Adelphia Customer Abuse / DVR & Digital Cable & High Speed Intenet

Adelphia Huntington, West Virginia

I have had massive problems along with a vast number of other current and former Adelphia customers. It seems to be a common topic in my area.

The following is a long description of many problems I have personally had and have requested to be compensated for them as well as recomended a team be sent in to replace the staff and techs at my local office.

I was actually instructed by an Adelphia Supervisor in the Florida CSR center to ask that this complaint be presented to the President on the company due to the fact that she gets so many simmilar complaints and stories from my area.

On Jul 12, 2005 My family ordered Cable and High speed Internet from Adelphia.

I called to check into packages and priceing.

The package I selected would have provided me with DVR service, On Demand movie service, All Analog and Digital Cable Channels, and two primium channel sets (I chose HBO and Showtime) and 4MB down / 384k up Internet service. All on a special for 59.95 for six months.

The service tech was supposed to be there to hook us up between 8:00a.m. and Noon. He did not arrive until 3:00p.m.

He did not hook up our digital box correctly nor did he call in to activate the box or the Internet so we had no services.

The tech told us "it could take up to an hour for the box to load and start working."

After and hour I called customer support about the problem and was then told "it could take up to three hours for the box to load and my services to start working."

Knowing at this time that all of the service techs would be off duty as well as the general staff at the customer service center because at that time that office was the only CSR center for our area to call and after 5:00p.m. no calls would go through.

I called anyway at just before 5:00p.m. to request that a tech be sent back to my home to set my equipment up correctly.

I asked to speak to a manager and the on duty floor manager got on the line and I explained what had happened and requested that a tech be contacted on the company cell phone that all techs carry at all times and direct the tech to my home to complete the installation and get my services running.

He said that all of the techs were on their way back and he was not going to do it.

I asked if he could make an exception since this was such a major mistake.

He said no.

He told me that he would schedule a service call for a tech to come back and fix the problem, but the next date he had was for 11 days later!

I said wait you can't at least get someone out here next day to fix your companie's screw up? I then said well you at least are going to suspend billing me until you get my services working right?

He said no your billing started today.

I said listen I don't want to start a business relationship like this so lets start over.

You were supposed to have a tech here between 8:00a.m. and Noon and you weren't here until 3:00p.m. and so you owe me your $20 on time guarantee, but I am being kind enough not to ask for it. And then when you did show up you did not begin providing me with any services because you did not do what was needed to make them all work properly.

Now to add insult to injury you are not going to send anyone to fix your problem for 11 days and you are going to bill be for the time I have no services as well? That is just not good customer relations.

He said OK, now let me tell you something. I don't care about one customers relations because we have enough customers that if you don't like us it isn't going to matter.

Second you wouldn't get any on time credit no matter what because it is up to me who gets credits like those and I told you we will be there in 11 days so I don't see a reason to give it to you.

Third if you want cable service we are the only choice you have so yes it will be no less than 11 days before we get to you.

And last I already said billing starts the day you get hooked up.

Any other questions?

I said yes.

Do you want to be in the unemployment line?

Because you just done what it takes to loose your job!

You made no sense in a few of the things you said and it is illegal to bill someone for no services rendered.

I am going to contact your supervisor and explain all of this to your supervisor and I will get someone here before 11 days or I will use my influence on city council to make sure Adelphia's contract to provide services is not renewed and that it is given over to Charter who has already requested to provide service to the City of Huntington.

He just laughed and hung up on me.

I called a higher office the next day and explained the situation and the supervisor there did apologize and offer to send someone here on an all day appointment the next day and promised me that my complaint was not the first he had heard against this particular supervisor and that he would be dealt with.

Later while on a call to the customer service center to ask about some service changes that several honest CSRs overheard the supervisor that gave me all the hook up troubles and told the truth when questioned and he was fired.

None the less the tech missed the appointment the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and it ended up there was a problem in our area with service techs driving to remote locations and napping for much of the day was apparently the reason for these missed appointments.

