Time Warner Cable of San Antonio, Monopolies and why they suck. – UPDATED

by Vid Luther on May 6, 2009

in blog, oddball, other, personal, rants, telecommute, web

Why Monopolies Suck, arrogance of Time Warner Cable.
Update (May 12th 2009) I’m leaving the original post up, but in case anyone else stumbles upon this, I’d like to share that the issue has been resolved to my liking with Time Warner. As always it was one bad apple giving the bad impression and discomfort.

Angry Customer’s Log:

  • 4/28/09 : Place a call to TWC onasking to call me back, I’d like to make some changes to my account.
  • 4/30/09 : Leave another voicemail with designated account rep to call me back.
  • 5/5/09 : Call TWC again, catch rep at his desk, explain the changes I want.
  • Rep says he’ll call me back in 1 hr. After talking to his manager
  • 4 hrs later. Call rep, end up leaving voicemail asking for status
  • 5/6/09 : Call TWC again, find rep. Rep says, “sorry my manager said you signed a two year contract, we can’t make the change”

Issues

  1. I never got a call back from TWC, I had to keep calling
  2. When the rep told me he’d call me in one hour, he never did. Never apologizing for that or acknowledging his mistake
  3. I asked if it was possible for me to ADD services to my contract, I was told yes, but I can’t take services off

The Juicy Details

What I want done is this: Take off the 13 static ip addresses from my account. I’m paying $40/month for these static ip addresses, and as of April 1st 2009, I don’t need them anymore. For the sake of trying to spend less money, I figured I should get rid of the things I don’t need. I’m not trying to terminate contract, just reduce my bill by $40/month.

I don’t think I’m asking for a freebie, I understand that if I pay less, I’ll get less service.

The kicker here is, that the “manager”, said I can’t reduce my service, but I can increase my service any time. This doesn’t make sense to me, if I’m locked in doesn’t that mean I’m locked in both ways?

His “solution” was to offer me phone service instead. That doesn’t help me not spend an extra $40/month. I’ll just be replacing one thing I don’t need with another.

Apart from emailing the consumerist, and also sending an “ECB”, what are my choices? More so, if you work for TWC and think this is fair business practice, please help me understand how it is, and why I’m wrong. Actually, even if you aren’t a TWC rep, just help me make sense of this logic.

Is this company policy? or is the manager here using his discretion? My team rep told me he’ll ask the manager again later when he’s “in a better mood”.

I have no issues with the service, I would say their service is very reliable, it went down one for 30 minutes in the entire year, service is good, and connection speeds are as advertised. If I was to cancel my subscription, my only other option in this part of town is AT&T Uverse, and it’s not reliable or as good as TWC. I really can’t recommend TWC to anyone now, not if their sales team is hell bent on making sure I not renew my contract in 12 months. I hope AT&T gets it together by then.

Tagged as: business, cable, customer service, time warner, twc

  • Tony G. McCubbins
    I ordered ESPN full court from TW here in San Antonio on November 7th, 2009. On November 9th, TW sent a signal to my cable boxes to have them upgraded. The upgrade killed my ESPN full court package and despite several calls over 2 months which totalled over 12 hours of hold time, the problem was never resolved. I paid for that PPV and never got it to work and NOW TW won't reimburse me the money for the package (despite the promises to do so) which is $104.00. I terminated all 3 of my services this morning and now TW wants to charge me a early termination fee to add insult to injury.

