service to Time Warner were, in the beginning, well handled.
Then, all day Friday I spent in the house waiting for a service person to show, the service person was a no show.
• Am I expected to put my life on hold?
• Why can’t service be scheduled like the utility companies AM or PM instead of all day?
• Why can’t a call be placed if no one is going to make it?
• My time was wasted for no results, except a customer representative saying “I’m sorry.”
• It makes the whole company look sorry after many calls for the same problem.
My work order number, 619539 has been handled poorly.
Are the field service people overworked? Too many calls and territory for one person to adequately cover in the ten hours allotted 0900 to 1900? What is the problem that in two days one service visit cannot be made in a timely manner..
Added to this is the customer representatives were giving me dollar credit on my account that they could not give in the stated amounts.
I only found out that the approximately $93.71 in billing credits that I had been offered for my ‘inconvenience’ was only offered to mollify me and was not in reality any credit at all. This is a very poor customer service tactic.
You will note that the representative Delance said he would connect me to the Supervisor then I was placed back into the phone cue and forgotten, again !
You have me as a customer solely because I have no other choice.
At least I should get decent service for the dollars I spend.
On 06/03/2008 I called, again, this time I got a representative in Costa Rica. The major a difference is in the appointment time that was set. How is it that an appointment in Costa Rica was set at 8-10AM and all the people in the Los Angeles area can only set appointments on an 9A to 7P basis? Something is very wrong with that.
So lets recap the time I have wasted, Friday 30 May 0900 A to 1900P, Saturday 1300 to 1900, Monday 0800 to 1000 is this what you expect of your customers? Why?
So I now have my antenna with limited reception but no headaches. Maybe that is best, yes?
It does appear that many other people have had my problems?
http://mayorsam2.blogspot.com/2007/05/
customer-complaint-to-time-warner-cable.html
How many people have to go through this before the company tightens up its customer service?
If you came to my place of business you would expect excellent, even superior service, as you lay in a bed hoping to get better, and I would deliver.

I am looking forward to a response that is not a form letter and addresses my concerns.

Concerned:
Gerald
What follows is a log listing of telephone conversations’, not in detail, that I had between 24 May 2008 and 2 June 2008.

I did not start off recording the names and call centers of the representatives on the telephone.

problems started 23 May
Work Order #619539

Call # one:
24 May 2008 0815
no tech until 30 May
1. Credit for three days
22,23,24 from my first call ( my calculations @ approx $0.765 based on 30 days of service)
on the second call
2. Credit for the month of June 22.95

then another Rep gave
3. Credit of $60.00

Marquis 1245
1 888 892 2253
I gave him name and address then he wanted a CDL# each one asks for different info.
I hung up as I was upset with all of this nonsense.

Solomon 05/31/2008 1250 needed phone # to pull up acct
\on hold 1300 - 1301
Tech #5669
4. $10.00 credit added for this call
beginning of billing cycle 1st of June credit starts

Nijima (Ni –he-ma)
1600 switched me to

Linda
Stated that Tech #5669 was to show up 31 May 2008
ref# 727002 (is this a call reference?)

06/02/2008 1125
1132 Laura
1138 ask to speak to Supv.
20 hours spent waiting for service tech Friday and Saturday how long must I wait.
• Mike Supervisor lied to me said he would speak with a dispatcher, put me on hold from 1148 to 1220 when I hung up and called back.
Will speak to Dispatcher
1148 lost back into the phone cue 1220 on hold until I hung up and called again.
93.71 credit to date.
Service call rescheduled, again, for today.

Lucy Ontario
1223
1226 went to get another Supv.
Stella 1228
she guaranteed the service call
• Statements of credits validated by Stella in Ontario.
2.96 24 may
20.00 29th
22.95 30th
1.48 Three days? Of credit?
Stella added $13.00 = 60.00 maximum credit
1243 end of call
It is now 1600 hours 2 June 2008 and no one has shown up, this is the third day?

