If you have Time Warner cable or internet service, you know how downright awful this service is. Just moving to a new apartment six blocks down the road led to the girlfriend and I having to wait at the apartment four days while they first brought us this awful Moxie box from 1997, and then brought us a Motorola box that wouldn’t show us the channels, to On Demand never working.. and most recently, to when we bought an HD TV and told them that we wanted them to bring the HD box over. They arrived, hooked up the box, and didn’t even bother to mention that we didn’t have HD DVR, so that’s another day of waiting around the apartment for them.
Well fuck that. I’m switching to DirecTV. No this isn’t an advertorial for DirecTV, I just see their dishes on the balcony of every apartment building around me, and I saw a commercial that says they have 85 HD channels.. oh and they get NESN, and I need to see the Red Sox.. AND I need to be able to DVR those games in HD, which they also offer apparently.
I’m still shopping around for high-speed internet options in Southern California, but again, Time Warner has got to go. I’ve had the internet go down at too many crucial times to bother with it anymore, and now add the fact that they’re looking to start charging customers based on bandwith. This is ridiculous, long gone would be the days where you see your friends sitting on your buddy list saying they’ve been idle for 18 hours.
Time Warner Cable makes you actually have to consider the fact that their customer service is just really really, unforgivably bad. Customer Service experience never enters my mind unless I’m at a Target in a sketchy area. Even then, I just wait patiently as the cashier talks to her friend on the phone while she scans my items. That’s fine with me, that experience is over and I’ve forgotten about it by the time I get to my car. Time Warner Cable, however, makes it impossible to forget how bad their customer service is, because you will never, EVER, have a positive experience with them. Whether it be the mind-numblingly dumb customer service rep that ensures you that everything is a-ok with your cable and then it’s just flat-out NOT, or the “contractors” that they allow to go to their customers’ homes to perform service work. My favorite of these contractors is the buddy teams that come out and watch rap videos or stunt bloopers on YouTube, “to make sure your high speed connection is working.” Oh snap indeed.
The fact that Time Warner is the worst service that ever was is not a new revelation. I wish someone had handed me a Welcome To California brochure that told me the last thing I should do is sign up for Time Warner Cable, but that didn’t happen. Let’s not forget the big class action suit against Time Warner Cable by, well us. I, like plenty of others new to LA, signed up for the seemingly convenient all-in-one cable/internet package through this awful, awful company. But people have been complaining about Time Warner Cable for a while now. GearBits was complaining back in 2005. The ISPGuide had a thread about how awful Time Warner’s internet service is, also back in 2005. Bloggers like myself, AnyIon , Sara Morrison, Brendoman, and KelliAmanda, have remained silent for a while, but it’s time everyone is made aware of this, and you KNOW your company is in trouble if there’s a Yelp page tearing you apart.
For even more grips about Time Warner Cable’s suckage, see this page on Consumerist.
If anyone has any tips on good deals for high-speed internet, that isn’t looking down the road of idiocy toward charging by bandwith, let me know. I want to be as far away from Time Warner Cable as possible.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Christina // Jan 17, 2008
You are so right. I’ve had the Time Warner contractors that stretch out on the floor or tell you blatant lies to get out the door on a Friday afternoon. And the poor, poor people they have answering their phones have obviously been thoroughly schooled in how to calm down pissed-off customers, because I always seem to stay with them after dialing with the intention to break it off. It’s a very emotionally abusive relationship! [totally just my opinion here folks]
2 Mac Enthusiasts Sucks - Mac Repair West Los Angeles Santa Monica | LA Snark // Feb 4, 2008
[...] they will not call you. I haven’t encountered customer service this bad outside of a call to Time Warner Cable. Not to mention that the hours at this place are awful.. 9-6 M-F and then 10-4 on Saturdays. [...]
3 TW Customer // Mar 8, 2008
Time-Warner is no worse than Adelphia, Comcast, Continental, Theta, Falcon, or Jack Barry was. (I’m sure I missed a few in the history lineup there.)
