May 072006
These guys are incredibly incompetent at maintaining their network. It spent most of the day offline today, then came back on at around 6:30 PM, only go go off again at 8:30 for about an hour and a half.
My connection watcher needs tweaking still — it senses the occasional dropped packet and treats it the same as a real outage. I need to change it to only consider it an outage if the drop rate spikes, even if not every packet is dropped.
Tomorrow I’ll go somewhere that has more reliable Internet access to work, and let Sarah fight with Charter over this thing. Probably my mother in law’s house again.
This has now been going on for three weeks.
I hear ya man. I used to have charter communications as a cable TV provider, but after i realized how much they sucked i moved to a satellite provider, much happier there. But because i was only getting a 1.5 Mb connection with my DSL, i decided after some time to give Charter another try with hight speed Internet. It worked really well the first couple of months, the contract was good, the price was fair, and the speed was just as promised 5Mb. But these last 2 months i’ve been getting disconnected every 15 mins during certain times of the day. 10 am and 5:30 pm or so. I’ve had a tech out twice and am about to have them for the thired time. I’ve called countless times (don’t get me started on thier automated phone system). I even replaced my linksys modem-router combo with one of thier webstar momdems. NOTHING. They are so inept. Let me ask you. What are you using to monitor your connection? I need a better way to keep track of mine as well, but i haven’t seen anyhing good that will do the job of keeping a decent history for me. I swear, if they had some decent competition in the area i’d switch in a second. BTW, nice design on this site. Looks sleek. I love the notebook like lines in this textbox. TNA.
I wrote an app for my Mac that sends a batch of ten pings every minute, and counts how many come back, then uses that information to decide whether to consider the connection “up” or “down”. It logs the date and time at which each connection status change occurred, and graphs five minute averages so you can visualize how things are going.
Same thing here. They are complete lying creeps. I took advantage of their intro rate $30 and it would jump to 40 in two months. Fine, download was in the 5mb average. What those creeps never bothered to tell me or anyone else, as a matter of fact is that if you do not have television with them, that rate goes to $5o. They won’t tell you that over the phone and you have to get on their site to see it.
To make things worse, they are sending me promotional spam for their services I do not use, nor would I care to give them mo ney anymore. I asked to be removed and they quoted me obscure law prohibiting them from removing my address from their spamming list.
Now that is a class act smart company that knows how to not disclose the truth and piss off clients!!!
In my area, Charter can’t even keep the basic cable up and running more than a week at a time, I’d be afraid to trust them (or pay them) for anything more. Severe interference on many channels, ongoing years, an area problem (many, many subscribers). Thankfully, we’ve got another company providing broadband wireless. I don’t believe Charter will ever meet even the minimum of standards in our area (Better to have no standards than the low stanards they adhere to).
charter gives less than satisfactory internet service. Oh, and make sure that when you talk to someone on the phone, that they don’t put you on autopay….they’ll charge your account whenever they feel like it, with no authorization. they put me on autopay and i never told them to, so they kept drawing out of my bank account until i was overdrawn. Then they come back to tell you it will take 3-4 days to get your money back in your account. god damn assholes. someone needs to sue them…that someone might be me.
We’ve been without reliabe service for about a month. About 50 phone calls later, and lots of bogus promises, we are still without reliabel service. Supervisors (when you can actually speak with one as they all lie about calling you back) appear appalled and SWEAR IT WILL BE DONE BY LAST TUESDAY AT THE LATEST! Now we hear that was a lie and we aren’t scheduled to have a new cable installed for at least a month. All the lies, bogus promises, whatever you want to call them have us mystified that these gues are still in business. The only reason we have occassional service now is because of a $100 booster. All I can say is complain to your city council. These jerks need to be exposed!
Hate, Hate, Hate Charter. Seems to be the same. For a while there life was good but for the last week – ten days it has been unbelieveably bad. I have HBO and a few times I have tried to watch but gotten the “you must be a subscriber” message, today tried to listen to some music and the music channels didn’t work. The internet has been around 2.5 mbps when it is up – but lately it has been spotty. Most nights it is too slow to bother with. I can’t wait to vote charter out of their monoply on this town! BTW my bill has gone up about $40 in the last year.
This is how I decided to handle this today. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, also owns Charter…. good luck everyone.
Mr. Cuban,
According to my research online, you own Charter Communications, and I am reaching out to you for help.
