Cablevision Billing System Error

Today Cablevision shut off my cable service without ever contacting me that my account had a problem. Their story was that the bank "charged back" the last 3 months of Cablevision's charges. My bank has no record of these "charge backs". After digging through my Cablevision statements and my bank statements, I find out that while Cablevision has been crediting my account for the amounts due and showing my account as paid in full, my bank statements show no charges from Cablevision. There could not have been any "charge backs" because there were no charges! Clearly there was a problem with Cablevision's billing "system" where they were not charging my credit card but were crediting my Cablevision account anyway. Instead of owning up to it, they fabricate this story about "charge backs".

I owe Cablevision money and am happy to pay it. When I called customer service, I asked them to charge my credit card for the roughly $600 that I owe them and to turn my service back on. They refused, stating that my electronic payment privileges have been revoked and that my account is "cash only". The 5 different reps I talked to did not want to hear that they had not been charging my credit card for the past 3 months despite the fact that their statements show that they had been. They also didn't want to hear that my bank has no record of any "charge backs". I have to go to the office and literally hand over $600 in cash. And if I don't do this within 5 days, they are going to disconnect my home permanently. Really? It has to be this difficult?

The sad thing is that they are not even looking at the underlying problems here. The first is that their billing system has a very bad bug that could cost them dearly if not fixed. The second is that their reaction to their own mistake did not give me time to resolve their issue before they turned off my service. The third is that they needlessly escalated the problem to an obnoxious level (not to mention the fact that they fabricated a story to cover their own mistake instead of owning up to it). Finally, as all Cablevision customers know, their customer service is useless by design; I don't blame the reps, I blame an organization that is arrogant from the top down.