    I will never allow Time Warner to enter my home again. That I am sure of.
  • Betsy Castrp
    I am getting the same run around. We are moving our company due to budget cuts from Rowlett to Rockwall...
    Time Warner does not offer service in Rockwall yet they tell me I will have to pay out the full term of the contract, even though they do not offer service in Rockwall. That seems like stealing to me because we will still have to pay a cable company to continue service! We've also been long-term loyal customers!
  • Matt
    I live in Dallas so I don't know if you can help me, but recently I downgraded my service from having TV and internet to just internet. I took my cable box in and asked that they discontinue my cable TV service but I wanted to keep the internet. I later got a call about coming out to the house to disconnect. I told them there was no need to come to the house because the only thing they would be doing is disconnecting one outlet while leaving the internet outlet connected. That's pretty pointless when nothing is going to be connected to that other outlet anyway. All that needs to be done is on their end, simply stop sending a TV signal. She canceled the service call at my request. The next day I get another call to schedule a service call saying they had to come out to the house. I tried to explain my point again, but she insisted they needed to come out. When I said that I wouldn't be home, she assured me that I didn't need to be there, everything would be taken care of outside. As I expected, when I got this months bill, there was a charge for $39.99 on my bill, for what?!?! I called to have it taken off. When I tried to eplain to the call center rep what happened and tried to get an explanation of why they needed to come out, he laughed at me like I was stupid. I'm an electrical engineer, I didn't tell him that, but I was like "do you understand how cable works? You don't have seperate cables for each service, TV, internet, and phone. It's all sent over one wire, that's why you have a modem for the internet and a modem to seperate phone signal, and a cable box for the TV if you want digital service. All the signals are sent over one wire and those modems seperate out the signal from one another. They don't have to shut anything off at the house, they simply stop sending the appropriate signal." I asked to speak to a manager who, of course, he told me was busy. Eventually he took my information and said a manager would get back to me in 24-48 hours. After getting off the phone I went outside to see if there was an incoming service box for the cable. There wasn't anything outside that they could have done. All the splitting is done in the attic. I went in the attic and of course everything is still connected becuase IF they did come to the house, we weren't there for them to get inside and disconnect anything. I think TWC is just randomly thowing extra charges on peoples bill because they don't understand how things work. As if it's all magic and we'll pay whatever you want to charge us becaue were brainless. Please tell me why I should pay this.
  • Lena
    I am extremely fed up with Time Warner. I have never dealt with such poor customer service. I have had to call Time Warner every month since April 2009 for them to fix my monthly bill. Time Warner has been placing charges on my bill that should not be there, like a late fee when the bill was paid on time or a termination fee when I did not terminate any service. This month, I got a bill with Time Warner telling me I owe them additional $6.00, when I paid last month's bill in full. I called and their rep. told that he can only credit me $5.75 and says "that's the best I can do." How does that make sense? I asked for a supervisor, and he transferred me to another rep. like himself, who ended up crediting another .25. I can't wait to see what they are going to do with my bill next month. I hate doing business with Time Warner. When I see their commercials dogging Satellite and other cable providers, I think how grossly they misrepresent themselves. At this point, I am very happy that I am moving in 2 months. And if Time Warner is my provider where I am moving to, I will do away with TV completely. It's over a hundred bucks I can spend elsewhere. Thanks Time Warner, you SUCK!
  • Suzanne
    Melissa, I wish you would call me and discuss the problem I am having with my account. I've been with TWC for 29 very loyal years, and after having to move to NC I am being billed for the PLG $103.00 plus. TWC is not available in this area otherwise I would continue with TWC. I simply loved the service, the people, the late nite techs who were awesome and the problem solving that was always met with a resolution. Time Warner sent a service manager to my home to solve the problems I was having with my RR, and TV. He was able to rewire the house, add equipment and remove some equipment and make my home completely TWC friendly. I know speaking with customer service and their supervisor, Daniel, is not the final decision. There has to be a way to work this out to an equitable solution. Twenty Nine years of loyal commitment to TWC should mean something in this world. The one thing I forgot to mention is that we moved because my husband was laid off from his job along with 35% of the employees. Money got very tight but we did not cancel our service with TWC and change to a much less expensive alternative. My husband tried to get me to change but I always felt the commitment to service and the way your company handled problems said way more than the monthly fee. Was I wrong? Please call me.
    Suzanne Smyth, Etowah, NC 704.564.9951. I look forward to hearing from you.

    Thank you,
    Suzanne Smyth
  • Suzanne
    I've spent years telling everyone how good TWC was and how their service was always great. I might have had to call and request the 3rd service tech to come to the house, but service was always satisfactory to good in my opinion. We had TWC in Charlotte for 25 years and in San Antonio for 4 years. After 29 yrs NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!