All cable sucks because it is a monopoly, and yet, is not regulated. Unlike the OP, I don’t *HAVE* a balcony, so I can’t install DirecTV. We are captive customers, and they know it, just like the phone company does for landline customers.
4 JSnark // Mar 8, 2008
Hey TW, I do have a balcony, but they actually installed the dish on the roof. I’m assuming you have a roof, so I say go for it. I’ve had it a few weeks now and no complaints at all!
5 thomas // Mar 31, 2008
Our home internet connection is provided by Time Warner’s Road Runner service. We have subscribed to the Extreme feature, yielding 10 mbps… at least on paper. In reality, we have had an extremely unreliable connection paired with Time Warner’s abysmal support. Dealing with them is such a mind numbing experience words can’t describe the incompetence of their staff. To make matters even worse, we are not talking about a company in business to rip its customers off, like Verizon, but rather a genuine failure at almost every level of support.
read the whole story here:
http://www.sibylleandthomas.info/drupal-5.2/node/25
6 Katie // Apr 24, 2008
We have Time Warner cable and recently added phone service to our package. The technician stated that the modem that was hooked up did not support phone, so he had to switch it out. Taking the modem that was previously hooked up with him. Which was OUR modem. I’ve been dealing with Amy from the claims department for over a month trying to get our modem back! She basically told me I was shit out of luck because I had no proof they took OUR modem. Well I DID find proof! When we originally had cable hooked up we swapped out the modem they had installed and hooked up ours, so we could hook up another computer on it. I found THEIR modem sitting near our computer. So I called the bitch back telling her I had her modem and she said well that sucks because it will never work because now we are reporting it lost or stolen! Now we are screwed out of a modem because their dumb asses messed up and we have “no proof”. I would like to threaten them with discontinuing their service, but I doubt they’d care. They have a million other customers, one less isn’t going to do a damn thing. A coworker suggested I call the news channel and see if they’ll do some sort of investigation.
7 JR // Apr 25, 2008
Man. You also need a digital box to see channels like 36-99 for regular analog channels?What a crap! I have to order another digital box…
8 RGF // Apr 25, 2008
Time Warner suck a big one… This Thursday, I lost cable service to my apartment (only I lost service not any of my neighbors). This is the third time this has happenend. This happens because a TW installers, disconnected me because he didn’t know what he was doing when he was connecting somebody up. My wife called TW, was on hold for over two hours, gave up, I called back the following day and then they called my wife a liar about being on hold that long. My apartment won’t let me get a dish, so I am stuck… F-TW.
9 hondagrrl // Apr 27, 2008
I totally agree. I have the Time Warner All-in-One package and have lost my telephone and inet THREE TIMES this week. I run a home-based business, so this directly interferes with my ability to earn a living, hence pay their bill.
I am seriously considering cancelling my Time Warner telephone and broadband service and transferring to ATT. I can’t switch to Dish, because my apartment balcony doesn’t have the correct skyline exposure.
I HATE TIME WARNER. THEIR RELIABILITY IS TERRIBLE.
10 Shanks // May 3, 2008
I switched to DirecTV but left Time Warner as my internet provider. It was coasting along for a few months, but all of a sudden the internet went down and kept going down. Time Warner Cable sucks and Time Warner Internet Sucks! The guy came over and wiggled some cords because at the time the internet was working, and then he left and the internet went down again. Then another guy came by and told me that the modem overheated! So he brings a new one by and puts it on a little stand because that will somehow prevent it from overheating, now, 1 day later, the cable is going on and off again! What is the deal with Time Warner Cable? Why do they suck so hard??
