Complaint Review: Charter Communications

To all my subcontractor friends who work for Charter:

I did thousands of direct sales for Charter as an independent subcontractor between 2002 and 2005. Part of the first team in the U.S. to offer Triple Play Telephone, Internet, and Cable starting in St Peters MO. Those days you had to know what you were doing. Three cable systems running in multimillion-dollar homes for the first time. Picky Customers. Made a lot of money in a short time and had a ball doing it. Worked side by side with some of the best and enjoyed the success that comes from hard work and the belief that if your motives are true and right, people will trust you and believe in your product.

Meanwhile Charter who was offering this great new technology was fixing the books and lying to its shareholders. When the bubble burst, thousands of stock holders lost hundreds of thousands of dollars with pursuing class action suits to follow. Employees were being threatened not to form unions and were confronted with switch and bait tactics to appease and persuade them to go along. Enormous debt, sudden lay offs, and the lawsuits to follow changed the nature of business at Charter.a change for the worse.

Most of the managers I worked with were fired or let go and their severance packages eliminated. The new managers were inexperienced and one dimensional with little thought of building relationships with contractors. The whole atmosphere of cooperation that was there to implement the product and the people who did it were disappearing.

I actually thought direct sales with Charter was honorable and had a future. In the beginning it did. But in the next phase of Charters evolution commissions we're cut by almost 30% in some areas while at the same time sales expectations were going through the roof.

My termination from Charter came in July 2004 in Wisconsin from a manager accusing me of fraud (signing a Letter of Authorization for a customer) that wanted to try our services. This is a serious charge for anyone in the contractor business.

The fact that I had put her initials on the signature line for her to sign in my absence was irrelevant to Charter (customer called me on the phone and I was to leave the orders at their door for pick up later). The fact that the customer wanted our service was irrelevant. The fact that the order was marked Non-Serviceable and was never even called in was irrelevant. They wanted to use the fact of my having put her initials down on a form as an excuse for voiding my company's contract getting rid of me, my sales team, and my contractor from Wisconsin for someone cheaper.

My lawyer said no way. His advice was to take both my General Contractor and Charter to court if they did not pay. He said go after them. But my family goes way back in St Louis as well as the General Contractor for Charter. The General Contractors family (the Grandfather) use to advertise on my Dad's radio show in St Louis. His son handled my Dad's investments in St Louis. They even lived next door to where I grew up in St Louis. Is that somebody you go sue over a paltry sum of money that qualifies for small claims court?

I don't think so. Call me sentimental if you wish. It was Charter that was making the accusations and to a finer point, a manager in Wisconsin with a reputation of burning contractors out and replacing them out of greed. That's not management that's usury. And as a sub-contractor any right of defense is completely one sided. Your basically telling your boss he's wrongwhich is a big bye bye in our business.

It's your reputation that you build over time that is your best defense. And so I thought.

I was told by my General Contractor that in review Charter management in St Louis felt it was an over reaction of the management in Wisconsin and my General Contractor in good faith did not charge the manager in Wisconsin for ANY of my sales. I was further told that I could continue working for Charter by my Contractor anywhere they were doing business

Now six months later I find that Charter is changing again. They now are changing their minds with regard to me. Now that work has started in my home town again they say I can't work here. Upon appeal with phone calls to Charter and Rick Glazebrook who gave me the badge in the first place and who then changed his mind, I get no return calls. Same with Todd Rumbough. Meanwhile my new General Contractor says their hands are tied.

I know my story is nothing new with regard to Charter and the way they have let hundreds if not thousands of people go. But the essence of doing business and the basic elements of trust and due process are being thrown right out the window. Now in retrospect I feel I was lied to regarding the situation for whatever reason by Charter; this after having put thousands of dollars in their pockets. It's also my understanding that my previous contractor never got paid for ANY of the orders our team did in Wisconsin.

It's over for me now. I am canceling Charter services from my home in St Louis. They are a dishonest group who project their own shortcomings on everything and everybody they come in contact with. They'll call you the loser and the liar while at the same time taking money from you. They're arrogant, rude, and hide behind their lawyers while they do anything they want to.

In spite of what has happened I'm not going to give Charter the energy anymore. I'm not going to fight it. I'm just going to eliminate them from my life. Their services, those connected with them, everything. It's my small part in killing what they have become another corporate giant sucking up as much as they can to stay alive.

I've met thousands of people doing this job and loved it. This is a great country and people want to believe in something that is true. Technology alone is not the answer.

We need one another as a human race. That to me is the essence of progress and decency and in my case sales. I want to feel that what I'm telling people to do is good for them.

I'm like they are. another customer.

Not anymore. I'm getting UN-HOOKED from Charter. Sorry that the corporate offices are here in St Louis. Can't wait to see the whole sick thing go belly up. I just hope my experience will influence others who may be thinking they are being falsely accused.

To all my buddies who are still working for them (hooked as they say in the drug world!)take care and see you later. Hope you have the opportunity to get UNHOOKED also. They don't deserve you.

Dan
St Charles, Missouri
U.S.A.

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