Charter Communications Service

My issues with Charter began when I called to have internet services set up at my apartment. First, the CSR didn't bother to take down my name on the order, so the service tech showed up to my place with no name for the service install. Then the tech spent three hours at my apartment, mostly complaining about his boss and about Charter while he tried to figure out why my internet service wasn't working. He FINALLY left, telling me to call the customer service department to see if they could figure it out. So I did. It turned out that the modem simply wasn't configured correctly, and it was fixed over the phone. When I asked if I would be receiving any sort of compensation for the trouble, the CSR told me that Charter would discount my bill by about $12. Thanks.

Then, some months later, I moved to a new apartment. I called Charter before I moved from my last place to let them know that I wouldn't need service there any longer. They said my service was canceled and I went on my way, thinking it was canceled. Of course it wasn't! I called a week after I moved into the new place in order to order new service and to ensure my service at the last place was canceled. The CSR said, again, that there was no service in my name at the last place and she scheduled my appointment for service in the new place. Of course, Charter only comes to your house during their business hours, which are everyone else's business hours...so I took off a half day of work to be at my apartment when they were supposed to come. I waited and waited and waited...and then I got on the phone. That was, by far, one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had. I spent four hours on the phone with literally dozens of different CSRs. I just wanted to know why no one had shown up at my house! I finally found out that the service tech had noted that no one was home when he came to my place and that he had placed a note on the mailbox stating that he had come by and no one was there. So apparently, outright lying is one of Charter's methods of ensuring quality customer service. Once I found this out, I just wanted someone to tell me when I could schedule another service appointment. That was another ordeal. I eventually wound up on the phone with a supervisor who hung up on me when I asked her how her company planned on compensating for its colossal fuck-up (of course, I didn't really use those words verbatim).

I tried to talk with Charter again over the course of the next few days, only to experience the same treatment. Here was my solution: called SBC/AT&T for internet service, which was handled in a friendly and efficient manner by the CSR. My self-installation package arrived when it was supposed to, I set it up in under 30 minutes, and I never had issues with the service or the billing. As for my cable, at the apartment we moved into, the cable was already set up and turned on before we got there. One of my requests of Charter was to simply put the service for that address in my name so I COULD PAY FOR IT! They didn't even want to bother doing that, so I enjoyed free cable service courtesy of Charter during the entire year that I lived there.

In the meantime, I'm still receiving emails from Charter telling me that I have a bill for service at the place I moved from two years ago. Ha!

So, while free cable for a year was a little bit of vindication, I would love to jump on board with a class action lawsuit...anyone filing???