CHARTER

[G. Keenan]

I will never use Charter again in my lifetime and anyone who asks me my opinion I say stay far away. I've never had more problems w/ a single company in my life. They are known for their terrible customer service and most of the techs they send out are borderline mentally challeged.

I had so many billing issues w/ the company it was unreal and they never wanted to fix the problem. Please for the sake of your own good GO WITH A DISH whether its Dish Network or Direct TV either one is 100x better.

This rant cracked me up.

I have a small little space in the pit of my soul saved for Charter rants.

That was a rant from the heart.

[JL21]

I've never had disconnect problems, but myriads of other problems with Charter. For instance, my cable box was going out. Just getting old and needed to be replaced. I hounded them for 4 months before they replaced it.

[zambonifan]

Charter Communications is the most poorly ran organization I have ever encountered.

I tried to cancel my cable a few months ago. The said wait, we will make your internet/cable bill much cheaper. I said, well ok.

2 monthly bills arrive without the discount. I spend hours on the phone asking why? In the meantime, they disconnect my service! All I wanted to know was why I was getting bills for nearly double what I was told I needed to pay.

Techs miss 3 reconnect appointments because I was not at my home. I was told I didn't need to be home!

NOW I AM GETTING BILLS FOR EVEN MORE THAN DOUBLE WHAT I STARTED WITH.

I called today and spent an hour on the phone to get it back to what my "discount" was supposed to be.

I swear to god if my next bill doesn't say THAT AMOUNT I am getting satelite and using the phone company for the internet.

CHARTER IS EVIL.

this is exactly why I know have DirecTV. It took me 2 weeks to get hooked back up after they "accidnetly" un-hooked me. Talking to their customer service, they said my tech service would be from St. Louis when I actually live in Southern Wisconsin.

[docellis]

A former cable company call center rep says: "We lie" to customers who ask when installer will arrive
By Michael D. Sorkin
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/27/2007

Chris Gates says she knows exactly why so many of Charter Communications' customers are complaining of poor service.

Gates was a call center representative in Cape Girardeau handling 100 to 125 calls a day from Charter customers. Executives at Charter talk about how service is improving, but Gates was on the front lines dealing with unhappy customers.

"The No. 1 complaint," she says, "was why didn't the technician show up for my appointment?"

A simple question, you'd think. But one Gates says call center employees can't answer.

She says call center reps have no idea when installers are supposed to show up, where they are at the time, or when — or if — they might arrive.

"We had nothing in our system that told us anything about where Charter's technicians were," Gates says.

So what do call center reps tell callers?

"We lie to them," Gates says. "We tell them, 'Absolutely, the technician will be there.' "

Customers who persist are given another Charter phone number to call, Gates says.

Many of those customers call back to say that second number didn't work.

Gates says reps at the call center know that might happen. "The number doesn't work half the time," she says.

If the call center can't answer these questions, why not just transfer customers to someone who can?

"We were not allowed to transfer calls," Gates says. "Even though we had no training in technical support, we were supposed to answer the customers' questions and sell them new services."

Selling new services was the highest priority, she says.

Call center reps were allowed to transfer only 7 percent of their calls. More than that and they were written up and disciplined, Gates says.

Reps also could be disciplined for reporting to work 30 seconds late or returning from lunch or a break 30 seconds late. Those counted as an "absence" and 12 "absences" got a rep fired.

Gates earned about $720 every two weeks, before taxes and deductions. She has three children and says she quit after four months.

As for Gates, how did she handle customer questions she couldn't answer?

"You want the honest answer?" Gates says. "I hung up on them. That's why I left. I hated what I was forced to do."

[cardinalkarp]

The above article sounds about right.

I've been dealing w/ Dish Network lately because they have screwed up my bill but they've been wonderful about it. I've been dealing directly w/ a manager (he gave me his direct line) and if I have any questions on anything he says to call him directly. My bill was off this last month due to install and upgrade charges that shouldn't have been there and he basically credited the entire bill for my trouble.

