jeff sent a message to Thomas M. Rutledge – Chief Executive Officer and President of Charter Communications, Inc. – Email Address that said:
Hello,
I have been a loyal customer of Time Warner Cable now Spectrum since 1997, and I have never been late or missed a payment. My cable rates were about to take a 32% increase because a package deal I had was expiring. Your customer service team did work well to help me find a new package and figure out how to keep my cable bill where it was, but it was disappointing that I had to give up channels and halve my internet speed to do that. Unfortunately, that was where the good customer service ended. As part of the new Spectrum package I was forced to get rid of my existing digital adapter boxes to put full cable boxes on my old 13" CRT TVs. I was told that it wouldn't be a problem, and that you would even ship me the new boxes free of charge, which sounded great. However, when the boxes arrived they did not have a coax cable out to be able to connect to my older TVs. When I called your customer service, the first representative took ~20 minutes to understand that I wasn+'t installing the boxes wrong, and that a customer might not have a TV that inputs the boxes you sent would work with. After all that and a another ~10 minutes on the phone of filling out an order, he said he could mail me new boxes, but I would have to ~$10 per box in shipping because your system had no way for him to not charge me for that. I asked to speak to a supervisor as I couldn't imagine a customer support system that couldn't refund charges. He took about 10 minutes to again go through being convinced that I did indeed need need a coax output from the box. The supervisor then informed that yes they couldn't refund the charges, and more importantly if they did do a shipment from the warehouse there would be no way to guarantee that the boxes that shipped would actually have the coax out. To get that I would need to go to one of your service locations. The service location for my area is only open during the week. There is another "close" by in Fullerton, CA that is open on the weekend, but that last time I went there the boxes that I received were not compatible with my service area (Orange, CA). So, I assumed I had to go to the Anaheim location. My wife cleared her schedule to go there Wednesday morning to go there. After again having to debate with the rep there that only a coax output would work, they told her that they didn't have any of those boxes available, and would have to request them. If they did so they might come on Thursday, but there was no way to contact them to find out if the boxes did arrive, and once they arrived they could only be held for 24 hours. My wife took the gamble that they would arrive on Thursday, and still be held, and went there Friday morning. Thankfully, the boxes were there. I unhooked the working DTA boxes, hooked up the new cable boxes, and called the activation number. After waiting the 60 minutes, the boxes still had not activated. So, I called. The tech the answered worked with me for 30 minutes having me do multiple things, but none would activate the box. He put me on hold to check one last thing in the process disconnected me. I waited ~5 minutes to see if he would call back, but no one called. So, I called again. I went through the troubleshooting for about another 10 minutes with the new tech, until she concluded that you would have to send a tech out to fix the problem. The first available appointment wasn't until the upcoming Tuesday (4 days from now). Unfortunately, the only available time was 11-12, and my wife and were unable to skip work to be here. So, I don't have an appointment until Wednesday. I asked if I could plug my DTA boxes back in until the tech came, and was informed that trying to activate these new cable boxes meant that they would no longer work. Assuming the tech that comes out actually brings cable boxes that will work my TVs, and gets them to activate I will have been paying for 2 sets of boxes for a week, and will have been without service on 3 TVs for 5 days. I was told that I should be able to get a refund for the extra boxes and services, but only after the tech fixes things, and I return the DTA boxes which means taking a part of day off work. I hope this turns out to be true, but based on the new customer service during this fiasco I have little confidence I won't be out $20-30 for the extra boxes that don't work. I just wanted to let you know that the next time I'm in Costco I won't be telling the DirectTV rep that I'm not interested because I have a great deal from Spectrum. I will be talking to them about how much their package costs (as at least online it is cheaper than Spectrum) as the $300 Costco card would go along way to covering getting the channels I lost back via them. If the tech doesn't get everything fixed by Wednesday, I will likely purposely drive over to Costco as I know DirectTV says they can get me up and running in 48 hours.
Thank you,
Jeff
