Time Warner Incident #3249

[Ed.: Apologies for not posting for a while.  I've decided to make up for it with a long, bitter, disorganized letter to my archnemesis Time Warner Cable.  The tone is a little more vituperative than usual, but hey, if anyone deserves it, it's TWC.]

Dear Time Warner Cable:

I meant to send you a complaint letter two months ago, when the first of the two incidents I'm writing about occurred. But other issues demanded my attention, and I decided to let you off hook, leaving my complaints for another day.

Well, that day has come. Just yesterday I was reminded of how vexing your horrible, horrible company can be. Rather than just address this most recent incident, I've decided to compile both complaints into one meandering biting two-part letter.  Theoretically, I might have divided each part below into a series of sub-parts, each addressing various unpleasant aspects of the incident.

I hope you'll at least give me credit for dedication. 

PART I

Here's what happened: on October 12ish, 2007, I began experiencing internet connection issues. Now, I've dealt with Time Warner Cable's customer service representatives before, and it inevitably ends with me getting rudely-delivered, useless advice, and ultimately having to fix the problem myself. I wanted to skip the middleman this time and tried to remedy the issue without TW's help. So I did what had worked in past situations: unplugging, replugging, and reseting the modem and wireless router, testing to see if the internet worked when I connected my computer directly to modem, checking my computer's settings. But I still couldn't connect.

So, biting my lip, I gave Time Warner Cable a ring. After a half hour--yes, a half hour--of patiently waiting, I reached someone. Here's the helpful hint I received: "Okay, I want you to unplug the modem." Check. Done? "Good, now plug it back in." Okay, did it, still no internet. "Still not working? Okay, we're gonna need to send a repairman in to fix it. When next week do you have time?"

So that's it. That's the extent of the help. I asked the person if there was any other way to test the modem. Nope. Could you at least check if Time Warner has had recent connection problems in the area? No need to. There's absolutely no other advice you can give me? Nope. So I guess I'll make an appointment. Your next time slot is Monday? Four days from now? Only during the time I'm at school? Well, at least you can give me an exact time, right? No, only a four-hour window? What about the weekend? No? Two weeks from now?

And let me just make it clear: the woman was incredibly, incredibly rude the entire time. She couldn't understand that I might be upset for getting zilch in the way of helpful advice, losing internet for two weeks, and having to miss a day of school--not to mention for waiting on the phone for over a half hour and being rudely treated by a person whose paycheck comes from my staggering cable bill.

Now ready for the punchline? I hang up the phone, tinker with modem a bit, this time standing it on its side and, get this, it works fine. The problem--admittedly stupid of me for missing it--was that the modem was not positioned on its side correctly. I never knew this mattered, but apparently it does.

So while admitting that I was somewhat at fault in not seeing the problem, I still have to point out the issues I had with Time Warner Cable's customer service on this occasion (and have had on several previous occasions):

• extended wait times;
• rudeness of customer service representatives;
  
• lack of customer service representatives' technical ability in resolving problems over the phone. In light of the extended wait times and repeated opportunities to get automated advice, you'd think the people on the phone would offer something different than the automated advice. Instead they rehash the same spiel the robots do, only replacing robotic mindlessness with human rudeness.

END OF PART I

One sec, let me just grab a drink of water.

PART II

Okay, we're back.

Nearly a year ago, when I first signed up with Time Warner Cable for cable internet (the only cable provider I could sign up with), I registered for automatic online billing. This meant I could get bills sent straight to my inbox and no longer worry about filling my files with more paper. Plus, I was saving the trees!

I commend you for having this option. These days all companies should encourage paperless billing. But, thing is, billing isn't "paperless" if you keep sending the paper.

See, just last week I received--you guessed it!--a paper bill in the mail. I have no idea why this happened: I hadn't requested paper bills at any point and had already received my bill for the month via e-mail. I wasn't so much annoyed because this single sheet of paper had been wasted, but because a problem with the way my billing statement gets delivered could potentially mean a whole host of other problems: how do I know Time Warner Cable isn't going to bill me twice, once for each statement? how do I know Time Warner hasn't been sending me paper bills the whole time and they've just been lost in the mail? how do I know Time Warner Cable's billing system doesn't have other major problems that won't get brought to my attention? When you're dealing with people's bills--bills that contain sensitive financial information--any screw-up is a big screw-up.

So I called up to see what had happened. But, as happens every single time I call up your company, I was put on hold for an ungodly amount of time. I eventually hung up out of frustration. I remembered that I had never written the letter about the rude customer service representative, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and write this.

END OF PART II

I understand the length and tone of this letter probably means you're not going to read past the first few lines. If you've gotten to the end, I'd like to apologize if I come across as rude. I'm just a customer with what I feel are legitimate complaints about fixable problems. Needless to say, they're not getting fixed.

Respectfully yours,

Christopher W.