After 9 days I called Adelphia and requested that they come pick up their equipment because I was no longer interested in doing business with a company that starts off treating customers the way I have been treated.

They then apologized again and finally had a tech at my home to fix the problem within the hour.

I asked during that last call if my billing would not start until the the tech gets everything set up and running properly.

They said that my billing did start when the first tech failed to get me hooked up properly, but I would get a pro rateing credit of $18 for the 9 days I was without services.

To this day I still have not got that credit even though I have asked about it and requested it several times.

Then the next problem happened when my cable box was operating and responding to commands more and more slowly.

I called the service center and explained the problem and was told that many customers were complaining about the same issue so Adelephia had determined that it was the Motorola boxes that were to blame so Adelphia was replacing the Motorola boxes with Scientific Atlanta boxes and scheduled an appointment to have a service tech come out to replace my box.

The tech never showed up.

I called to find out why and was told that the local office was refusing to exchange any of their customers boxes, but had listed no reason.

I requested to speak with the local office to find out why so the CSR said she would have the local office call me back later that day since they say the local office has no phone that can customers can call.

The local office did not call so I contacted customer support again and the said they would put through another request for my local office to contact me.

After three days my local office called me back and when they did it was clear that the person calling had a bad attitude.

She was smart mouthed and belligerent in telling me that "we aren't going through all the work of switching out those boxes. We at this office will never be using the Scientific Atlanta boxes.

I said well if corporate says that a Motorola box is to be switched for a Scientific Atlanta box then aren't they the boss so you should follow orders?

She said we at this office are our own bosses and you customers need to learn that! You will just have to deal with slow command response for a while.

I said I have never heard of a local office being the boss of the corporate office that employees them.

She said well you have now and then hung up.

So I called customer support and asked to speak with a manager and told her what was said during the call.

She said she would check into this because the corporate office is the ultimate boss.

She then stopped and asked what was the office you were dealing with?

I told her Huntington WV,

She said I see I have had several complaints about poor service and attitude from that office. Enough complaints in fact that I remember the office location. She said she would look into getting me a new box anyway.

Two days later a tech showed and handed me a brand new cable box.

It was a Motorola not a Scientific Atlanta, but it was all still wrapped and new.

I asked if he was going to take out the old box and install the new one.

He just said "NOPE!" It is up to you to return the old box as well or you will be charged $1500 for it.

He then said I will tell you this though that the slowness problem isn't the box it is that Adelphia is overselling the server. They have 80,000 customers on a server system built to deal with under 40,000 customers. Then he got in his van and left.

I called customer service and explained again what had just happened and they said they would schedule a tech to come and pick up the box because it should have been swapped out and the new box installed by the tech.

The next day a tech showed up and installed the new box and said he was sorry for the way the other guy acted.

Everything was back to normal and working fine after the box swap.

The next issue was on my next bill there were two $20 trip fees. I called billing and they said that it is at the tech's discretion to charge for coming to my home on a problem that is not adelphia's fault.

I explained that the reason for the tech's coming to my home was to swap out a cable box with problems for one that worked correctly.

She said well that in that case they had no right to charge me anything and said that she would remove the charges and told me what my actual bill was after removing the two $20 trip fees.

I went into the office and payed that amount.

Three weeks later I came home from work and my cable and internet was not working.

I called customer service to find out what was wrong and was told that my local office had put a stop on my services due to a $40 portion that was late on my bill and I would have to pay the $40

in trip fees plus the taxes and fees and a reconnect fee which all totaled over $70!

I said my bill is current and paid in full!

She took a moment to look it over and asked to put me on hold.

