UPDATE: I finally spoke with Customer Service today and they made it
very clear that they were not in the least bit interested in retaining
my business. I guess 14 years as a loyal customer means nothing to Time
Warner / Spectrum. Oh well, I'll be moving on to another provider.
As the title implies, Spectrum Cable, formerly Time-Warner/Charter Communications, has demonstrated some extremely poor customer service to me today.
Please allow me to elaborate...
Last week, as has happened a couple of times over the last few years, we found that our pay cycle was not in sync with Time-Warner/Charter Communications' billing cycle, requiring us to request an extension so we could pay our bill. Time-Warner/Charter Communications was fine with this as we only ever asked for 1-2 days extension and we would always pay both the past due and current bill. We've been customers with Time-Warner/Charter Communications for 14 years and while we've had to endure increases in service cost and such, we've had little to complain about... until last week.
Now, Time-Warner/Charter Communications is called Spectrum and when we found it necessary to request an extension of 2 days in order to pay both our past due and current bill, Spectrum's customer service rep flat out refused and was quite snippy in demanding payment or face disconnect and reconnect fees if our service was restored.
We found it necessary to borrow money from one of those loan shark places to pay just the past due amount and repaid the loan shark place 2 days later, with a substantial fee attached. I don't blame the loan shark place as that's their business, though we haven't had to use their services since 1999. Needless to say, I was quite upset about this and resolved to find a better service provider.
Since Monday, I've looked around, talked to a number of providers, including Joink, Frontier, Direct TV, Midwest and Xfinity and found several really good deals that serve our needs and cut our overall costs by nearly 1/2 of what we spend now. So, today, I received a flyer in the mail from Spectrum that had a seemingly great deal for a bundled set of services, including Internet, cable and phone for $90.00 per month for a year. Now, the catch is that it's for new customers only, but since Spectrum is new to us as we are to them, I consider this a valid offer that should be available to us.
I went down to the former Time-Warner/Charter Communications office (now Spectrum) and met with a customer service rep named Carly. I explained our predicament, including the refused extension, diminished Internet speed and rising costs and my desire to discontinue our service unless they offered us the deal I showed her that we had received in the mail. During my discourse, she interrupted me on numerous occasions in an effort to distract me and disable my train of thought. Well, I don't play those games, so I had to restate my case numerous times until she realized that I was aware of her tactics. Once finished, she excused herself and returned a few minutes later with a rather large fellow that I'm sure she thought would intimidate me. Good luck with that as even cops don't intimidate me. He said he was a Tech Op Supervisor, but when I requested that he identify himself, he refused.
I find that very disturbing as it implies that Spectrum has something to hide. I wonder what it is???
When I tried to present the relevant facts regarding our concerns, this large fellow, who I'll refer to here as Beavis since he wishes to remain nameless, told me that I was being disrespectful. I pointed out that I was not raising my voice, I was not using foul language and was only presenting facts. He once more declared that I was being disrespectful.
I suppose in today's political climate, facts are considered disrespectful. Go figure?
I left Spectrum without any resolution to my concerns and so I am considering terminating our service after 14 loyal years and seeking services from another company that is more concerned with their customers than the corporate bottom line.
I am willing however, to afford Spectrum one opportunity to address our concerns and retain our business. Otherwise, we will switch over to Joink and Direct TV and still pay half of what Spectrum is demanding.
The ball is in their court, but only for a week or so, then it's time to move on.
James C. Wallace II
