Customer (dis)Service: Charter Communication

I have been in a battle with my cable company, Charter Communications, for several weeks now. Actually, I have been battling with them for about a year now for a variety of issues with my service. My most recent battle is regarding the cablecards that are installed in my HD TiVo.

On May 8th I got Digital/HD service added to my account, and I wanted to have the installer check my line to make sure that my signals were good. He refused because the picture at the time was clear, but I made him sign that he didn't check the signal on my work order. After the installer left, my digital and HD channels cut in and out. I eventually got rid of Charter's HD DVR and I got two cablecards installed on May 15th and I was still having an issue where most of my digital and HD channels were not coming in. I was told by the installed that it takes 24-48 hours for the channels to download to the cablecards. That didn't make any sense to me but I let the install off the hook.

48 hours later, I was still having a issue with my cable.

I had them come back on May 18th between 11am and 2pm, and they didn't show it until 2:40pm. They reactivated my cablecards, so I thought, and my service returned and I asked them to check my signals to make sure they were okay. I was pissed with them because they showed up late, messed up the initial installation, and made me return to my office late after working from home for a couple of hours. I just wanted them gone so they forgot to check the signal. Made an emergency appointment for the next day.

May 19th: Charter never showed for the appointment. Totally annoyed, I called and had to deal with their inept customer service staff who knew absolutely nothing about cablecards. After spinning my wheels for about an hour, I had to make another appointment. I wasn't going to take more time off of work so I made it for the following Saturday.

May 26th: Charter never showed for the appointment schedule between 8am-11am. I called and they send a message to the installer and they were supposed to call me within an hour. They never did.

I meet up with a friend for lunch and came back home around 2:30pm. Called Charter to let them know their installer never show up. They gave me a $25 missed appointment credit (which I didn't receive last time two times) and spoke with the installers dispatching office. They were scheduled to come up withing 1.5 hours.

I fell asleep on the couch with my (loud) cordless phone near my head. I woke up around 4:20pm and did not receive any calls from Charter. Their policy is to call you when they are on their way ... but they never called. I called Charter to let them know that the installer never called me for the appointment, but was told that the installer came at 4:16pm without calling. I was livid. They made another appointment for me for the following Monday between 1-5pm. I took it ... but I wasn't happy about it.

May 28th: Around 11:30am I heard a knock at my door. I thought it might be my neighbour because I listening to music on my desktop computer at a high volume. It wasn't ... it was actually the Charter installer 1.5 hours early for my appointment. Luckily I was home or else I would have missed another appointment. Once again, they didn't not call before showing up for the appointment.

One of my cablecards was swapped out but it wasn't pairing with systems. The installer tried to blame my Monster power filter/surge protector for the problem before I had to set him straight and let him know the problems were associated with the device. I asked him to check my signal, but the installed tried to tell me that the signal was fine and a booster was recently added to the main line to improve the signal. I adamantly asked him to check my signal because it has been an issue for at least two years. It was the reason why I couldn't get a cable modem in my apartment. He wasn't happy but he went to his truck, got his equipment, checked the signal, and lo and behold ... my signal completely out of range.

I asked the installer if he could fix the problem, but he said he couldn't. Not only did he not have the equipment to do so, I was told that it possible couldn't be fixed because I lived in a apartment. Ummm ... what? I have been paying a home wiring maintenance fee (which covers repairs to faulty wiring) for 1.5 years and now I was being told that I can't have maintenance on my wires? How does that make any sense?

After taking a look at existing wiring, he called his HQ and they scheduled an in-house installer to rewire my apartment June 2nd. They should be able to run a new line from the main box to my apartment, which should solve all my problems. I just have to get approval from the apartment managers.

Hopefully, everything goes as planned because the Roland Garros-French Open has started and I don't want my tennis coverage interrupted.