Soon a manager got on the line and said that she was sorry about the problem, but it looks like even though the false $40 in trip fee charges the techs put on my account were removed by the customer service department my local office put them back on there and is demanding payment and my local office has put a block on my account preventing the customer service department from turning my services back on. So even though the CSR could clearly see that my account was correctly paid she was blocked from turning my srevices back on. She said that she would contact my local office and explain the mistake they made to them and ask for the block to be removed. She came back on the line and said that they were very rude to her and acted as though they were in charge of the company and refused to remove the block untill they were paid.

She said if I would go in and pay the $70 and then call her back at her extension she would add an additional credit to my account in the amount of what I had to pay. That way the local office would remove the block and she could restore my services and I would get reimbursed for the false charges through the credit.

I did as she instructed and called her back about an hour after paying the $70, but she said that there is no payment showing.

I was very upset at this point and asked to speak to someone with some authority over problems like these. She put me on hold and a supervisor got on the line and I explained the situation to him.

He asked if I could fax him a copy of my recipt.

I told him I would do that. I faxed the copy to him about 20 minuits later and called him back and he said that he was very sorry that apparently my local office has not entered the payment into the system yet and that he would call them and have my services back on within the hour and that the person responsable would be repremanded.

I asked him if I was still going to get the $70 credit to make up for having to pay these false charges in the first place and he refered me back to the CSR that I was talking to.

He confirmed with her that he had varified that I had indeed paid the $70. So she confirmed that she was putting throug the credit and I would see it on my next bill.

Still to this day that $70 credit has never shown up on my bill!

The next issue was the worst of all. On Sep, 19, 2005 I called in to find out the current amount of my bill because they had changed the format on the bill and everyone seemed to find it confusing.

During the call the CSR asked if I would like to try using their new pay by phone method instead of having to make a trip to the office to pay.

I asked how it works and was told that he would take my debit or credit card over the phone and then the amount of my bill would just be deducted from my bank account.

I said that I would give it a try.

We went through the transaction and he gave me a transaction number.

Almost two months went by and I payed my bills as normal at the office because I happened to be going by the office on the days my bills were due so I would just stop in and pay.

Then on Nov, 4, 2005 my services went out.

I called customer service to find out the heck was wrong now.

They said that they did not know why because by account looks to be in proper order and my bills paid in full, but for some reason my local office has stopped my services due to non payment of my bill.

I said well if my bills are paid in full how can they say that it is not paid and then shut off my services?

She said she was as confused at this point asI was.

She then said she would get a supervisor to look at it and get back to me and then she put me on hold.

After a while the CSR and her supervisor were both on the line and were still not able to figure out what my local office had to complain about.

I told them about how my local office treats Adelphia's customers and that in the few months that I had been a customer the local office and billing department have given me far too many problems.

They said they would try to contact my local office and call me back.

Two days later they called me back and said that my local office had put a stop on my services until I come in and pick up a bounced check.

I told them that I had never written a check so it was impossible that I needed to pick up a bounced check.

They contacted my local office and called me back and said that the person at the local office said they went and got the check and it had my signature on it and that it had bounced and if I want my services restored it was going to cost me $59.95 in billing charges plus a $35 bounced check free plus a $99 reconnect fee plus a $24.95 service fee plus a $20 trip fee plus taxes for a total of over $240 to get it all reconnected and my services restored!

I said if Adelphia doesn't stop my local office from harassing me and force billing to give me the credits they owe me I am going to sue them and bring several criminal charges that apply against them.

I said ever since I got started with Adelphia it has been one problem after another.

I explained my entire history of troubles so far with Adelphia to her and she was kind enough to listen and pay attention.

She asked if I was sure there was no way they could have a check from me.

I explained to her that at my bank I had what is called a "Check Free Account" which means that on my account I only have a debit or "Check Card" and that I never use checks that way I don't run the risk of having any of my checks stolen and forged so there is no way they have a check from me because I don't have any checks to give.

She said that she believed me and would look into what is going on and send the problem the Adelphia's "Escalation Department" and that I would hear back from them soon.

