Time Warner Cable

The BBQ Pit
1

So, the internet connection is down (Time Warner Cable). Because I know that calling to inquire and get it fixed will take a minimum of one-hour, I waited a couple of days to call. Still not back up, so on Saturday I bit the bullet and called.

20 minutes on hold, spoke to helper No. 1. Give phone number, name, address. Yes all the cables are connected. Yes, I tried unplugged the modem. Yes, I tried pressing the reset button on the modem. OK, I can unplug the modem again. Yep, still just the one blinking light. OK, I understand, you need to transfer me to “engineering”. Will I need to go through this rigamarole again? No, no, it will be a “warm transfer”. Please hold.

15 minutes on hold, spoke to helper No. 2. Give phone number, name, address. Yes all the cables are connected. Yes, I tried unplugged the modem. Yes, I tried pressing the reset button on the modem. But, I just did that for the guy I was talking to before you. OK, OK, sorry, I can unplug the modem again. Yep, still just the one blinking light. OK, I understand, you need to transfer me to the “local office”. Will I need to go through this rigamarole again? No, no, it will be a “warm transfer”. Please hold.

10 minutes on hold, spoke to helper No. 3. Give phone number, name, address. Yes all the cables are connected. Yes, I tried unplugged the modem. Yes, I tried pressing the reset button on the modem. But, I just did that twice for the . . . . OK, OK, sorry, sorry. I understand. Sure, I can unplug the modem again. Yep, still just the one blinking light. OK. Thank you. You’ll send a tech out tomorrow? Great! What time? Appointment time shows “all day”? So, it could be anytime on Sunday? But he’ll call in advance? Ummm . . ., OK, I guess. Thanks.
(Elapsed time - 1 hour, 15 minutes.)

Sunday - 5:30 pm, about to leave for dinner. No call, no tech. 1-888-TWCABLE. 25 minutes on hold. Hi, calling about the service appointment - he was supposed to come today, he never came, I need to leave now. What? He might still come? He can come as late as 7 pm , Sunday night?! Well, I need to leave, so I guess I have to reschedule. NEXT SUNDAY?!!!??! Are you fucking kidding me?!!? Sorry, sorry, it’s just that . . . OK. Sure, thank you. Monday afternoon would be great. Thanks.

(Is there any other option for high-speed internet? There’s no DSL in my neighborhood.)

2

Dedicated T-1 line? I dropped Verizon DSL for same reason. Many years of decent service, but when it started to die, no one wanted to take the responsibility to fix it. It was always “somebody else’s department”. Told them to stuff all their departments and went with Time Warner. By the time Time Warner gets into the same boat, maybe FiOS will be in my neighborhood and I can go back to Verizon.

3

I feel your pain- stories like this make me glad that for whatever reason I only have a cable or internet outage approximately once per year.

4

Which light is blinking on the modem? I also advise that you find the local tech support number for your division… might be quicker to get through.

(or for that matter, if you happen to live in San Diego, PM me!!)

5

God, do I hate having to call Time Warner on the phone. Ever try to cooperate with the voice recognition 'what’s wrong with your internet" lady? Last time I started screaming and cussing because I’ve heard that might get you a real person, because I’d waited on hold for 30 minutes just to get the opportunity to talk to a robot who wouldn’t fucking listen to me. (I did talk to a real person, but it took another half hour.)

6

Man, am I glad we have a locally-run cable company here. Calling for tech support gets a guy immediately who’s sitting in an office 20 minutes away. No bullshit phone trees or “Is the power light on?” questions.

7

When a NOT-REAL-PERSON makes you unplug the thing twice, and asks if that works, and when you say no (three times so she understands) she actually says “That’s funny, that usually works”, that’s when you snap a little.

8

At my previous house I had all sorts of issues with Time Warner. Service kept dropping and nothing they did seemed to solve the problem.

One day a tech was there and got things up and running. No more than 2 minutes after I shut the door behind him, then service dropped again. I called Time Warner and asked them to send the guy back, but they couldn’t - he probably hadn’t even gotten to a traffic light by the time I called.

I was told on more than once that the problem was probably the wiring in my house or from the curb to the house. 2 months later when the replaced a router the problems disappeared.

9

No kidding. My company is scary competent. They even call back a half hour after you do what they told you to do to confirm that it worked and ask if there are any other problems.

10

And she’s so damn snide and condescending about it, too! God, I hate that computer woman…

Swearing while she’s talking does actually work, so does pressing “0” repeatedly.

I have so many terrible Time Warner experiences, I couldn’t begin to list them here. Just ask me about the tangle of bare cables dangling off the side of my building. They’ve been that way since September.

11

The bare wires… have you called Time Warner to ask? Or is this an apartment complex? (keep in mind that TW is not responsible for pre-wire at customer’s locations…)

12

"I have been a customer for 5 days and I hate you with the fire of a thousand suns. My ‘All the Best’ was installed last Friday. The installer was unable to get a picture with the DVR, an internet connection or a dial tone. He said there were problems at both taps outside the building…and that someone would come out to fix that the next day.

