UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: The office of the president has actually responded to our letter. The woman who responded apologized for the bad experience, credited our account for a month, and even gave us her direct phone number (which I will not post here) in case we have future problems. So, the customer service department still sucks, as described below, but the corporate office at least does what they can to fix it if you take the time to write. It's all we can hope for after that experience. -- M. Scott 11/17/2009.

Please click on the following link to the text of a letter that my wife and I sent to the president of Time Warner Cable. All I can say is that if you have any other option for your TV and internet access, take it. I don't. So I'm stuck with this complete and utter load of crap.

Time Warner Cable -- Worst Customer Service Ever

The letter is a bit long for posting on this site. Here's an abbreviated (albeit still a tad long) version of the events:

1. Friday 7AM,  we notice the cable modem is not working.
2. 1 & 2 PM, my wife fails to get through to a human.
3. 10 PM, we are told that two flashing lights up top with no other lights indicates a problem that requires a technician and schedule a Monday appointment with the understanding that we will also call Saturday after 8 to speak to the dispatcher about getting an urgent appointment during the day Saturday.
4. We call at 8:15 Saturday AM and are told that the dispatcher is not there. Further, the reason for the outtage is that, without notice, they upgraded software and the old modem is not compatible.
5. We request that someone drop off the new modem and pick up the old one from our doorman while we're out. They agree, with the caveat that they will call if they can't.
6. No call; no modem exchange.
7. I race to a store in the city and exchange modems.
8. The modem does not work immediately, takes time to communicate with the server, about 15-20 minutes. We call about the failed modem and are asked "why did you switch modems?" (Um ... because you told us we had to!!)

Of course, the non-geek on the phone had no idea what was going on. Then the modem magically worked and all was well with the world. There were lots more details. We wrote a lengthy nasty-gram to the president that I posted at the link above.

• Why didn't they warn us about the modem going out of service?
• Given that the modem serial number is associated with the account, why didn't they warn us repeatedly knowing that we had not yet exchanged it?
• Given that we call them all the time when they cut off our television service for the horrible crime of attaching the cable box to a power strip and turning it off when not in use, why didn't they tell us when we called them?

In short, why does their customer disservice department seem to make a deliberate and concerted effort to piss us off every step of the way?

Do you have a choice other than Time Warner? I strongly suggest you take it.

Time Warner here has been good, but I have the cell phone number of 2 technicians who will bypass the CO if required.  This after I moaned for a month as my modem was down and up for a month.

Gee. No one here ever offered me any direct line to an employee to deal with our regular television outages. How many times must I tell them not to turn my service off if my cable box doesn't respond to random pings? Why would they do this anyway? If I pay my bills, why would they repeatedly cut off my TV?

I tried explaining about the vampire power of leaving a cable box and television plugged in when not in use. I tried explaining that we turn off the power strip when not watching TV. Some of the smarter ones thought it was a good idea. But, no one could stop the random pings. And, no one could stop the service disconnection when there is no response.

They've just done a major software upgrade to our cable box (remotely). The guide is now slower, has more wasted space, is less readable, and wants to set a reminder to change to a channel for a show that starts in one minute instead of simply changing the channel immediately as the old one did. So far this seems like a significant downgrade. I'll be curious whether we continue to get disconnected.

At least the new cable modem, after all of the major hassle to get it, is actually giving me much faster download speeds than before. Now, at least I get close to the documented speed maximum. Before I was off by more than a factor of two.

I tried to get RCN to come in. My board wouldn't go for the visible wires in the hall. Another option would be a DS3 for the whole building, which if and only if everyone signed up, would be about the same price as cable. I'm not betting on 100% buy in, so haven't tried. And again, the wires or wireless repeaters would still be visible in the hallways. Big deal.

Scott,
YOU HAVE A RIGHT to send them the power bill..
And if they have a problem with it, go to court and EXPLAIN IT to them..

