[SIZE=2]I have drafted up a letter that I will be sending into charter communications. If you don't mind reading a lot, please let me know what you think:
Charter Communications
510 Beloit Street
Walworth, WI 53184
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter to express my extreme displeasure with your company and its services. I have been a Charter customer since May of 2005 when I bought my house. I subscribed to your digital cable services. I did not have use for your Internet at first since I have Internet access where I work. Recently, I have been married and my wife wished to have Internet access at home. So, I added your highest connection service to my bill. I was told that I had to either drive out to Walworth to pick up the needed hardware, or, I could have someone come out and install it for me. Since I live about 20-25 minutes from Walworth and the installation was free, I opted to have it installed for me. So I had an appointment made for the installation to be done on Monday, October 3 between 1 and 5pm. I had to work, but my wife was home to let them in.
The tech came out to install the Internet on Monday. After spending quite a while with my computer, he could not gain access to the Internet. He kept running out to his truck and using his phone, and then he would come back in and try some more things. Finally, he went into the crawl space where the cable splitter is installed. We have the main line running into the house and then to a splitter that has 6 ports. He said that a 6-port splitter was too much and so he hooked up a 3-port splitter instead. Which, is fine for now because we only have two televisions, but in the future when we put another television in the extra bedroom and possibly one more in the kitchen, we don’t have enough. So after he installed the new splitter, the Internet still would not work so he gave up and said that there was a problem with my computer and that once I got it fixed I should be able to get connected. He told my wife that once I got home from work and looked at my computer, if I was still having problems to have charter send him back out because he was in out area all evening.
When I got home, I tried a few things on my computer. It seemed that the computer was operating fine. I have gone to college for a degree in computer repair and networking, so I know quite a bit. I still could not figure it out. So we called charter to try and get him back out so that the both of us could work on it. We sat on hold with charter for 45 minutes before we talked to anyone. Then they told us they could not help us and would transfer us. We sat on hold for another 30 minutes until we somehow got disconnected from your system. So we had to call back and sit on hold once again. When we finally talked to someone she was very snotty and not helpful whatsoever. We explained that the tech told us he was in the area and if we could not figure it out to have charter call him back out. The lady said that she doesn’t know why the tech would have said this because there is no one in the area that could help us tonight. We had to threaten to cancel all services with charter before she would even call the tech. A few minutes later the tech called me directly and said that he was finishing up a job and he would be there in 30 minutes.
The tech showed up about 8:30pm on Monday night. The both of us sat at the computer and went through some basic steps. It was evident to me that the tech had no experience working with computers other than plugging a modem in. While I was going through some basic networking steps like making sure that the computer was pulling a valid IP Address, he just stood there. I could tell that even this was over his scope. So after about 30 minutes of working at it, we could not figure it out. The tech told me that my computer was broken and left.
The following night I took my computer over to my parents’ house. They also have Charter Internet. I plugged my computer into their modem and connected right to the Internet. I then went back to my house and attempted again to connect my computer. It would not once again. I called the tech support center and once again sat on hold for about 45 minutes. Finally someone picked up and I talked to the most helpful and polite person I think I have ever spoken to at Charter. His name is Bob; he is in the Madison office at extension 27731. He was very knowledgeable about different things to try. We spent about 1 ½ hours on the phone going through different steps attempting to get my computer to connect. He was unable to get me online. So, he scheduled for a data tech to come out on Friday, October 7 between 3-5pm. He said that the data tech would know more about computers and would be able to conduct more tests.
I took work off early Friday to meet the tech at my house. He got there and performed more tests on the computer. Then he brought out his laptop and was able to connect to the Internet. So, he said that it was my computer that was the issue. I tried to tell him that I could connect at different locations, just not at my house. He said that he really did not know much about computers and I would have to hire someone to come out and look at it. How can you be a data tech and not know much about computer? I really would like to know. So he finally left and still I am not able to connect. I am really quite irritated by this point, so I decide to just leave it alone over the weekend.
Tuesday, I got a few more ideas that I could try that might help me get connected. I went back to my parents’ house and plug my computer directly to their cable modem. I was able to surf the net. They also have a router, so I connected through the router and was able to get connected. So I took their router to my house and was going to hook my modem through the router to see if this would help. Before I did that, I thought I would try to connect my computer to the modem one last time. I was able to log on. I surfed the net at my house for about 10 minutes. Thinking that maybe there was a line problem that got fixed, I packed the router back up and took if back to my parents’ house. I went back home and clicked on Internet Explorer, and once again I got the Page Unable To Be Displayed Screen. Now the Internet once again does not work. Now it is pretty evident to me that it has to be the modem that was bad. All the people that I talked to and the two people that came out to the house never thought of this. It is simple; why not try a new modem? So I called Charter to see if I could get someone to bring out a new modem. Again, I wait on hold for almost an hour. When I finally get to talk to someone, they want to take me through all of the steps again, testing all the things that I have tested over and over again. I tried to explain that I am 99% sure that it is the cable modem that is bad, but he insists on still performing these tests. So I let him walk me through the steps that have been performed over and over again. We are on the phone for about an hour and he says that he is going to place me on hold to consult with a couple of people that might have a different idea. I sat on hold for 15 minutes and then I get the beep sound that tells me that I have been disconnected. So I wait for a call back, I still have not received one. Isn’t the reason you verify the phone number is so that in case you get disconnected you can call back?
This experience with Charter has been horrible and has caused many unnecessary headaches. Both my wife and I have had to take time off work to be there to wait for technicians to show up. We have had to waste many already busy evenings sitting on hold with Charter and long hours talking with tech support that has resulted in nothing positive. After all that we have been through, we still have no Internet. I called Charter on Wednesday morning to cancel my Internet service. Then they wanted me to drive out to Walworth to drop off the cable modem that does not work. I told them that I would not do that and that they would have to send someone out to pick it up. Someone is coming by on October 20.
After all that we have been through, we are also considering dropping our cable subscription. If this is the kind of customer service you have to offer, I don’t see any good reason to keep our cable through you. Your so-called “technicians” don’t have the slightest idea about working with computers and your customer service representatives are not helpful and snotty. We have Verizon as our local phone carrier and they offer DSL at the same speed that you do for less money. They also offer a deal with DirecTV for the same amount of channels as your standard digital cable for less money. I expect a response from a manager or whoever’s in charge. I would like to know how this issue is going to be handled and resolved. I expect a timely reply. If I do not hear anything, it will just be more proof to how poor your service is, and you might as well just cancel my service.
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