11 TW-Wisconsin // May 15, 2008
Time Warner in SE Wisconsin sucks too! I’ve just been having thee worst experiences. They won’t work with you to change or pay your bill, they’ve been changing their on-screen menu for like a month which kept disconnecting, and now it’s uglier than before! It’s blue and white? What was wrong with the last menu? This one sucks! It’s hard to read! And looks cheap. I lost my job, and we fell behind in the bills, TW being one of them. I was able to partially pay for it one month, and I asked to change my services so we could make it affordable..nope. The female I spoke to said that our bill had to be up -to-date before any changes could be made!! That was such bs. So…as you can guess, the bills kept getting further and further behind…I had the all-in-one and the bill was about $200 a month!! Well I made a recent payment, but still owed a little over $200, or so I thought because all of a sudden it changed…so a guy came out, and flipped the switch so it was fully disconnected. I called today and asked for a total so I could get caught up and change things…friggin’ chick said it was $1240! Because I didn’t return their equipment asap. I was screaming at them. She said I had to drive down to their office (which is 40 miles from my home..so let’s see, $4/gallon for gas, I get about 30 miles to the gallon, and I have to travel 80 miles..so about what…$10 in gas? Anyways…I have to now drag my poor toddler in there, return the boxes, pay the now $348 fee (WTF?) and re-sign up–meaning to call, make an appt. and have a tech come out to flip the switch back on again for ANOTHER $50!!!!!!! UGH!!!!#$R%%$@$%@#$@$%$@%@#$
You have no idea how pissed I am. No idea. That was like 5-6 hours ago and I’m still ranting.
And they won’t work with you! They will not work with you to pay your bill. Time Warner sucks in Wisconsin too folks. And it sucks that they are the only cable provider in the US. AT&T advertises on TV that they have cable, but that’s false advertisement because they work with “the Dish”! They don’t have broadband! So what else are we to do? I hate that I’m going thru this with them, it just adds onto the stress of me not having luck landing a good paying job to afford the shit. And so who knows how long it will take for them to come out. But..we’re not getting digital cable from them, nor internet, nor phone. I’m getting dial-up and we’re just going to use our cell phones.
And after I stop steaming…and since TW is the only place around..we’ll get basic analog cable…until the new converters come out in 2009, it will be interesting to see how many people drop cable all together because of the costs…heck if you have a digital converter, that’s all you need!! No one these days uses antennas, because today’s TV’s and for the past 10 years do not have those UHF/AHF wire antenna hook ups in the back! So WE ARE STUCK. It is SO not fair. Too bad they’re not switching all channels to digital sooner…too bad we have to wait until Feb. 2009.
Well, to say the least, I’m very upset at Time Warner Cable. They don’t care. Period. They don’t care if you’re sick, or got fired, or whatever. They just want money, and they’ll do whatever they can get away with, which is pretty much anything, to get your money. I wish AT&T would hurry up with their digital cable service…this just sucks. I hate that I have to drive all the way down there tomorrow and face these people. I am thinking that, if this is our only choice, then I choose to talk to a stupervisor there and deal with them.
Well..I’m getting tired now…I am hoping to be less steamed in the morning.
IN conclusion….
Yes–Time Warner sucks very bad. I hope they go out of business in the next few months…seriously.
They suck. They suck. They suck. Why do they suck? Because they can get away with it, they really don’t care about old customers or anyone else. They are awful, and I hope they get what is coming to them. What comes around, goes around. Just wait…..
These things will and are going to happen:
1.) People are going to stick it out with TW because AT&T is the only other company in competition, and until they hurry their asses up and get digital cable and not DISH, people will stick with TW until then.
2.) The very minute that all TV programming goes to digital converter boxes, people will dump cable like it is going out of style…because by that time, with this economy and how shitty it is and in recession…oh yea. TW Cable is going bye-bye. I’d be happy just getting local stations, since I don’t watch much TV, and especially 100 channels!!
G’night folks. Let’s hope and pray something good happens soon.
12 spyder // Jul 18, 2008
I JUST GOT TIME WARNER CABLE PACKAGE, YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SCARED.
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