Saturday came, but a technician did not. I called your ‘help’ line twice. Both times, I was assured that someone was coming and that I should be patient. At the very least, they would call me if they couldn’t make it, and reschedule a time for the next day (Sunday). They did not come, nor did they call.

I called the ‘help’ line on Sunday at 9 AM. I was told a technician would be contacting me within 40 to 50 minutes. I waited 2 hours and called again. This time I was told no one was coming today, but they would come on Monday. Of course, I was furious and demanded to speak with a supervisor. You would think I was asking for launch codes. After much prodding, a supervisor came on the line, said you would credit me 60 dollars and they would send someone on Monday for sure.

Monday arrives. I have cable, such as it is. Comedy Central, TNT and several other channels are unwatchable (squares all over the screen, sound cutting in and out). Other channels are OK. Still, no internet or phone.

I call the ‘help’ line again and tell them I still do not have what I ordered. She tells me she arrange an ‘appointment’…for NEXT SATURDAY!!! I say this is unacceptable and again ask for a supervisor. I am starting to think your call center in Argentina doesn’t HAVE a supervisor.

Finally, she says she will send someone today and they will call 30 minutes before arriving.

If they do not arrive and get my internet and phone going (and really, how hard can that be???) I will be cancelling my ‘service’ and going to your competitors.

I tried to send a message via your ‘Contact us’ site, but is inoperative. Specifically, the ‘topic’ and ‘subject’ fields. When you enter text, and tab to the next field, or click enter, or click on the next field……the text is erased. And these are required fields. "

2 days later, the guy comes out. He replaces a port on the box that feeds the apartment building. Suddenly the internet and phone are good and I am see all channels clearly.

Total time of repair…5 minutes.

Sadly, I have no choice. My building will not allow sattelite dishes.

13

I don’t mean to rub it in, really. If you have a chance though, Verizon FIOS is probably the best thing to ever happen to internet connections for me. I’ve only had it for about 18 months, but I’ve never had an outage (except for the time I unplugged he router and forgot to plug it back in. Luckily, I was able to troubleshoot prior to making the “dumb customer” call.)

14

Follow up to the OP story -

When we left off, a tech was coming out Monday. No tech, no call. Monday night, at 9 pm, I called again. On hold 25 minutes, got a very nice lady in the Colorado Springs call center. She seemed so genuinely apologetic and upset by my story that I couldn’t even yell at her (nice trick there TWC!). Anyway, she couldn’t do anything for me, except to say that someone really should be coming Tuesday. Well, probably Tuesday, but she couldn’t say what time (damn, she was sooooo nice - I really should have yelled at this point, but, what can I say, I’m a pushover).

So, Tuesday am, I go to the modem to do my twice daily “reboot” and . . . all the lights are on! WTF?? I turn on the computer, and there’s my home page, just like it had never left me. All systems are go.

They are messing with me, that’s for sure.

15

Where do you live, shelbo?

16

Los Angeles.

17

Anechdotal, I know. I"ve had Roadrunner/Time Warner for about 8 years. We, in Akron, got it about the first in the US. I’ve been pleased about 99% of the time. I’ve never had a runaround when trying to get to a tech. Sorry that this doesn’t square with your problems.

18

It is a big ol’ house that’s been converted into 3 apartments, and I am the resident fix it dude. When the owner calls TW he gets rebuffed REPEATEDLY, he plays phone tag and gets transfered from person to person because he dosen’t have a TW account. Nevermind that it’s HIS property.

So I call sometimes because I have an account. Between us we have called and set up more than 10 appointments for TW to replace the metal lockbox that used to cover that tangle of cables and splitters (it fell off, and we couldn’t replace it without a key (that TW had)) and someone come twice. Once to look at it and go “Hmm…”, and another to take the box. 8 other appointments have been no-shows.

19

Hmm… I was trying to find you a local tech. support phone number, but LA is actually made up of 3 divisions, North, Metro and South. I was only able to find the 888 number you already have, but if you go here and search by your zip code, you might turn up a better number (or they may have no local number other than the one you have… I don’t know).

hekk, next time one of you contacts TWC, ask to speak to either a supervisor or the CAT team, if your division has one… not all do. Explain what’s happened and that you think the bare wires might be dangerous. They should get someone there ASAP. I find it hard to believe that you had 8 no-shows! Not that I question your honesty; just that 8 no-shows is hard to believe. If that’s the case, the TWC division in your area is incredibly badly run. Oh, by the way, it MUCH easier to have someone who has an account call. Trust me… that’s just the way the system is built. If I’m talking to the owner of a building, but he has no actual account at that address, I have no way to schedule a tech. The scheduling system is tied to actual accounts.

20

Just as a general tip for these types of automated services (we don’t have Time Warner here), if swearing or repeatedly pressing zero doesn’t work, you can sometimes get through to someone by repeating the word “operator” over and over and over. I’ve had it take up to twenty or thirty repetitions with some services, so if it doesn’t work after saying it a couple of times, it can’t hurt to keep trying for a little bit.