Five days later I got a call from someone in the Escalation Department they apologized for the delay in calling me back. They said that the delay was due to when they asked for my local office to fax them a copy of the check they claimed to have from me my local office made excuses trying to not have to send the fax. Finally after a few warnings they faxed what they had to him and it turned out to be a written bill that they had issued on me and that my signature was not on it anywhere.

He said he called them back to ask what this written bill was for and they explained to him that when someone makes a payment by phone and it bounces they have to make a paper bill as a record of the bounced transaction.

He said he asked them why then did they say they had a bounced check from me instead of saying that there was a failed transaction and the woman told him that that "she didn't know what else to call it".

He said that it generally means that a pay by phone was made and the transaction failed or something electronic went wrong.

I told him that if the transaction failed it was their fault because there was at the time and still is today plenty of money to cover that bill I payed by phone.

He asked if I had a transaction number and I gave him the transaction number and he said he would call me back.

Less than an hour later he called back and found the transaction based on the transaction number, but for some reason there was never any money withdrawn from my account.

I said see this isn't my fault. It is their fault for not taking the money out of my account. He said you are right and I will contact the proper department and have them make this withdraw and get your services restored.

I said great thank you. I said, but what about my local office lying when they said that they had a check from me with my signature on it. Isn't that against the law.

He said well honestly I am not in a position to discuss that, but we will get you taken care of.

I said I hope so and he said someone will contact you soon and get your services restored.

Two weeks wet by and I finally called to find out when my services would be restored and the CSR said that there was a note on my account to have me contact a supervisor at another number.

I called the number they gave me and asked when my services would be restored and this supervisor right from the start had a bad attitude and was rude and very short with me.

She said your services will be restored when you pay the $240 you owe!

I said no we already determined that you did not take out the money from my bank.

She said well that may bee but it has been almost three months now and you should have made the payment on time and you didn't.

I said yes I did when you offered to do a pay by phone. I should not have to hold you by the hand and make sure you actually withdraw the funds on a pay by phone transaction! That is your resposability!

This is the last time I am going to tell you I want that payment pulled from my account like you should have done when the transaction was made!

She said no I think I am going to look into you not paying us a bit more.

I said is that a fact? Well in my state the state you are doing business with me in the law says that if payment is offered and you refuse payment then you also release any claim to the debit! So are you clearing the debit? She said don't get smart with me. I said no you and any of the rest of you should not have been getting smart with me all this time as well as basicially stealing from me and abuseing me as a customer and since you want to lie and be so hatefull and unwilling to admit your mistake and fix this problem I also want those credits that are owed to me applied to my account.

She asked what credits?

I said $20 on time credit from where the showed up late to get mt services started the first time and failed to get the started as well. $18 pro rateing for the 9 days I was billed when I had no services while I was waiting from then to get my services started. $40 in false trip fees that were refunded and my local office put them back on my bill and then charged me an additional $30 in late fees and service charges totaling $70 that was supposed to be refunded to me because I should have never been charged the $40 trip fees and then late fees and charges in the first place! Those credits!

Now you have 48 hours to do it or I am going to take all of my proof to an attorney.

She said OK no need to push it that far. She sais let me look at your account and see where these fees and credits you are talking about are.

I sais go right ahead.

She said OK, If you can get a copy of your bank statements showing that you had the funds available within a two week period of making this pay by phone transaction then we will simply take the $59.95 out of your account and apply the $108 in credits we owe you.

I said fine I accept that.

I went to my bank and explained the situation to the manager and he said he could do better than what I was wanting.

He said that their system keeps track of all successful transactions, all failed transactions and all attempted transaction.

Meaning that if Adelphia even attempted to make a withdraw from my account or just look into my account their system records would show who connected with my account and when.

He looked it up and gave me a printout that showed that Adelphia had never even tried to make a withdraw from my account and had never even made any contact with my account of any kind and then he also gave me a complete account history on my account covering 30 days before the pay by phone transaction and 60 days after the pay by phone transaction proving also that there was always plenty of funds in my account for Adelphia to have made their withdraw.