Not to mention the installer that came out knew exactly what he was doing and even made a special trip back out to my house in the afternoon because he accidentally put on the wrong dish (he did what was on the work order), to correct the problem. The billing issues have been a bit of a pain but they've done a GREAT job in resolving my issues.

[stlmark]

Wow! I'm not surprised doc.

[Arthur Dent]

A former cable company call center rep says: "We lie" to customers who ask when installer will arrive
By Michael D. Sorkin
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/27/2007

Chris Gates says she knows exactly why so many of Charter Communications' customers are complaining of poor service.

Gates was a call center representative in Cape Girardeau handling 100 to 125 calls a day from Charter customers. Executives at Charter talk about how service is improving, but Gates was on the front lines dealing with unhappy customers.

"The No. 1 complaint," she says, "was why didn't the technician show up for my appointment?"

A simple question, you'd think. But one Gates says call center employees can't answer.

She says call center reps have no idea when installers are supposed to show up, where they are at the time, or when — or if — they might arrive.

"We had nothing in our system that told us anything about where Charter's technicians were," Gates says.

So what do call center reps tell callers?

"We lie to them," Gates says. "We tell them, 'Absolutely, the technician will be there.' "

Customers who persist are given another Charter phone number to call, Gates says.

Many of those customers call back to say that second number didn't work.

Gates says reps at the call center know that might happen. "The number doesn't work half the time," she says.

If the call center can't answer these questions, why not just transfer customers to someone who can?

"We were not allowed to transfer calls," Gates says. "Even though we had no training in technical support, we were supposed to answer the customers' questions and sell them new services."

Selling new services was the highest priority, she says.

Call center reps were allowed to transfer only 7 percent of their calls. More than that and they were written up and disciplined, Gates says.

Reps also could be disciplined for reporting to work 30 seconds late or returning from lunch or a break 30 seconds late. Those counted as an "absence" and 12 "absences" got a rep fired.

Gates earned about $720 every two weeks, before taxes and deductions. She has three children and says she quit after four months.

As for Gates, how did she handle customer questions she couldn't answer?

"You want the honest answer?" Gates says. "I hung up on them. That's why I left. I hated what I was forced to do."

That's hilarious. You know, in a bad way.

[Brodie]

Comcast pissed me off yesterday, I signed up for HD with a HD DVR, well the guys who came to install (cause obviously it is a two person job) said they had a normal DVR for my sheet and they did have an HD one in the truck, but I had to call Comcast to switch it, when I called Comcast the next day (i didn't want them in my apartment anymore than they had to be there) comcast said they should have given me the HD DVR, so now I have to go to a Comcast office and switch, Effers

-Brodie

[letsgocards89]

If any of you have a chance to chose between Charter/Comcast and Cox Communications please, for your own mental sanity, choose Cox. That's the local provider here in Arkansas and I've used them since I moved here almost 4 years ago and I have had 0 trouble with them. They do have a tendency to upsell you products when you call but they are never rude about it and handle installs/troubleshooting in a respectable amount of time.

[Capt_Morgan]

Charter Communications is the most poorly ran organization I have ever encountered.

I tried to cancel my cable a few months ago. The said wait, we will make your internet/cable bill much cheaper. I said, well ok.

2 monthly bills arrive without the discount. I spend hours on the phone asking why? In the meantime, they disconnect my service! All I wanted to know was why I was getting bills for nearly double what I was told I needed to pay.

Techs miss 3 reconnect appointments because I was not at my home. I was told I didn't need to be home!

NOW I AM GETTING BILLS FOR EVEN MORE THAN DOUBLE WHAT I STARTED WITH.

I called today and spent an hour on the phone to get it back to what my "discount" was supposed to be.

I swear to god if my next bill doesn't say THAT AMOUNT I am getting satelite and using the phone company for the internet.

CHARTER IS EVIL.

geeze Doc....you're a bad couple of weeks...........SUCKS