0952 06/03/2008
Delance North Div.
1003 To switch me to
Stella
Placed on hold again 1003 until ?? 1023 hung up called again, Why is this necessary?

1024 connected to computer with poor voice recognition, I had to repeat each number several times.
Crystal South Costa Rica
No service call next is between 8A 10A conf#764336

[Bryan]

Here is a log of the events that have transpired in the past week with Time Warner Cable Company in Southern California, my neighbor, and myself.

On June 21 I turned 28. I decided for a birthday gift I would purchase a TiVO Series 3 DVR with HD. I thought how I will be able to use this when we get home since I did not have the cable card for it. I know the Motorola DVR box provided by the cable company did have a multi cast cable card, or m-card for short. I called 888-TW-CABLE on 6/21 09:49 PM. I asked the rep if I could take the card out of the old box and put it in my TiVo HD. He said it was not a problem. I removed the card out of the old box and put it in my new box. It was only receiving channels 2-13 in SD and HD. He sent a signal to my box a couple of times and it is all working. I thanked him for his time and went on to setting up the TiVo and setting up the programs I wanted to record.

On Friday, June 27, I decided to take the old cable box to the Time Warner Cable Store located at 1565 S. Harbor Blvd in Fullerton. After waiting in line I was helped by Bob to return my equipment. As he was scanning it in I informed him that this box doesn't have an m-card since I am using it in my TiVo. He gave me this blank look and told me that the equipment is damaged. I told him that is what the phone rep told me I could do and it's not damaged, the card is working fine in my TiVo. After some back and forth he went to get his supervisor, Jane. I explained the situation again to her and she told me the equipment is now damaged since I am not supposed to remove the card from the box. Since the card and the box are linked to each other if one is removed it causes both to stop working. Her exact words were, "Once you remove the card from the box both the card and box self destruct." I explained to her again that the card is still working fine in my TiVo and I have been recording shows with it. If it was not supposed to work why did the phone rep activate it? She said as of right now the equipment is considered damaged and I will have to wait until Monday while they investigate. In the mean time while I have been talking, Bob took that opportunity to deactivate the card I was using in my TiVo. They informed me I need to bring back the old card and they will issue me a new card. They took the equipment away, the receipt I already signed, and wouldn't issue me a proper card until I brought the old card back. I was so upset at this whole ordeal I was shaking while I was driving home. I got the card out of my TiVo and before I went back to that Time Warner Cable Store I made a copy of all the information on the M-Card.

As I was driving back some things didn't add up. If the mere act of removing something, that itself is designed to be modular, destroys the card and the equipment it came from then why was the card still working? If I was never supposed to do this and they feel that there was some miscommunication then why did the phone rep never ask me where did I get the card from or stop me and say you can't remove the card from the old box? That one is a puzzler since Bob at the Time Warner Cable Store said you can purchase these M-Cards anywhere including circuit city. I think it would be important to make sure that the cards are set up properly. Finally my last question to them was, well now that I brought the card back can we hook it up to see if it is damaged? Their reply was absolutely not. They have to send it back to the warehouse. I asked them again and they refused to test the equipment right then and there to see how damaged it actually is. It seems like that would be something you would want to do to prove to the customer that is actually damaged instead of you saying it was damaged without proving it to me.

Well I did get my new card and the only difference? The old card had a red label; this one had a blue label. The old card worked fine in my TiVo. The blue one only gets me channels 2-13 even after getting a signal sent to my box for activation.

So it doesn't stop here. Remember I mentioned my neighbor earlier? Well she showed up at the same Time Warner Cable Store. Apparently the technician that came out to install her m-card in her TiVo didn't feel it was important. He left before setting it up and when he took off in a hurry he left the wrong card, it was a single cast card. That is why she was there, to get the m-card. Well they refused her to give her a new card; she had to fight to get one even though it was their fault. So she gets an m-card out of them eventually and takes it home. Guess what, she is getting only channels 2-13 as well.

