Sunday, May 1, 2011

Take on Time Warner Cable

Is there anything more UnAmerican than a monopoly. It foes against the notion of fair competition and the type of capitalism this country prides itself on and most of the time the courts will rule in favor of competition although it has led to a few industries where there are only a few rivals.
Well cable TV in many places has no rival, for years I have had exactly one option: Time Warner cable. I have lived in buildings which do not allow satellite dishes and FIOS is yet to venture out to my part of Brooklyn so it seems I have no alternatives and thus very little recourse in terms of threatening to leave.
Last week I had a cable issue where my cable acted up so I call a service representative who gives me the typical 'send a signal through the wire' jive which obviously does nothing to get Game of Thrones onto my TV screen. After all their other attempts (turn box off, unplug for 2 minutes, hit with hammer) prove futile. They inform me that a technician will have to come out to fix the issue. They schedule the soonest appointment which is 11 days into the future between 10AM to 2PM on a Monday afternoon.
So you tell me that in order to get your crappy service at an inordinate price, I have to wait for 11 days and then take a day off of work. I ask for another option and am shut down immediately saying that this is the first appointment and there are no other options. I ask to take it up a level and speak with a manager who was completely unimpressed with the $15000 I have spent on cable service with Time Warner over the last 8 years and she acts as if I should consider myself lucky for having Time Warner Cable. When asked about my predicament it tells me that there is nothing she will do to speed up the process. I ask to see other options and she says I have none and when I ask to speak with her supervisor she says that he wouldn't 'speak with residential customers".
Oh yeah here is the kicker.. She will not credit me for the lost service until it is repaired and I'm told that I'd have to call back and request a credit after the technician repairs it.
MLIA

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

1 comment:

  1. The government breaking up monopolies simply because the monopolies are good at what they do is _un_American.

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