I sent a copy to the supervisor that requested it.

Six days later I got a call from her and she apologized for her attitude and she explained that she was getting bad information from some people she had spoken with in my local office and though I was trying to lie to her, but she got a look at the information I sent her and she also called the bank herself to verify that it was correct information and she now knows that I was telling the truth.

She said that my services would be back on by the following day and that I would see the credit for the $108 in owed credits on my next bill.

My services were on the next day and everything was fine until I got my next bill and there was no $108 in credits on there and worse yet the $240 in the back due bill and fees from where they had failed to make a withdraw from my account and then added the resulting charges were added onto my bill!

I had had enough.

I called the customer service center and spoke with a supervisor and once again and explained the whole history to her and then demanded that they resend me a new bill reflecting the $240 has been removed and the $108 in credits has been added.

She reviewed my account and said she was sorry and that the problem was the billing departments fault this time and that it can be hard to get the billing department to make corrections properly sometimes and she would have them generate me a new bill within 48 hours and I would get it in the mail in a few days.

Well four days later my services had been shut off again.

I was like someone was trying to prove Adelphia was god and would do what they wanted and that they are above the law.

Well I called them and told them I no longer wanted to do business with them if they were going to continue to cheat and harass me and break the law. I told them they had one week to reimburse me my $108 or I would seek legal action.

I cooled down over the next few days and of course I never saw my $108.

Two months ago a salesman came to my door asking if I would be interested in cable.

I told him NO WAY!

He said so you have had problems with Adelphia as well?

I said of course why do you ask.

He said I have been in the Huntington area for three days and all I have heard are complaints about billing issues and abuse from employees of the local office and service techs here.

I said well it is all true.

He said what did that do to you just so I can report the kind of complaints I am hearing to my supervisor.

I told him the entire history of what all had happened to me.

He said well what if I could get those charges they are trying to bill you for removed and get you that $108 in credits? Would you want to get hooked back up then?

I said if they are willing to admit that the whole thing was their fault and apologize to me and clear out those false charges and give me my $108 worth of credits and put me back on the same special offer they had me on then yes it would be nice to have cable again.

He said here is my number and let me get your number and I'll call you back.

I gave him my number.

Two weeks later he called and said it is all fixed. you no longer owe the $240 and your first bill will reflect the $108 in credits, but the system will not let them put you back on the special you were on because it is no longer available in the system, but they will put you on their new special wich is very close to the one you had. The special they are putting you on includes the 4 meg down 384 up internet service all of the analog channels all of the digital channels access to the on demand menues a DVR box and DVR service and one primium set of channels for 59.95 plus tax and fees for 6 months and thay are going to set you up with all of the primium channels for free for three months then after three months then you will have to pick wich one of the primium channels you want to keep at the end of the three months.

I said Are you sure?

He said yes absolutely.

I said and what about an appology and admiting that the troubles were all their fault?

He said that extending the special from three months to six months and giving you all of the primium channels free for three months is their way of appologiseing and admiting that it was their fault.

I said OK. I will accept that.

He said they will be calling you to set up an appointment to come and hook up your equipment and get all of the services I told you about started.

On the day they showed up the tech just put a pink copy of my work order on the door and wrote on it "please call for rescheduling".

So I called them and they said that the tech admitted to not knocking on my door and not completing the appointment, but didn't list a reason why.

So they set up an appointment for the next day.

No one showed up.

I called again and they said the tech just got behind on a few jobs and instead of completing his list of hookups to do that day he went on home at his usual clock out time so the next appointment they had for me was two days later.

I thought here we go again.

When they failed to show up on the fourth try I called and spoke with a supervisor.

She sent an e-mail to the dispatcher and sent them a "must do" order and he responded with a refusal e-mail.

So she called him and he told her that all of his techs were on the other side of the county doing hookups and could not make it to me that day.

She came back and told me what he had said.

