Complaint Review: Time Warner Cable - Columbus Ohio

1)TWC took money from our bank account and charged our debit card even though I didn't give them the account information for either and even though they state it is against their policy to retain your payment information; 2) they will lie to you to get a sale; 3) the Customer Service reps are, in most cases, useless.

I authorized a payment via phone from our Visa card. Even though TWC represents that it does not retain customer's banking and credit card information, illegal withdrawals were made from our bank account and a debit card. I did not give any of that information to the representative. The only place she could have gotten it was to pull it from TWC's records -- the ones they say they don't keep on file.

After numerous calls throughout the next couple of weeks to various representatives (I spent a considerable amount of time speaking with a very concerned rep named Jennifer who said I could call her back at ext. 4994 an extension that I subsequently found out does not exist), I finally reached a single person in the Tallmadge OH credit services office who authorized the payment of $134.00 to reimburse us for bounced check charges incurred as a result of the illegal withdrawal.

We received that payment as a reversal to the bank account but TWC never credited my TWC account for the money they took. On top of that, TWC now states the $134.00 they reimbursed me for the check fees was really a bounced payment on my part and they want me to pay them that back too.

It is totally screwed up and I cannot find anyone at TWC that can figure this out. I must add that most of the people are quite rude in their incompetence and/or unwillingness to help.

The second matter has to do with services. I was transferred to TWC via its Adelphia takeover. I had a package of services that was grandfathered in. The package included all of the cable and premium channels with bundled internet. I have had the package since I began service in 2001 and purposely did not want it changed. One day I called to make a payment and the rep told me I could pay almost $1.00 less per month if I added their new digital phone service to my cable/internet services.

Since that didn't make much sense to me, I asked her several times about it and specifically told her I did not want to change anything that would affect my services and current package. She assured me that nothing would change and that she would even include voice mail at no additional charge. We scheduled an appointment for installation.

I also questioned the installer to make sure nothing was being changed and that the only thing that was changing was the addition of the phone service. I was assured that was the case. The installer left and so did many of my channels. I began the journey of trying to find someone who cared that I could speak with. I was transferred to various people, waited for almost an hour in most cases (I am not exagerrating) and was often put on hold with the person never returning. I was repeatedly told by customer service to talk with tech support (tech support never, ever answered though I was transferred to them consistently in spite of telling the representatives that nobody answered). This occurred with staff people as well as supervisors. To add insult to injury, when I call TWC and plug in my phone number, the system message says it doesn't recognize my phone number even though it is a TWC phone line!

At any rate, after holding 42 minutes for yet another representative (I keep records of this junk), I finally found one who attempted to resolve the problem. I was told that I changed my package (no, I did not) and that I could only have my services restored if I paid another $15 per month.

What a rip off!

Miarosa

Cleveland, Ohio

U.S.A.

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