The official "Time Warner SUCKS" thread

[blackcatgrowl]

Warning… this is a LONG read.

TLDR version: Time Warner’s product is uncompetitive with other TV options out there, their customer service is a nightmare and highly incompetent and they are trying to screw me for $90, which is going to cost them a long time customer.

You know it's bad when you get off the phone with a company and you are so pissed you can feel heat radiating from your face and ears... let me share why.

I'll preface this by saying I've been a Road Runner customer since 1998. I'd always had a minor level of dissatisfaction with TWC for years. Mostly because between 1998 to 2006, of 5 times I've moved within Charlotte, they have shut off my email account 4 times, and actually GAVE my email address to someone else, even though service was completely uninterrupted. Every time I moved, I just expected to have to call and threaten leaving them to get it back. Little did I know it was symptomatic of a deeper problem with that organization… as my recent years of experience has revealed.

We'll start back in 2006, when my wife and I decided to drop Bell South and get TWC Telephone, and sign up for Digital Cable TV. We got the combo package for $120 a month for RR, phone and TV (after taxes it was actually over $130).

Almost immediately we started having problems with the Cable TV signal. We'd get pixelation sometimes, and certain channels were unwatchable as the audio would cut out or there would be such pixelation we couldn't see the show we were trying to watch.

Call #1 -

We called for service and I went through about 90 minutes of over-the-phone troubleshooting. The person I talked to said "This happens sometimes you just have to reset your box." We thought, “Wow… they sure didn’t advertise that!”

Call #2 -

While trying to watch a Panthers game on ESPN one Monday, the pixelation was so bad; I missed some pivotal plays in the game. I went through the phone support thing again, but pleaded with the support person to send someone out. They finally agreed. Someone did come out and replaced our remote and box. It seemed better so they left.

Call #3 -

Within a week, the pixelation started back up. I called for service again and they sent someone else out. The tech, who only watched a minute of the problem, told my wife "Oh, the splitter in your living room is bad, get another." So we did, but the problems persisted.

We were tired of messing with it. The pixelation had been going on for over 6 months, so we just moved on. We would just reset the box if it got bad. This helped sometimes. Most the time it didn't .

Call #4 -

About a year later, some people at work told me about DVR, so I called TWC and they up-sold me to the DVR service for $10 a month (we were at almost $150 a month now). A tech came out and replaced the box.

Of course, the pixelation continued, except now, it was showing up on the DVR. So I called them back. They sent someone out after a couple days. This time the service tech actually tested the signal with a meter. He checked all through the house and out back at the junction into the house. His evaluation? Stop using a splitter in my living room. This isn't an option, because I need two connections for my TV and for the Cable Modem for my router/phone which are all located centrally in my house.

At this point, we were just exhausted with the whole thing. I noticed too through all this that if the temperature outside was very hot or very cold, the pixelation got worse. I knew it was a problem with something in the cable box at the street and just gave up on them ever fixing it.

A little over a year later (late 2008 now)... I noticed that my bill shot up to almost $180 a month! I called them, and they said that my "Package Discount" expired. We thought about cutting off the cable service, but didn't want satellite service, and my wife had stopped working to be a full time mommy, so we didn't want to cut off the TV. We just ate the increase, but I was very displeased.

[blackcatgrowl]

Another year went by (Aug. 2009 now), and a co-worker told me about TWC's "Price Lock Guarantee" program. Basically, you commit to a contract with them to maintain your service, and they reduce your bill by $30. Having a single income family now and money tightening up... we signed up in August 2009.

I remember distinctly at that time that they offered me a 12-month or 24-month contract. I went with the 12 month, as we didn’t know what the economy was going to do, and if my money situation would improve. I agreed to their voice confirmation policy, and got my bill back down to a little over $150 a month.

Back in May/June of this year, a buddy of mine started using Netflix. I went over to his house one evening, and I watched how he queued up movies and watched them on his Xbox. I found out that my Blu-Ray player had built-in Netflix. But we were still trying to save some money, so we didn’t want to just sign up for Netflix and continue with DVR/Cable TV. We talked about it for a couple months, and finally decided to discontinue the DVR service (by the way, compared to Netflix… DVR sucks ass for variety offerings).