    When my rate with TWC went up by over $75.00 after 2 years or so, I called to cancel and change my service to another company that would provide the same service for less. They started offering the moon and the "Price Lock Guarantee. I was offered the 2 year plan. My bill went from approx. $250 to $185, then started going up again. I was told the PLG was transferable and that if TWC was not avail, it could be canceled and that any difference would be credited.

    My first call to handle the charge for the PLG I was told to send a copy of utilities to prove where I lived and that TWC was not in this area, and my account would be credited. Called back twice and finally requested a supervisor. Even though TWC is not avail. in Etowah, NC, I have to pay the balance of the "Price Lock" I did not use $103.51. I do not have the service and cannot get TWC yet I have to pay for the priviledge of the PLG for the months after I canceled the service and moved.

    I tried to talk to this guy several times explaining that this was not clear, and I had specifically told the rep. that I would probably be moving. Having to pay the balance was never clearly explained by anyone. This is one more way of hiding fees, just like the great sign up values that they offer and then raise monthly just a bit until you realize it is now twice as much as before. Don't get me started on taxes - I now pay less than $8.00 for taxes on Media Com, I have 3 movie ch., 2 HD DVRs, 4 TV, Phone and Internet for less than $120.00/mo. Looks like TWC just lost my loyalty, business and good references. My husband always said TWC was evil and sucked. I agree.
    BEWARE OF THE PRICE LOCK GUARANTEE
  • hmmm
  • Melissa
    Hi. My name is Melissa and I'm the Regional Communications Director for Time Warner Cable in Texas. I'd like to talk to you more about your conversation with our team here in San Antonio. Please email me your contact information so we can talk this out.
    Thanks.

    Melissa
  • Stu
    I just stumbled across your blog and thought I would add my 2 cents....

    You signed a contract. In that contract you said you wanted X services and they agreed to provide them for X dollars. If you have the right to change your contract terms, so do they. You would be mad if they changed how much you had to pay or the services they provided dependent upon their revenue requirements.

    If you change your contract by "adding" something, that locks you into a new term of service (1-2 years). Simply, that would be a "new" contract. I would suspect that they have a part of the contract terms stating this.

    A contract is simply an agreement between to parties. This makes both of you legally bound to the terms. If TWC changes any terms (not including taxes or government mandated terms), then you have the right to leave the contract without penalty. Though, understand they won't just go "OK" to you leaving. It may require legal action... Had this happen to me with Verizon, they backed off when I took them to small claims court. As Verizon would have had to show up in court with a lawyer which is more costly than ending my cellular service contract without a early termination fee.

    Good luck and your best option is to call back, speak to a manager directly and enter into a new contract.
  • Joel Haasnoot
    Mobile phone companies do this all the time - within the contract you can upgrade your plan, but not downgrade it... My gf was stuck with an SMS package she no longer wanted that way.
  • Olly,
    I've been thinking about the cost issue for them and myself, and I agree. When I signed the 24 month contract, they probably allocated funds and budgeted based on that contract, so they want to keep the same revenue coming in. I'm fine with that.

    My issue is with the value, and return I'm getting. I'm not in need of the ips, so I'm wasting that money, and those ips are being wasted.

    I've proposed to them, that if they want to keep the revenue the same, how about giving me $40 more of bandwidth, if that can perhaps give me a higher download/upload I'll be happy.
  • Without knowledge of your contract, but isn't it the case that you signed that 24 months contract including those IP addresses, and now you don't want em anymore?
    So you signed a contract where you stated that you pay the amount $X per month, and now you would like to decrease that sum?
    You wouldn't like it the other way round, just imagine they tell you that they remove those 13 IP addresses, but therefor your bill will be cheaper. But maybe I missed something...

    Although the service they offer leaves me speechless! I'd get angry everytime I'd try to call them...
  • erin luther
    I say you go over there and punch somebody in the face!
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