Feud

Feud

I know I said my next post would be about Christmas shopping, but first I must relate the latest installment in my on-going feud with Charter Communications. The most recent battle started when we went out and bought ourselves a VERY nice Christmas present - a 50” Sony SXDR 1080p rear projection TV. We had been looking at big-screen TV’s for the past few years and finally decided to bite the bullet and part with some of our hard-earned savings. We read up on them and went from store to store talking to the salesmen, all the while watching the prices drop. I think we got a good deal, since the same TV was advertised for $500 more the next day – in the same store where we bought ours! There really are good bargains for those who brave the crowds the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Anyway, we bought the TV Saturday morning, and were surprised and delighted to learn that Circuit City could deliver it that same day – just in time for the Georgia-Georgia Tech game! We brought the stand home and got it put together about ten minutes before the Circuit City truck arrived. The two men brought the TV in and set it up. I had also called Charter ahead of time to have them add the HD to our package. They said it would be ready when our new TV arrived; all they had to do was enter something into their computer. Well, when the delivery men / installers turned on the tuner, there was no TV signal at all! Not high def or anything else. I got back on the phone with Charter. They kept telling us to do stuff to the cable box, but nothing worked. Finally they said they would send out a guy between 1 and 5 on Monday. So, we had to watch the dawgs beat Tech on the TV in the bedroom. At least we got to see how beautiful the picture looked on DVD’s.

I waited all of Monday afternoon for the repairman to come and called a little before 5:00 to learn that he was running behind but still on his way. He finally got there about 5:30 and took over an hour to get it working. The picture finally came up. The high def channels were awesome, but the lower channels were noticeably fuzzy, not even as good as they had been on our old TV. The repairman finally said the only thing left to do was put new wires in the outlet in the wall, and he wasn’t equipped to do that. So he called and scheduled an appointment for another repairman to come out and do it later. My husband and I both heard him say it would be the next morning between 8 and 10. He left, and we enjoyed watching our high def channels that evening.

The next morning I waited around until noon despite the fact that I needed to do some things at school. When he still had not showed, I called Charter again. I told the customer service representative (CSR from this point on) that I wanted to know if our serviceman was still coming. She asked for the name on our account, which I gave her, and then asked for our address to verify. I gave her that, and then she wanted to know the last four digits of the social security number that was on the account. I told her it was my husband’s number, and he wasn’t there for me to ask him; I just wanted to know if the serviceman was coming. CSR insisted that she had to have the SS#. I explained once more that I could not give it to her since I had not memorized my husband’s social security number, and it really shouldn’t be necessary since all I wanted to know was when the serviceman was coming. CSR responds that she has that information but cannot give it to me without the SS#. I tell her that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. She says that is the policy. I tell her it wasn’t the policy the day before when I called for the same reason. In fact, I say, I have called Charter numerous times due to lapses in their service and the only time I have ever been asked for that info is when I added the high def to the account, which made sense since it involved an increase in the bill. CSR responds that she can’t help it if other people are not following policy, but she cannot give me the information I need. The policy, she says, is to protect me, the customer. PROTECTING ME FROM WHAT? I ask. CSR: It is to protect people from having unauthorized changes to their account. Me: But I’m NOT making changes to the account; I just want to know if our serviceman is coming! CSR stubbornly refuses to use common sense, so I ask for her name. She gives me a name I never heard and can’t understand and so I ask her to spell it. Then I ask her if there is anyone higher up I can speak to. CSR: I’ll be happy to put you in touch with someone who will tell you exactly what I have just told you. Me: Please do.

Momentarily another woman comes on the phone and asks me how I am doing. “Not too well right now, since I can’t get an answer to a simple question.” She says, “Were you wanting to know if the serviceman is coming today?” “YES!” She looks it up and says that he was scheduled to come the NEXT day between 8 and 10. I told her that was not what the previous repairman had told us, but OK, just so I know when he is coming. Then I asked her why the other CSR could not tell me that. “She must not have understood,” she replies. “That is what I kept trying to tell her.”

So here it is the next day – it’s 12:56 and I’m still waiting.