Adelphia Cable Collection Policies, West Palm Beach, FL - billing problems resulted in cable service being shut off

# 16 for September 15, 2003

Complaints.com received the following on September 14, 2003:

From:

RE: Adelphia Cable Collection Policies, West Palm Beach, FL - billing problems resulted in cable service being shut off

I am sending this complaint because of the aggressive and dangerous collection practices of the outside contractors who come to peoples homes at 8 PM on weekends to threaten with cable shutoff even when the bill is paid.

We contacted Adelphia customer service on 4 separate occasions with 4 different customer service people and each one said there was nothing wrong with the bill and that our service should not be cut off. We were instructed by each of the service people to tell anyone who came to shut off the cable to immediately contact them and straighten it out. Sunday September 14, 2003 one of their outside contractors came to our house at 6:30pm and turned off the cable. My wife went after the person who shut us off and told him the main office wanted him to call them. My wife was standing in the sidewalk dialing the office to talk to one of the customer service reps when the Adelphia man put his car in reverse and almost ran over my wife. There are skid marks in my neighbors driveway.

We immediately called the Sheriff to file a complaint and he said there was nothing he could do because there was no criminal intent to do harm to my wife. He simply didn't' want to deal with people and wanted to get away as soon as possible. The Sheriff said if he would have hit my wife then it would be a different story. After the incident happened we immediately called back Adelphia and told them what happened. The customer service rep said that the cable couldn't be shut off and that there must be a problem with the cable and would send out a repair crew. When we talked to a supervisor about the situation he said that the entire balance had to be paid before they could turn the cable back on, but he would wave the reconnection fee because of what happened to my wife.

He didn't even ask the name of the person involved. The balance is the collection fee. We have been with Adelphia since 1989 and have tried there digital cable but took it back 3 months later when it kept freezing up. We had to call 2 or 3 times a night to get them to reprogram the box. It is unfortunate that Adelphia is allowed to do these type of things with impunity simply because they are the only game in town. It appears that being bankrupt has not improved their attitude nor their customer service. I can see why satellite is taking more and more of their market share.