f#*k Time Warner Cable

[Enhance]

I apologize ahead of time to anybody on this board who might work for or are associated with Time Warner Cable. Know that I do not consider you a f#*k (unless, of course, you're the person who f'd me).

Here's what happened. Last Monday our internet was installed by Time Warner here in Lincoln. For two days it worked, until we had our free cable package installed by Windstream. Since then, our internet has not worked. My roommate called Time Warner that night and they walked us through some basic trouble shooting tips. None of it worked, so they told him they'd have to send us a tech....NEXT THURSDAY THE 23RD.

I called them back the following day (last Thursday) explaining that my roommate and I are entering our final year of college and simply have to have the internet - we can't go a week without it because we need it for school work. After being on the phone for over an hour, I finally talk to a man here at a Lincoln branch who reschedules my tech appointment for today, Sunday, the 19th, at 10:00 a.m.

At 11:00 a.m., I try calling the over-the-phone customer service system to speak with someone, because my tech has not arrived, and it directs me to an "appointments" service line, and it tells me my upcoming appointment is Saturday, the 25, from 3-4 p.m.

Are you kidding me? Not only was my appointment not today, but it was backtracked two days to a time I did not set up. And TWC has no customer service representatives working the phones in our part of the country today, so I have to wait until tomorrow to physically talk to someone, as the online customer service representatives are a huge waste of time.

I'm usually a very level-headed person. I don't get upset about these kind of things often because I understand sh#t happens. But come on - I even confirmed with a guy here in Lincoln that he had my address, my cell phone number, the time, EVERYTHING, and still, nothing happened. The first time I called, last Thursday, they offered to reimburse me for the time we didn't have internet. Whoop-de-doo...I'd rather PAY that money for quicker service than get it back as a reimbursement.

f#*k Time Warner Cable. Shout out to my on campus friend letting me mooch his internet.

 

[huKSer]

Do your neighbors have un-secured wi-fi? Library? McDonald's?

And yes TWC sucks. They are a monopoly - EVERY community should have a minimum of TWO cable/internet providers and let the capitalism begin. And Dishnetwork don't count

 

[Stu]

Can you hook up a wifi hotspot from your cell phone?

 

[Enhance]

Can you hook up a wifi hotspot from your cell phone?

I didn't even think about that, to be honest. I know my phone can do it, but I was unaware of whether it cost extra or really did a number on my data usage. Therefore, I've never turned it on.

I'm mainly upset that they royally screwed my roommate and I like they have. Very bad business, and from what I gathered in online reviews, most people aren't very fond of TWC customer service.

 

[Stu]

Can you hook up a wifi hotspot from your cell phone?

I didn't even think about that, to be honest. I know my phone can do it, but I was unaware of whether it cost extra or really did a number on my data usage. Therefore, I've never turned it on.

I'm mainly upset that they royally screwed my roommate and I like they have. Very bad business, and from what I gathered in online reviews, most people aren't very fond of TWC customer service.

I have unlimited data through my hotspot, costs me 10 bucks a month extra.

Sounds like TWC sucks, i hate paying my Cox bill, but at least they have always had good service whenever I had to deal with them.

 

[Enhance]

Can you hook up a wifi hotspot from your cell phone?

I didn't even think about that, to be honest. I know my phone can do it, but I was unaware of whether it cost extra or really did a number on my data usage. Therefore, I've never turned it on.

I'm mainly upset that they royally screwed my roommate and I like they have. Very bad business, and from what I gathered in online reviews, most people aren't very fond of TWC customer service.

I have unlimited data through my hotspot, costs me 10 bucks a month extra.

Sounds like TWC sucks, i hate paying my Cox bill, but at least they have always had good service whenever I had to deal with them.

I grew up in Omaha and my parents have had COX services for most of my life. Cox customer service was always excellent. Their prices are high but they back up their commitment. The Lincoln representative I spoke to said things get crazy right now because of all the college students moving in, and I completely understand that. But to fail to set up my appointment, push me back two days, and then not have any way to contact them on Sunday is inexcusable.

Apparently, the problem was so bad in New York City that they began giving customers their month's bill free if a TWC tech was late for an appointment.

 

[tschu]

I can almost 1-up your experience with them, Enhance. I'll try to remember all the details from a couple of months ago. Their office is full of incompetent dips$&ts, their repair guys suck, and they can never schedule you an appointment within like 5 days. Yet, you drive past their office and they have 20-30 repair vans just sitting there unused. They'll nickel and dime you any way they can, so you have to watch your bill and stop in and talk to them to get some of the BS charges off of your bill.

And they don't even have NFL Network because their corporate management is a bunch of greedy blockheaded pussies.

 

[Enhance]

I can almost 1-up your experience with them, Enhance. I'll try to remember all the details from a couple of months ago. Their office is full of incompetent dips$&ts, their repair guys suck, and they can never schedule you an appointment within like 5 days. Yet, you drive past their office and they have 20-30 repair vans just sitting there unused. They'll nickel and dime you any way they can, so you have to watch your bill and stop in and talk to them to get some of the BS charges off of your bill.

And they don't even have NFL Network because their corporate management is a bunch of greedy blockheaded pussies.

