An Open Letter
November 15, 2010 by admncc
Dear Time Warner Cable,
I’d like to take a moment to comment on your horrible service last week. And while I normally wouldn’t go to such public lengths to complain, I am fed up with the continuous problems in our area and feel that something needs to be done about them.
Let me take you back to last Monday, November 8th. I had several friends over to watch the Monday Night Football game, which was supposed to start at 8:30p. However, my screen flickered and then froze at 8:01p. A blank screen followed. More about that in a second…
Probably like everyone else, I waited for a few minutes and then tried various troubleshooting methods (turning the cable box on and off, resetting the cable box by unplugging it, etc.). When that didn’t work and it was going on 9p, I tried to call you. Your line was dead for over and hour – probably due to the influx of calls. I made some other calls and learned that the cable was out in my entire neighborhood (I later learned that it was out in most of Northeast Ohio). I even contacted your Twitter “Help Desk” liaison, only to receive a generic response. My cable never came back on that night.
On Tuesday morning, you made public statements confirming that the cable was out, but said that it was out for only 90 minutes. However, the cable for every single person I know was off for a minimum of three hours. You later offered to credit affected consumers between $1 and $20 based on the severity of their issue. But in my situation, the damage was irreparable.
My cable box was fried. So I physically had to drive to your local office and get a new one. And since I have a DVR, I lost countless programs which had been recorded. In several cases, I had a television show’s entire season recorded and had not seen any episodes yet. I even lost a $45 pay per view event that I had recorded, but was saving to watch with a friend.
It’s situations like this where I wish that cable companies weren’t a monopoly. I mean…I realize that cable outages happen. But they always happen with you. When you were AT&T, I had to exchange multiple cable boxes. When you became Comcast, I had service issues. And now as Time Warner Cable, the same things happen…equipment failures, bad signals, threat of channel blackouts and poor customer service. In the past, I even wanted to go so far as to send you an invoice for my time – just to get your attention – following several no call/no show appointments to my house. If another company was able to come in and offer more competitive pricing in our area – it might change your tune.
In the meantime, I’m stuck with you – because a big tree in my front yard prohibits me from being able to use a satellite dish.
Sincerely,
The Constant Complainer
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I’ll bet you get some kind of response with this! When I complained about an issue with a pest control service I had an email from the company within 3 hours. Good luck 🙂
I have cable for Internet and they keep wanting us to sign up for TV, too. Um, no. I don’t think so.
I used to have Direct TV. They did quite a good job with my TV. I expected with a dish to have an outage with a severe storm, or weather variance. Other than that, no complaints. With my internet provider, they accused me of not updating my router. I advised them that they sent this one to me. It was their nickel to update it, but in my opinion it still worked. I can’t wait to get out here officially, but I can imagine that TWC will not get any business from this guy if I can help it. CC i have heard many a story of your TWC issues, and I feel deeply for you. Good luck on the seasons of shows, and on a side note, the version of Titanic you dvr’d had commercials, my wife can lend you a copy un-interrupted.
Nothing is more infuriating — I feel your pain. FWIW, I’ve now have AT&T Uverse and they have been fairly consistent in coverage and service.
I hate cable companies.
Let me know if this works for you and I might think about a letter to my company. they suck ass!
So glad your back , have really missed you.
We know that service outages can be frustrating, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience they’ve caused you. We appreciate the feedback. Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you.
Thanks,
Brien H
Time Warner Cable – Social Media Representative
On Twitter – @TWCableHelp
email – TWCable.Help@twcable.com
Dear Time Warner,
I hate you.
Nuff said.
i cancelled my cable last year.
reasons could include: i don’t even have enough of a life to watch tv anymore. or i was too broke to afford it.
you can decide which pathetic reason it really was
TWC = The Worst Cable…
Guess who!? It’s ME!!!!
I actually thought about you on Friday when I was having issues with Bell Canada. Grrrr. Hate them.
It sucks that there isn’t anyone else offering cable in your area. 🙁 What if you chop down the tree? Or maybe trim the branches around your roof so you can catch a signal? Don’t allow yourself to HAVE to reply on a company. They need YOU…you don’t need them.
Sucks to hear about your lost DVR episodes. That’s my nightmare!
Sounds like my ongoing beef with Comcast. I agree about the monopoly thing. It sucks. I would demand a HUGE refund. $20 ain’t gonna cut it. But hey, they left a comment on you blog… !Bastards.
This has been happening to us constantly these days. We used to have satellite but believe me it’s not much better. You are at the whims of the weather. My friend lost her internet for five days. Called to complain and the company credited her $25. Not great for the inconvenience but I give her credit for getting them to do something.