I called TW in July to review what service options I had to reduce service or even remove Cable TV. The guy on the phone reminded me that I was still under contract. I had completely forgotten about the Price Lock. He said I could reduce my service but if I cut it off I’d have a $100 early termination fee. I asked him what kind of money I would save by reducing my service. Every option he gave me was minimal in cost reduction (at best $20), would have significantly reduced the quality of TV I got, and carried a 24-month contract renewal.

None of this sounded appealing to me. So, I asked him when the contract was up. He said September 30th of this year. I said I’d call back in a couple months then and review my options. I asked him to not change anything for now.

Well, in late July, we had an unexpected money situation, and I had to move some funds around and saw that in the 2nd week of August, my checkings account would be really low. I was setup with auto-draft for my cable bill, and knew it wasn’t going to clear on August 12th, so I un-enrolled from the auto-draft on July 30th. I would have to pay it on the 15th, a few days late, but I couldn’t help that, as I wasn’t getting more money until then.

On August 15th, I logged into the On-line bill pay for TWC, and my bill was almost $180 bucks! I looked at the statement detail and there was a $25 returned draft fee. I was like “WTF???”. I logged on to my bank account and sure enough, TWC had tried to auto-draft me.

I immediately called them, and asked why they were auto-drafting me even though I turned the auto-draft off. They said that the de-enrollment took 15 days. So I because I un-enrolled 13 days earlier, they drafted me anyhow.

I was livid. I went OFF on that phone taker. I gave her the horns. I went over 4 years of piss poor service from them and even pointed out that we still have pixelation problems.

I pointed out there was NOTHING on their PayExpress website that says there is a 15-day un-enrollment delay. If I had seen that, I could have put the payment on a credit card. So they not only cost me a $50 Non-sufficient fund fee from the bank, but had the audacity to try and charge me $25 for not communicating how their payment functions work. The lady taking the call said she would put in a service call for the pixelation issue, but wanted me to call back about the bank fee for some reason.

I called back the next day. They credited me the fee they tried to assess, but their phone taker said he couldn’t do anything about the $50 the bank charged me. The only option I had for that was to fax my bank statement to a supervisor, and they would see about what they could do. I was still highly pissed, but I wasn’t left with much option.

Within a couple days, a tech guy came out to look at the pixelation problem again. This guy was really cool, and knew what he was doing. He tested my signal from the TV to the wall, from the wall to the junction in the back of the house, and from the house to the underground pedestal, where the tap is that services several homes including mine

He actually showed me the problem. The coax-cable connector at the end of the wire from my house to the underground pedestal was half-rusted. And I’m talking brown. He ran a new cable across my yard from the back of my house to the pedestal at the street. My pixelation problem cleared up immediately.

I was completely disgusted as a rusted cable was used to hook up my cable (cause we had these issues from the start), we had crappy TV service for 4 years, and NO ONE could check all this out until we just happened to get the right guy on our service call.

So… September 30th came. After everything that had gone on recently, we decided to end Cable TV service. I called them and cut off all TV from them. I made sure to confirm with the phone taker that my contract was up, and I wouldn’t be charged any termination fees. I also confirmed that I wasn’t under a new contract. We kept the Road Runner and Phone, as I need broadband internet for work, and the phone service is competitive enough. I turned in the DVR box the next day.

We signed up for Netflix, ran an Ethernet cable to the Blu-ray player and we’ve been loving it. I bought some rabbit ears for my HDTV for $9 in case there was something live we wanted to watch. The HDTV signal isn’t perfect all the time, but hey… it’s about as good as we had with the pixelation problem we lived with for 4 years. And the Netflix has only screwed up once out of hundred of shows we’ve watched. It’s been very satisfactory for the money involved.

So, I went to pay my first bill Friday after all these changes. It was over $180. I was like “WTF” all over again. I looked at the statement details and there was a $90 “PLG Contract Termination Fee”. I was so pissed I just put off calling them, because I didn’t want to cuss out some stranger.

I called them yesterday morning. I calmly stated that there was an error on my bill, and I needed to correct it. I explained that there was a contract termination fee and my contract was fulfilled. The guy taking the call said he’d see what he could do and put me on hold.

When he came back, he said “Sir, there is a problem”. He went on to explain that I had a 24-month contract and I cancelled early. I explained to him that I had signed up for a 12-month contract, and two people confirmed that the contract ended on Sept. 30th of this year. He put me on hold to talk to a supervisor.