My apartment complex offers 120 channels of Windstream dish network for free, and even that sucks. In a 45 minute time span watching a football game, the game went from high def, to boxed standard def, the sound went from high to low, and then it went back to full screen but no high definition. Granted, my 120 channels of cable are "free", but it obviously comes out of my monthly rent otherwise the complex couldn't afford it.

Needless to say, everything sucks right now.

 

[huKSer]

When I lived in Sarpy County we were in a position to get one of three cable companies - Cox, I think TWC and (I think) att

 

[HuskerShark]

To contrast this story, I just got Dish Network so I could watch football games this fall. When I originally set up the installation, I made sure I got BTN on the package that I was offered and the rep confirmed. I also got the standard 3 months free HBO, STARZ, etc. and also 3 months free Blockbuster @ Home. When the TVs got set up in my apartment, BTN was not on my channel list. So after calling customer service, it turns out that in order to get BTN, you now have to get an additional sports package (since my apt is in Missouri). I told the lady that I was informed by the original rep that I would have BTN so they would have to do something for me. So now I have a multi sports package free for 6 months. With that package, I have NFL Network, NFL Redzone, a bunch of MLB and NBA channels, BTN, and every Fox Sports station that there is.

Needless to say, this guy won't be missing ANY football this fall.

 

[knapplc]

Completely agree with all of the griping about TWC. They suck, their customer service situation sucks, and they couldn't care less about it.

But what's perhaps even worse is that the City of Lincoln is complicit in allowing TWC to maintain a monopoly in Lincoln. Competition would make our situation here 1,000% better, but is Cox Cable here in Lincoln? Nope. And there's no excuse for them not to be.

 

[Hingle McCringleberry]

Completely agree with all of the griping about TWC. They suck, their customer service situation sucks, and they couldn't care less about it.

But what's perhaps even worse is that the City of Lincoln is complicit in allowing TWC to maintain a monopoly in Lincoln. Competition would make our situation here 1,000% better, but is Cox Cable here in Lincoln? Nope. And there's no excuse for them not to be.

I agree. Although TWC no longer has an exclusive anymore, it ended in 2003, but what company will come along and build out a network when the competition already has a 100% coverage footprint...

 

[knapplc]

This is what I don't understand. When America forced Ma Bell into divestiture in the 1980s, they didn't force any competitors to come in and build infrastructure - they basically said It's already there, go ahead and use it. Near as I recall (fuzzy memory, I was quite young then), Bell Telephone didn't get a dime from anyone else coming in and using their lines. We shouldn't have to force competitors to rewire an already wired America.

In fact, unless I'm mistaken, TWC didn't even wire Lincoln - their predecessor (name escapes me) did it.

 

[tschu]

When we moved back on June 1st, we had gone online towards the end of May to sign up for a new cable account at our address. We signed up for internet, HDDVR service, and a second HD box. At that point, they gave us a service appointment for June 1st.

Well, three days (3 whole days!) later - I believe it was May 30th or 31st, we got a call from them. They said that the prior tenants of the house we were moving into hadn't canceled their TWC account. So we needed to stop by their office with a copy of our lease and some other stuff to prove that we did indeed live there. So we promptly did this hoping that everything would be resolved and we could have everything up and running on June 1st when we moved in. However, when we arrived at their office, literally a couple hours after they called us, we were told that our service appointment had been automatically canceled as a result of the whole former tenants account situation. We would have to get a new appointment in order to get everything installed.

So I asked them, can I just take the cable boxes and modem and install them myself? Or is this really something that requires a professional? They said, yes, I could take the main DVR and the modem and just plug them in myself. The second HD box would have to be installed by one of their service techs, so they just made another service appointment for like 5 days later. I thought, OK, that easy enough, and we definitely don't need the second box right away, so whatever.

I set up the DVR box and the modem. Cable worked fine; internet did not. And at the time I was taking classes - internet was an absolute must. So I called them and actually spoke to a very helpful representative. He was able to fix something that was apparently a problem on their end and our internet began working. However, a few minutes after hanging up, the internet went down again. So I called them again to tell them a situation; they wanted to have someone look around at our place and I was told that they could not get anyone out here sooner; I would have to wait nearly a week for the appointment that had been set up earlier.

When the guy came to set up our second box I had to tell him about our internet problems. Apparently whoever I talked to on the phone had not updated the information about my appointment so the guy had no clue that he was supposed to fix our internet. He looked around and claimed that our signal was fine and everything looked fine. After making a couple of changes, the internet began working - sort of. Ten minutes after he left the internet went down again. Great! Time to call the wonderful customer service people AGAIN.

They send a second tech guy out another 5 days later. This guy, too, claimed to fix the problem. And the internet did start working - for about twenty minutes this time. Then it dropped again. RAGE.

Finally they sent another guy out to look around, who then determines that our cable going up to the building was probably bad and would need to be replaced. So a day or two later a crew dug a trench through the yard and installed a new cable going into our place. Finally, the internet began working. The second guy that was at our place was cool (inept, but cool) and he said we need to watch our bill because TWC has a tendency to bill BS charges related to stuff their service techs do, and if we call them and complain we can get them dropped. Well, sure enough, they tried to charge us for some of the repairs - I had to call them for the 48,000th time to get them to drop those charges.

Here's the kicker - they're so inept that they apparently subtracted those B.S. charges from our bill 3 times. So we ended up saving $30 from our normal bill, lol. It's a wonder that these guys are still in business.