I don't want to send them my bill. I want to use less power. A few years ago, we made some changes (CFLs, power strips, unplugging the fans in our heating units) and reduced our power usage by 16%. BTW, all of this without any of the sacrifice in lifestyle that the repugnicans claim will come about due to environmentalism.

I cant figure out WHY, transformers dont use a SMALL relay, that determines WHEN a device in plugged in and needs charging..  otherwise it shuts off.
Probably the SAME reason there are NO smart chargers for our electronic devices..

These 2 features would increase battery Life 10 times/fold as well as save a good percentage of power.

Another feature is for ELECTRONICS to have a small battery to keep memory, LIKE YOUR MOBO in your computer.  Insted of resetting, when the power fails, so that you DIDNT NEED the power all the time.  you could REALLY shut the TV/STEREO/LCD/... OFF and have no power consumption.
Even your Stereo in your car, has a TRICKLE of power ALL THE TIME to keep its memory.  but those in the HOME take 10 times the power.
Iv seen LED's that took 110 power.  And the transformers IN 99% of all devices, is ALWAYS powered..
I NEVEr understood WHY in hell the VCR lost its programming and BLINKED, with the Little bit of TECH that was needed to KEEP it on time and MEMORY active.

The TV/Stereo/Cable box, etc are worse. First, all of them have to have a base power level just so that when you finally go over and click the remote, it turns on. Second, all but the TV have a nice clock. How many clocks must one have in one room? Does it help to have three of them right next to each other all glowing all the time?

Then there's the cable box and wifi. When I'm not surfing the web, those also get zapped by the powerstrip. No more continuously blinking lights; no continuous radio transmission.

I like stereo's as you need to reprogram them after power faults..
Many of the Old TV's kept programmed for about 10 minutes, before loosing it..
The NEW LCD's are nice and keep time and channels.

THEN most of these devices have transformers inside..
and ALWAYS use power.
STILL cant see why they dont STOP sucking power.  Its not hard to use a relay to test if a device is ON/plugged in..
Its nothing to add a Battery backup, SUCH as in your computer to keep programming and TIME.

Then on battery powered products...Why they dont SMART charge.  they just BURN out the batteries.  A smart charger could make things last 2-4 years, very easily.

What has to happen?  The GOV step in and FORCE IT??
its OLD tech.

I don't actually do anything to program my stereo, so don't care that everything is lost when I flip the switch on the power strip. But, of course, you're correct. People who do program such devices also wouldn't want to lose all of the settings in a power outage. So, seems to me, there's real marketability here. This is exactly the type of thing I do expect the market to recognize and correct. I'm surprised they haven't.

Regarding batteries, I still get longer than documented times on my cell phone batteries that are at least a couple of years old. They usually outlast the phone. The trick? Don't believe the manufacturer. Batteries have memory. Always make sure they completely die before you charge them. I always buy a cheap spare battery (usually third party) and carry a charged one and the one in the phone. When it dies, I switch batteries and recharge later. I had a problem with a desktop charger that made things easier but charged too quickly. The batteries were losing their charge time. I stopped using it, went back to the phone, and got the battery life back up.

A good charger that discharges first does wonders for normal rechargeable AA and AAA batteries. They can also last several years.

cell phones, walkman, wireless phones, most anything that takes Batteries, needs a DECENT recharger.
I was using the charger that came with my Batteries, Energizer/duracell and it was ROTTEN..
Over charge, FAST charge, and NO conditioning or DISCHARGE..they would last about 50 pictures in my camera.
WENT out and got a good charger, and the batteries last 2-3 times longer.

Note: all the ac to dc chargers are switching power supplies -- no transformer like the 5 pound units most folks know about. The things are despicable. My 30 amp DEC PDP rack power supply is still running and the dc is clean. Weighs 30 pounds I think. The ac side is where all the HD & DVD power bricks are attached. No whacked drives from failed switching power supplies due to bad electric company service.

Note, see update in the original post.