I told her that he was lieing to her because Adelphia's territory in our area was only the town of Huntington so if his techs were on the other end of the county then they are in Charter Communications' territory.

So she looked up Adelphia's territory map for my area and found out that my local office had lied to her.

So she called him back and let him know she knew he was lying and he cussed her out and hung up on her.

She said she is seeing the kind of troubles customers must have to deal with in my area.

I said it has ben like this for a while and I am not the only customer to have massive problems around here. Most of the current and former customers of Adelphia in my area have very bad things to say about Adelphia. I said that it seems like Adelphia is a fairly good company all except for the billing depatrment and my local office, but my local office is giving Adelphia a very bad name and immage in this area.

She said she was going to report him and said since I had gone through so much trouble that there would be no hook up fee and my first month would be free.

I told her all about the history of problems I had with Adelphia and she suggested that I send a e-mail to the president telling about all of the issues I and my neighbors have been having.

I didn't intend to do so until when they finally showed up to hook up my cable.

The tech said that I had to pay a $99 connection fee and my first months bill and to beat it all he said there was an old past due of $240 that I had to pay before he could hook me up and that the six months worth of special and three months worth of all of the primium channels for free that the salesman told me was offered to me was not part of what I was listed to get.

I was furious!

I called the salesmen that said that he had taken care of all of it and added that $108 in credits Adelphia owed me to my new account and told him what they were trying to charge me and told him that they were saying that I was not getting six months of the special that I was only getting three and that I was not getting three months of all of the primium channels for free.

He asked to talk to the service tech.

I put him on the phone with the tech and they spoke.

Then the tech handed me the phone looked at me and said

"I don't care what they say the local office is telling me on this work order to collect $413.99. that is $74.99 for your first month in advance $99 hook up fee and a past due $240. I am not hooking you up unless I collect what it says here.

The salesmen was still on the phone and heard the whole thing and told me to go ahead and pay him just to get it hooked up and he would go into the system and credit me the 413.99 that way I wouldn't have to pay a bill for several months to come and he woul call the service department and have the special and primium channels he described to me set up as soon as my service was up and running and that would balance it all out.

I did not trust him completely this time so I then called the supervisor that gave me the one month free and the free hookup at her extension and got her on the line and told her they were trying to charge me.

She got on the phone with the tech and told him to read the work order to her.

It turned out either he was trying to steal from me or he is just not able to do his job because it clearly said

hookup $99 then under that it said

hookup -$99 and then

first month $74.99 and under that

first month -$74.99 and.

So the fees were added then removed so the hook up fee and my first month totaled $0, but at the bottom the total was $240.

So I had to pay him $240 to get it hooked up.

It has been two months since then and I still have not seen my $240 credited back to me or my $108 in credits owed to me from Adelphia or my six months of special or my all of the primium channels for free for three months!

I contacted Adelphia's Executive Office to beg one last time for them to make up for all the false charges and billing errors and trouble they have charged and caused me.

I mean I am not asking for cash or a check in the mail.

I Just want them to credit back to my account the 288.05 that was wrongfully taken from me in false charges and promised credits that were not applied to my account and give me the six months of the special and three months of all of the primium channels for free that I was promised and then leave me alone to receive my services and pay my "correctly calculated" bills.

I have been through enough anxiety, stress and financial burden as it is due to these problems brought on by Adelphia repersentitives.

I did get an e-mail in responce to this complain from Cynthia Asbury requesting my address and phone number.

I sent the requested information.

I am still waiting to see if they will do the right thing and fix the problems they have caused by fulfilling my request for compensation and setting up the services they promised me for the price and length of time they promised me.

C. T. Damron

_____

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Comment On This

Please tell me you are male! I so would not have done business with them after the first broken promise much less sign up for more service from them based on more of their promises! You know the old saying "burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me"..it's bad enough you paid them money and believed their repeated promises, but to turn around and agree to further business with them that is your fault Skippy!!