He came back on the line, and said that the supervisor pulled the recording of my contract acceptance and it was for a 24 month contract. I rejected this, and stated again that I accepted a 12 month contract, and the whole point was moot, because two of their people recently confirmed the contract was over on Sept. 30th of this year. Then the guy basically accused me of baiting the TWC people I talked to, so I could get out of my contract. I went off on him, and said I want to talk to whomever can resolve this.

He transferred me to a supervisor. She restated what the guy said about the contract acceptance call, and I stated to her that it was moot, because two people told me the contract expired, and that information was what I based my cancellation timing on. She said they would pull the recording of those calls, and get back to me on Wednesday as to whether or not they will remove the fee. I ended the call stating I would not pay this fee, and if by Wednesday they hadn’t removed it, I’d be calling Vonage to get phone service, and Bell South for DSL, and terminate all TWC services completely.

I'm tempted to cut them off anyway after all of this.

Feel free to share your experiences on terrible TWC service. I know I’m not alone.

[Carolina Husker]

tl;dr

[Goosfraba21]

Other than it being a little pricey and having to reboot my hd box once in a while I have had no problems. Surrounded by woods it is really our only option here. If I were you and went through all that bs I would tell them to shove it you know where and move on to another company.

[FuzzyPanther]

[TarPanther9180]

I boycotted Time Warner back in 2006. I won't use anything they offer for the rest of my life.

[Jangler]

10k words to say TWC sucks?

[blackcatgrowl]

10k words to say TWC sucks?

Actually 12k. I copied and pasted the bulk of a letter I've been writing since yesterday which is getting sent to their President Wednesday if they try and charge me that $90.

[Jangler]

They all suck and are ripping people off. Direct TV has dumped some Fox channels and might dump the rest of Fox, but they haven't lowered prices.

What was the line from PF's Nobody's Home? "I got thirteen channels of poo on the TV to choose from..." that was in 1977.

[Samuel L. Jackson]

I've had similar issues, although not as in-depth...

Just recently, our boxes started dropping channels (ie. you tune in and they say "unavailable")... Then during the Panthers-Bengals game all channels started pixelating the way you describe...

We had issues in the past when we first got TWC at our house (we had had them at our apartment prior) because we were the last house on the drop and it was a long drop... They ended up having to put an amplifier outside our house so that our signal (especially the HD channels) were strong enough...

Since then they have extended the cable all over our road... Come to find out, when they did, they didn't remove our amp, and it was making the signal TOO STRONG and it was "confusing" the boxes/modem...

Our internet would drop out for a moment several times a day, and our digital boxes were doing what I described earlier...

Everything seems to be working okay since they removed the amp, and it appears that the problem is corrected, but the entire situation was almost the final straw in our ordeal over the years with TWC...

Their solution to everything over the phone is always "let's try to reset your box/modem" even though I tell them I have done so numerous times before I call... and when they have to send a tech out, they give you a 4 hour window of when he "might" show up...

Thankfully, the last tech showed me how to bring up the diagnostic screen on our digital boxes, to actually see the signal strength, and told me what it should look like... If I ever have to call them again, I can now eliminate that step for the phone tech also...

Their tech support is horrid, but their product and account folks (at least in our experience) are alright... We haven't got the phone yet because, and I tell them this every time they try to sell it to me, they haven't worked out a deal to carry the NFL network yet...

We have 2 DVRs and RR, and are price-locked at around $135 a month...

[Kevin Greene]

They all suck and are ripping people off. Direct TV has dumped some Fox channels and might dump the rest of Fox, but they haven't lowered prices.

What was the line from PF's Nobody's Home? "I got thirteen channels of poo on the TV to choose from..." that was in 1977.

I'm a Dish network subscriber and I think you mean Dish, not Direct. Fox Sports West is black right now. Supposodely if things aren't worked out by Nov 1 we'll also lose Fox TV.

I dropped TWC long ago when they dropped NFL network.

I don't give a poo about Fox programming except for their Sports. They best get it worked out.

[Jangler]

Yeah, Dish...

It's all the same to me, since I have none.

[Chimera]

Why don't you want satellite? It's great, except for all the Fox Sports stations are currently blocked.

And who still uses landline phones?

And contracts for cable service? Never heard of such a thing.

[TarPanther9180]

I think once I get out of my contract, I'm gonna just build a multi-media center/DVR computer, have a nice HD antenna, and go with hulu and netflix. Probably will save a ton of money.