Charter Communications Complaint

Thanks to the TV show "20/20", I recently heard about being able to air

this type of complaint online! I have been trying to resolve problems with

Charter Communications themselves (cable TV and internet provider) but this

has been the company from H#@%& to work with! I have called them so many

times and spent hundreds of cell minutes on the phone talking to them, and I

feel now that someone else needs to know about the "service" problems I've

experienced!

In August I called them to get my service hooked up (sounds simple enough

right?).. but now it's almost 90 days later and I'm still hassling over

problems with their original poor service and now their billing problems

too!

First it took over a dozen calls to them to get the technician to come out

and install the service (they kept me waiting for hours on THREE separate

installation appointments that they never showed up on... THREE times!).

Since they offer a token credit amount of $20 if they don't show to an

appointment they posted three $20 different credits to my account ... BUT

trying to get them to actually reflect those credits on my bill has been a

joke also!

I just made yet another call to them (I've camped out on my cell phone

numerous times talking to them to get my appointments fixed originally) and

I've incurred hundreds of CELL minutes calling them and speaking to a

supervisor too to get this resolved (not counting all MY time waiting for

them to show up). Even their own installation service tech told me that

when they switched scheduling from local control to their main call center,

they have had lots of problems with scheduling issues! (Hello out there in

Charte -cable TV land.. is anyone from Charter listening to their own

employees or their "valued" customers yet?!).

Once they finally installed my service, I had to call them again the next

day (as the service went out..lucky me.. the cable box was faulty and had to

be replaced!) and so more phone calls, etc. and another installation

appointment to sit around and wait for again!

But wait, the fun's not over with yet .. when I got my first bill, it only

showed one of the three credits due to me. And now - several calls later

and another billing cycle later - I'm still trying to get them to actually

give me the credits they said they had posted to my account!

The final "rub" was today.. I received a "Past due notice" (yep, $20 for the

credit amount still pending) even though I called them last month when the

credit didn't show up and they enter yet more notes into their system that I

was still due a credit for this amoun !

So I just got off the phone yet again .. and I finally lost it when she

asked me to "just go ahead and pay the past due amount of $20 until they can

resolve the billing issue" (even though it was clear to her that it was NOT

actually a past due amount)! Since I refused to pay for something that I

didn't owe, I guess I will have to just wait and see if my cable works

tomorrow, or if they cut me off for not paying this last $20 credit they

still owe ME.. if they do cut me off, you will definitely hear from me

again! (they are the only cable service available in my area..

unfortunately!). Thanks for letting me vent.. hopefully Charter

Communications will someday get their scheduling and billing act together!

Thanks - Ellen (A very unhappy customer from Oregon)