Charter a Handbasket, Straight to Hell...
Tried calling Charter again.
Started out trying to be business like, friendly, enlisting the help of whomever I spoke to. All I actually want to know is 1) why they added channels I don't get 2) if they have taken them off 3) why my bill has jumped nearly $20 , even after taking off the mystery channel charges and 4) how much I owe on my bill.
Ended up saying things like " well I know you can't help me out on any of this, but could we just chat for a while? You know, get to know each other , find out of we have anything in common "
Or, " what is it like in India, I hear it is lovely , I do a lot of Indian cooking myself, "
I am finding out that India generally " transfers " me, which means hanging up. The sales office tries to get me to add channels and, oddly enough, the tech support people will talk about anything, as long as I want to. Sort of like a really friendly chatline.
( tho the one time I DID have a tech problem, they invented a completely fabricated reason for it and it resulted in me losing my hard drive on the moxie, and all my programs, AND my cable for the ONE night I had to spend in my house that week. )
Charter does not have a direct line to the billing department. As far as I can tell , they have ONE number, with a solid 5 to 10 minutes in voice system and after which one is transferred to a completely random department.
IS there a billing department? I suspect if I don't PAY them , I will hear straight away, but that plays merry hell with the old credit rating....
IS there a company out there that will sell me cable, Internet and phone service and bill me only for what I order?
I am nearly thinking, well what the heck, my time is worth more than this, just pay it, which is , I strongly suspect, what they are hoping for.
And IS there a way we can take this national and actually get some serious press on the way Charter is doing business??? Hmmmm...
I may go on a crusade.
More on this as it develops. Or doesn't as the case may be.
Love and Fraud,
Lorraine
posted by FabulousLorraine @ 5:24 PM
17 Comments
17 Comments:
Dan Guy just said this in regards to my last post
" Cable companies are the worst. The billing SNAFUs, the customer help line SNAFUs, yikes!
I got sick of it and started taking advantage of it a few years ago. Every other year or so I call the cable company over and over complaining about things, asking for free promotions, and changing services. Eventually I get my account so jacked that I get all of the movie channels free for 18 months or so. Neither Adelphia nor Comcast's systems seem to be able having overlapping promotions -- instead of expiring after six months of concurrency they seem to run serially and last thrice that. "
Clearly , Dan Guy, you have Special Powers. Tell us you secrets!!!!!!
yes danth yes you must share your methods - we just switched to verizon, and the first bill was impossible to decipher. i don't hold much hope for the second, plus they added a message service i didn't ask for, and a couple other items i'm not sure what are for...gah, i will soon be on the phone like Lorraine. Hope this plays out ok for you Lorraine!
carry on the good fight, kind & beautiful Quiche.
i know you can get what you dearly want.
xo meow
Many thanks! I know I will win, as for what I really want, hee-hee, can you and Malena and I get away to Maui for a week or so????
Saw the Saw-wet owl again today, SO cool! Sharon blogs about it at Birdchick.com . There he was with his cute little owl face , just sitting in a tree!
Hee..the picture really says it all.
Sounds like they are just trying to make you give up and give in.
That picture does say it all, hee-hee, one of the worst of me yet! ( she says proudly )
There is a lot to be proud of in that picture.
Congrats on the Saw-wet
If anyone could make it national... you could, Fablo!!
Argh! Type of things that make me so glad I don't have a TV...
I think you'll have to go into guerilla mode à la Dan and bother them until they come out with appeasing goodies.
Reporting them would ALSO be a good idea.
A month ago there were big headlines in these parts after an elderly woman, who had gotten sick of the cable company's "Help" Line, showed up at the local office and, receiving no help, pulled a hammer out of her handbag and began smashing phones and computers, shouting, "Now you can use your's either, how does it feel?!"
Suffices to say she is now a much-lauded folk hero whose legal bills were covered by community donations.
As for dealing with the cable company, it sucks to an unimaginable degree and, given that, the best you can do is to use it against them.
Ask if they have any current promotions. They always do. Flat out ask if you can have free trials of movie packages and such, and free upgrades from normal cable internet to the faster tier of broadband if they offer it.
With all the cable companies I've had there's supposed to be a 30 day waiting period between promotions, so you can't just go from one to another. If you got them to give you a promotion because they screwed up, though, (and they always screw up something,) you can convince them to forgo this.
The last time I went through Cable Hell, I called them up and said I'd received an offer mailing for "Silver Package" premium cable and broadband internet bundled together for $40/month for 12 months. I don't know if a similar mailing had ever existed, but they gave it to me. And they didn't use a promo code, apparently, because it never expired. I'm guessing there's just a note in my account telling the next person who looks at it to take it off after such and such date, which is why I haven't called in since!
this photo of Quiche makes me almost as happy as hearing in my mind, her little voice "i do lots of Indian cooking myself"
classic FabLo!!!
and Danth,
someday, i will be in a position to hire your geniusness. you are a gold buillion cube!
Just called again. Sigh.
Found out where the Mystery charge came from. The charged me TWICE for the Movie Channel I did not order.
She then told me she could not remove the charge, that was ANOTHER department , and if I didn't want to recieve it, I would have to have them take it off.
She " tranferred " me to a busy signal which then hung up.
Apparently, she chattily told me, my " promotional " tate expires in 2 months and then everything would be going up anyway.
Now is the time to harrass them until your account is so screwed up that you're getting things free! Being double-billed for something you never ordered is a start, now you need to be double and triple promotioned! LOL
On the other hand, depending on how much tv you watched it might not be worth the pain and suffering to harrass the cable company back.
Whatever happned to AMERICAN customer service huh? Probably the same thing that happened to "quality American cars" and "made in the USA" clothing. I miss all that. I want it back.
Hang in there Q!
I live in Arkansas, and ever since Charter bought out cable company, they scewed us royally. They kept promising that we would get Broadband internet (still don't have it in our area), and kaept raising prices at will. We finally just switched to DirectTV. Charter sucks hard!!!!!!!!!
Malena - I have a "quality American car" which is now 163,000 miles and 31 years old and is a joy. I will confidently drive it up to FabLo's neck o'the woods. That is in sharp contrast to my now-gone 80s American car which was utter crap and cured me from ever, EVER buying another new GM car (despite a big discount via dad's GM status). What happened in those 10 years? Ugh! They're awful now.
Lo, darlin', do you really watch enough TV to make all this drama/trauma worth it? I'd tell them to take their cable and to run it up um, well... you get the picture. Rent stuff from Blockbuster and Netflix. Or get a dish.
Actually, I'm betting if you call to cancel they'll beg, plead and offer you all kinds of specials.
Then again, unlike certain publishers, at least they answer their phone and communicate. :P
Bad customer service sucks.
Lorraine that expression on your face is priceless and captures the exact frusrations one feels after talking on the phone with the so "support" staff! I don't have a common name but there are a lot with it I guess, some people hav etold me that they have google my name and got other women but none are mine. I also had billing problems because some of these people (two male) are dead beats and I have to scream they have the WRONG person. Still, I have problems! I know how you feel! I hope you can work things out!
Lorraine, maybe you should report them to the Better Business Bureau 'cause this is getting ridiculous.
Definitely a good idea to document everything if you can.
Or maybe like Maureen said, threaten to quit and then they'll inundate you with freebies to keep you.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home