Fed up with shoddy customer service, L.A. to sue Time Warner Cable*

The excruciating hold times and frequent outages that plagued Time Warner Cable after its 2006 acquisition of Adelphia and Comcast may finally be catching up to the company.

The city of Los Angeles plans to sue Southern California's dominant cable operator, alleging that Time Warner Cable created "major havoc and distress" and violated its franchise agreement with the city.

The cascade of complaints about Internet and e-mail outages, TV channel lineup changes and pressure to sign up for digital service already led to the ouster of the region's top exec last year.

Read Andrew Blankstein's story for more details about the Time Warner Cable's troubles and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo's track record in suing local companies.

-- Chris Gaither

Photo: Time Warner Cable service employee Darwyn Jenkins takes a call in the company's Hollywood office, from a March 2007 file photo. Credit: Alex Gallardo / Los Angeles Times

* Because of a spell-check glitch, a previous version of this post listed the cable company's name as Adolpho instead of Adelphia.

Comments

[gmoney]

Its about time somebody does something. I'm still waiting for that "fiber optic" cable that they advertise.

[KTswami]

That would be "Adelphia" Cable that was bought out by TWC, not Adolpho.

As a former Adelphia cable/internet customer during the transition, TWC hasn't been too bad. PLUS side: having C-SPAN3 added is great, and faster internet. DOWN side: TWC will not allow their DVRs to have a 30-sec skip, so you have to fast-fwd through recorded programs. Adelphia offered Digeo DVRs, which did include a 30-sec (and 15-minute) skip on the DVR remote...!

[Chris Gaither]

Ha! That's the correction of the day. The spell-checker must have changed it without us noticing. Thanks for flagging the mistake, KTswami.

[Guest86]

I see this News. Very, Very BAD and WORST!!! My parents are very upset on Time Warner Cable company. Guess what!? My parents paid over $90.00 every month. I told to them need to cut off. They said YES! Switch to Dish Satellite or other good cheaper without problems. Time Warner Cable(TWC) Company will get blamed by many people soon. TWC Company need STOP! Cutting off from our price. Save your money for in the future to move out Earth to other planet has water and life! Right? Let see what they going on. I am very ANGRY on TWC Company right now. So people will going sue/against TWC Company for being waste of our money and people's money! STOP! I am not going watch TV with TWC anymore. I switch TV to Computer using internet for watching NEWS, Sciences, Movies, etc to save my money! TWC Company is very STUPID!

[John Cooney]

I have been withTime Warner Cable at our new place since Jan 2007, about 18 months and have not had 1 day without uninterupted service, First the sound kept cutting in and out for at least 2 months and it took that long for them to find and fix this issue then the picture kept pixelating and cuting in and out, They change over 6 boxes, changed all my cables, still happens. Now my HD tv is freezing up on me the picture will stay frozen for hours if I dont change the channel. So the technicians have been at my house for hours and for about 20 different days. They changed amplifiers, modules and who knows what else? So after 18 months I called the presidents office in Conn. Told them I deserve credit for the $2400.00 in service I paid for and said I should take them to court, Now I was informed since I said that they are going to disconnect my services?!!!!! Can you imagine that, Maybe I should sue them!!!

[maxeythecat]

Well, gee shucks....why am I not surprised that somebody's finally pissed off enough to sue these clowns? Cable service here in Los Angeles has always been pretty crappy and waaaay too expensive for what you get, and so far Time Warner's been the worst of 'em. There's nothing more infuriating that ordering a ppv movie only to have it freeze up, lose the connection or suddenly disappear from the "my rentals" menu two minutes after you'd ordered it and still find yourself having to pay for it. Or how about having your internet connection down for days at a time, having countless repair persons ( who don't actually even work for the company, they're independent contractors) out to your house to try and solve the problem and get told something different every single time and STILL not get the problem resolved. And that's not even mentioning the ridiculously expensive charges these nimrods charge.....hell, I ain't even gonna go there. The biggest outrage of all is the fact that cable companies like Time Warner, Comcast etc can and do get away with bilking their "beloved" clientele out of hard earned coin because they know they're the only kid on the block and that we either cowtow to their way of doing things or go without tv. Yeah, I know there's the satellite alternative, but since not everyone can get the damned thing because A: the apartment building they live in has a distinct aversion to having a forest of tacky looking dishes clogging up their roof or B: they're facing the wrong direction and can't get the service even if they wanted it, it's cable or nothing. Time Warner and their brethren have a stranglehold monopoly on each city they occupy with no competition whatsoever...why the hell SHOULD they go out of their way to please their customers when they don't have to?

[John Bixby]

Time Warner in LA is a joke. Last night DURING THE MOST IMPORTANT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN HISTORY, Time Warner went down for over 2 hours. Luckily a neighbor had DirecTV, otherwise I would have missed both McCain and Obama's speeches. This is totally unacceptable and Time Warner Cable should be ashamed.

[Bruce]

In a way I do not think time warner is that bad, I believe it is just the people that work for them is what creating the problems, every place that I have moved to I have TWC service and I do not have any problem at all. Im actually working as a contractor tech for TWC, many time that I go out and do a service change or a trouble call it always seem to be silly mistakes that the previous tech that came install left behind, and what alot of peoples does not understand is that the place they put their equipment can have a big effect on the equipment it self, and many customer have dogs or other pet that love to chew on the lines, even if the chew is only the size of a pin it can create problem for your whole house, it is because the shielding broke and other signal leaked through and scramble. As I said there are many ways that things can be done wrong and only one way thing can be done right it just depend on your luck to have a good tech that come out and take care of you, as a tech I take care of myself and I never have a single problem for years now.

[Anonymous]

I have had cable in Los Angeles since the early 90's. I have had Continental Cablevision, Media One, AT&T, Comcast, and now Time Warner. I also have Echostar and used to have Direct TV. The customer service at Time Warner is the same as Continental Cablevision. Unless they fire the bad customer service reps, the service will continuallly be bad. Get used to it. It isn't getting any better.
By the way, Echostar's customer service is pathetic.....