Complaint Review: Charter Cable

Last year a friend of mine mentioned that he had expanded basic cable AND Silver level Cable internet installed by Charter Cable as part of a promotional deal for only $39.95/month. As I had tried unsuccessfully to get DSL installed for months this sounded like a great deal. I called Charter Communications local office and asked if the same promotion was available to my residence. They said yes, asked if I'd like to sign up, I agreed, verbal contract entered, cable installed the following week. Cable installer says to me,"Oh good, you got Silver Service, the bronze service is slow as dirt". Everyone happy:)

Charter was supposed to send out a crew to bury my cable lines the week after installation, never showed, rescheduled, and finally buried the cable 3 weeks later. Two days after that I was in my yard, noticed that only half of the cable was buried, called Charter, they sent someone else out, on an "all day" appointment. Meaning, they can show up anytime between 8am and 8pm....they showed at 6pm, reburied the cable. Slightly less happy, but still ok.

A week or so later I had noticed that my speeds(I do alot of download/upload of large files) were going kinda slow. A day later, the friend that referred me mentioned that his service seemed to have slowed also. I went to Charters tech support site and looked at my service level and it said,"Bronze Service", where it had previously said,"Silver Service".

I called Charter, they said that their hands were tied, you never paid for that, the dog ate that page, we suck, lalala. They said they'd look into it and call me back. Two weeks later, they finished "researching" my account and claimed that I should have never gotten that level of service for that price. Two weeks to research? Isn't this the computer age? What kind of retards are these people? Anyways, I let it go for a few months as I was tired of sitting on my phone for hours listenning to Charters prerecorded "your call is valuable to us, please stay on the line".

So three weeks ago I leave for a trip, came back yesterday, and now I have no channels above 32. So I called Charter again, listenned to their recordings, waited on hold, finally got a person. Person tells me the same thing about my Cable TV as they told me about my internet service a few months ago,"Sorry, you never paid for that". So I ask,"What about the verbal agreement I entered into with Charter when we agreed to sign up for their service?". The tech person says,"You have no contract, you have a work order". I say,"Huh? No contract? What did the cable installer just magically end up in my backyard one day and install cable into my house?". "I had a contract, before I ever had a work order".

So then this lady says,"There's no such thing as a verbal contract". I asked her where she went to law school, then decide to be nice and just ask to speak with her manager. So she puts me on hold for another 25 minutes, then comes back on the line to tell me that she can't find her supervisor. I'm thinking, "You can't find your supervisor?"...whatever. So she says that her supervisor will call me back when available. Another half a day goes by, the supervisor calls, basically saying the same thing because, as I know, she's not a supervisor either, she's level2 customer support.

I get tired after being put on hold a few more times, after being told that it will take them another 14 days to research my account again(real paper file cabinets buried with Jimmy Hoffa perhaps?). So I ask to talk to her supervisor....she can't find him either,"He'll call you back". So this time, most the day has gone by, he calls me back, he's another customer support rep...."Can I PLEASE talk to your supervisor?". "Uhm, sir, he's not in today, but he'll be in tomorrow.

I'll forward you to his voicemail so you can leave him a message". Now I'm angry, really pissed. I say,"No, no you wont forward me to someones voicemail, you'll get your dumb a*s a pen, you'll write him a note, you'll stick it to his forehead with superglue, so that all he sees tomorrow morning is my phone number.". Hehe, then he says,"Is there anything else I can help you with today Sir?". I say,"Yes, you can send your people out here again to bury the cable in the ground that they have unsuccessfully tried to bury twice now, half of it is laying across my lawn in my backyard." He says,"Okay Sir, I'll have someone out SOMETIME on thursday". "SOMETIME?"

After all of that, I haveto say that Charter Communications, at least here in Fort Worth has got to have the poorest customer support of ANY company I've ever dealt with. If you can get something other than Charter Cable in your area, i.e.DSL, do yourself a favor and get it and avoid Charter Cable.

I've also been reading that other people have had alot of the same problems in my area recently, and if anyone is interested I'd like to possibly get together with other dissatisfied Charter customers to see what we can do about this little "monopoly" they have in our area.

Dan
Fort Worth, Texas
U.S.A.

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