Here is where it gets even worse. The instructions she got with the cable card tell her to call this number to activate the card, the same TW Number everyone calls. So I call for her and speak to another rep. He doesn't understand what a cable card is. He doesn't understand that I am supposed to be calling this number to get it activated. Instead of asking someone what I am talking about he basically blows it off and says the tech will be there tomorrow. That night I went home after dinner and called Time Warner myself and told them I received a cable card I want to use in my TiVo and I am only getting channels 2-13. She tried to convince me it was a problem with my remote control. I flat out told her that she needs to activate my m-card and I have the numbers she needs. She just humored me taking the numbers.
"Ok, can I get those numbers now?"
Which ones do you need first?
"It doesn't matter"

So I just started to read numbers off to her not really telling her what set I was reading from. She told me that it will be ready in 2-3 minutes; her supervisor just sent the signal to the box. Well I waited an hour and what a surprise still no channels. I took the m-card back to the store this morning and Bob is still there, does he ever go home? I told him the card doesn't work and it's only getting channels 2-13. He said there is nothing he could do except schedule a technician to come out to configure it. I told him my neighbor has a tech coming out for the same exact thing later that day between 1-5 and if he could stop by. He said it was up to tech. He didn't bother calling the dispatcher to find out if it is ok or check my neighbors schedule or anything. He said it is up to him and he made an appointment for Monday just in case.

It seems all Time Warner Cable SoCal wants to do is lie, deceive, and extort. I already filed a complaint with the FCC since they are not allowing me to use the m-card in my TiVo. Next I will be calling the Office of the President - Customer Care Advocate at 203-328-0600 (203) 328-0600 2033280600 on Monday to voice my complaint. Depending what the Time Warner Cable Retail Store office says on Monday after their little investigation I may contact agencies such as BBB, FTC, and possibly a follow up with the FCC.

[don]

time warner went out this morning...we are in sherman oaks...our phones and cable didnt work...We just got the bundled service as we already had tw cable.We never had an outage until we added the internet and phone package...
Personally we cant afford to be without phone if internet goes out...We need our fax line to be functional 24/7.
We will be cancelling this bundle asap and going back to dial up and expensive att phone service but at least att phone line will never be out and our fax and internet access(thru people pc) will be fully functional.
Real broadband internet access in america is non existent because crappy monopolies are given exclusivity without having to garanty breakdown free/ uninterrupted service.
Internet service sucks in america.Europe,asia,canada are light years ahead in net technology.

Actually the best thing to do is to just get rid of all cable and cell phones.Ive been asking the significant other to cancel our cable entirely.Besides pbs,TV is mindless reality garbage.

[John Debba]

I was very satisfied with Adelphia before the service transfer to TW. IMO: Adlephia was way ahead of all broadband providers, and consistently exceed advertised speed (4megs). I don't know what happened after TW took over, but download speed began to bog down (<2megs) and service interruption was more than I could bear at times. However TW has gotten their act together, now I almost reach download advertised speed (6megs) speed consistently even from servers on opposite seaboard. So, I dumped AT&T phone service and went for the TW bundle.

regards, john debba

[Rebecca]

I also live in the South Bay, Redondo Beach. We had adelphia and loved them. Since TW took over, it has been NOTHING but problems both with our cable and our internet. Whenever we call TW we are on hold for 45 plus mins. each person you speak with has a different answer, ditto for when the tech comes out. Each tech diagnosis a different problem. We do not get the service we pay for. Then there is the tricky billing system Time Warner uses. It always shows a balance due of several hundred dollars but then the total amount due is $179.42 even tho' we pay the larger balance. They make it so confusing and frustrating that you just get fed up. Does anyone know if Verizon fios is any better???

[Philip Wong]

For those that mention switching to another isp, it's not possible for some of us. First directv has issues of high latency(with all satilite providers) which any technical person already knows, secondly my dsl line is more than 15,000 ft from the co so i can get unreliable speeds at 768. So, if you were i what would you do?