Complaint Review: Charter Communications

I have been a customer of Charter for two and a half years and always thought them to be great. That is, until last week. Now I know they are ridiculously unprofessional!

I had to spend hours on the phone with a bunch of lying sales agents to get an upgrade, they gave me different prices on everything. When I finally did get what I thought to be a good deal, the install guy was nine and a half hours late and I had to lay the cable myself..he didn't want to be held liable if my kid tripped up on it.

I was asked to pay $80 more than was initially agreed, and when I called Charter to verify it, surprise, surprise..I was disconnected twice. The installer said it would be applied to my bill. So I paid him, against my better judgement.

A couple of days later, a $30 charge was on my bill for the 'free' install, and only $50 had been credited to my account. There were numerous other charges on there too that were bogus, and it wasn't listed as a promotion deal at all. The additional bonus that I was supposed to receive for signing up for their bonus..was no-where to be seen. The Sales Agent had completely lied about everything, there was not a single figure on the bill that was the same as we had originally agreed on.

When I called Charter to get it corrected they were anything but helpful about it, I spoke to four different agents and they really had little interest in helping me, and I was disconnected when I asked to speak to a Manager. I did get through to a Manager eventually and he wasn't interested in the errors either. It was their stance that I was too incompetent to be able to figure out their billing system. According to them, they were right, and I was wrong.

I called Charter Corporate Complaints and the Corporate Liason offered to credit $18 to my account over a six month period of time (the billing error added up to approximately $167 over six months, plus a $3 fee for a modem each month). By now I had spent hours trying to arrange an install, nine and a half hours waiting for it, and hours more trying to get issues resolved.

I had been lied to, ignored, disconnected, overbilled, put on hold, and thoroughly insulted. Needless to say I am more than a little annoyed. I hate the fact that they have taken me for a ride financially, but what bothers me more is the time it has taken me to resolve the issues, and the feeling that they don't actually give a darn about how they treat their customers. There's NO way they can adequately compensate me for that.

Krystal
Slidell, Louisiana
U.S.A.