Charter Communications Complaint - "transferring service" incompetency complaint

>From J. Nash, Asheville North Carolina

Charter Communications Incompetence: A Complaint

Two Simple Goals:

1. Disconnect current phone service in Asheville NC, transfer phone service to new apartment in Asheville NC for 5/5/06

2. Disconnect current cable service in Asheville NC, transfer cable service to new apartment in Asheville NC for 5/5/06

The Complaint:

5/2/06 - I spoke to FIVE (5) different Charter employees in different parts of the country – including the call being transferred to Los Angeles - and the process took an hour. It began at 12:35pm with the first representative with the telephone division who said he could disconnect the telephone service, but “Ma’am, the cable division can do both – disconnect your cable AND telephone. Do you want to speak with them?” I said yes. So I was transferred – by mistake! – to a LOS ANGELES rep who said she couldn’t help. I then hung up and called the cable division – I waited 10 minutes for anyone to answer. That person said, “The telephone division could have done both, I don’t know why they told you that.” They put me on hold and didn’t come back. So I hung up – got on hold again – spoke to another person who put me on hold. I quickly called back AGAIN and finally got a competent person. I told him clearly and calmly, “I am very angry right now because I can’t get the help I need.” He was pleasant and seemed competent. He put me on hold for a few moments, and then told me he had to put in a “serviceability request” for the telephone service in our new apartment and asked me to call back tomorrow. I said ok, I will check back tomorrow to see how that turns out. I thought he had disconnected the cable service also but it turned out in a conversation with the 3rd rep on 5/3 – that did not happen.

5/3/06 – I spoke to through THREE (3) different Charter reps today. I went to the telephone division twice and the cable division once (I kept hearing: “Oh no WE can’t help you, THEY have to help you…”)

Finally (finally!) I reached a gentleman in the telephone division who had the mental acuity to cancel our phone service, get my past due cable bill paid, our cable service disconnected, and the new service set up for a Charter representative appointment next week.

Summary:

This entire process of incompetency over two days took 1-1/2 hours of my valuable time, it is costing us $19 to transfer our service, and during the entire process I had to enter our phone number at least a dozen times, say our current address at least a dozen times, state the last five numbers of my Social Security Number the same dozen times, and also verify our new address at least six times.

This entire situation is nothing but ridiculous, and redefines the term: “Customer Care-Less Department.” Under no circumstances will our family ever buy Charter Telephone Service again. If Charter was not the only decent game in town for cable service you would lose a customer there, too.

Comment On This

Charter, you can't continue blaming Fox for the abominable transmission of sports on FSN. We, in our entire community, have suffered with this for nearly the entire baseball season. Now that there have been apparent corrections made in the video, we still have no audio from the booth. Advertisements are screwed up also. This is channel #38 in our area and virtually everyone you speak to is dissatisfied.

It impossible to believe that all of this is a "network" problem. For this type of reception, there should be a refund established. Clash action could even include these above mentioned advertisers. I do not expect an answer to this complaint, but hope that is given some consideration. At least more consideration than as a paying customer of yours. You treat us as imbiciles when an attempt is made to talk about service. No thank you, Sherman Pettis 550 Chieftain St.#109 Osceola, WI 54020 715 294-4394.