A little background. I am married with a 9 year old daughter. My husband is a New Orleans Police officer, currently working for the DEA. I am a secretary for a millwork company. We live in Bush, Louisiana not because we had a dream of living in the sticks, but because we lost our home and everything that we owned to our names in Hurrican Katrina. So, here we are October 23, 2006 and we are just a few days short of being in our home for 10 months. We live paycheck to paycheck, just like every average person, and paying CHARTER over $100.00 per month…. faithfully, mostly on time…. and our cable only works 1/2 of the time. The other half of the time I spend on the phone with customer service. Some phone calls last for hours, trying to find that one nice person who is willing to listen to (at that point) a very irrate woman.
Now, I will be perfectly honest and lay it all out on the line for you. We were lured into Charter because of your internet…. which by the way isn’t always great but is much better than your cable. Living in the country, our internet options were limited, so by default you guys got our cable business as well. But, does that give Charter a right to charge me every month, expect me to take off of work for (useless) technicians to come out to my home, spend hours of my own personal time on the phone with customer service……… yet still go to bed at the end of the day with cable that works only when it wants too?
A family, still struggling to rebuild their lives. Living in a new home, that after 10 months still doesn’t exactly feel like “home”. Wearing clothes that were given to us by donations, trying to scrap money together to make sure we have enough spoons and forks for company at dinner.
One spluge we do have…. cable t.v.
Do you think that you could do something, anything to fix whatever the problem is that Charter is having with my service?
If you would please take the time to help a family just trying to live a normal life again, your efforts would be greatly appreciated.
With kind regards,
Mrs. Germann
Hey, look at is this way, at least you don’t work in the Internet and/or Telephone department at Charter, and constantly having to be one of the 5 or so people actually doing their jobs, getting irate customers, actually fixing issues, and getting raving emails about how wonderful you were when the previous 20 techs were complete idiots. This truely has been some of the worst 5 years of my life, but at the same time some of the most wonderful as this is where I met my future wife at.
For me, that is the only good thing that has ever come out of Charter. Oh, and if you want to avoid being sold to, just tell the reps on the line “I decline being S2S’ed” and if you want to bypass our automated phone system, tell her “Agent” about 3-4 times, and she’ll get you to the next live person, and from about 1 PM eastern time to midnight, there may be a wait time of up to 10/15 minutes because of understaffing, outsourcing and downright incompetance.
Our service has actually managed to be fairly reliable for the last few weeks, except that my AIM connection keeps disconnecting every few minutes. But that may be a problem with my router at home, rather than with Charter. I’ve not had time to look into it yet.
I have had charter high speed in Spartanburg for four months and it has been awful!! I’ve yet to have one day where I didn’t get disconnected at least five times and I cannot get anyone to do anything to help me with this problem and they try to blame the fact that I am using a router/laptop instead of direct from the high speed into my desktop. Don’t others use their laptop and get high speed? They rope you into their cable/internet/phone service but don’t tell you that the high speed is crap. I was getting more work done with my dial up than with high speed. This has been a terrible HS experience!! Say no to charter today!!!
Th e Crap I’ve Gone Through With Charter
It started back in August when I tried to have phone, internet, and cable with a DVR hooked up. I chose an 8-5 appointment on a Saturday because I work Monday-Friday 8-5. The technician finally showed up at 4:45pm. He said he would have to go under the house to hook it up and he couldn’t because he said there was water under the house that smelled like sewer and it was against company policy to go into water and he wouldn’t want to risk it anyway and get sick and he said I would have to reschedule when it dries up. After that I signed up for the Bellsouth and Direct TV package because I knew they wouldn’t have to go under the house. They ended up being a hassle and as bad as Charter so I didn’t let them hook it up by the time they got out to my house at 6:30pm. I had my landlord come and look under the house to make sure there was no problem and told him what the cable guy said about the water. He checked under the house and there was no water or sewage leakage.
Then I decided to try Charter again. By this time it is October. I scheduled another Saturday appointment from 1-5 on October 21’st. I received a voice mail on my cell phone on Friday before my appointment from someone from Charter to remind me of my appointment on Saturday. I sat around all day Saturday and by 4:50pm the tech still hadn’t shown up so I called Charter to see if he was coming and they told me to call back in 10 minutes when it was 5pm if he still hadn’t come. So I waited until exactly 5pm and called back and spoke to a different person of course and told them the tech still didn’t come and they said they would send out a call and the technician would call me to let me know when he’d be there. By 6pm I still never received a call so I called Charter back and explained my whole situation to a whole new person and they said if he hasn’t come by 7pm then call back. So I waited until 7pm (and I still hadn’t cooked dinner yet cause I didn’t want to be in the middle of dinner when the tech came) then I called Charter back at 7pm and spoke to another person who seemed like he really didn’t care about how angry I was at the time and he told me I’d have to reschedule. I told him he needed to send someone out tomorrow since this wasn’t my fault or problem and he said they didn’t have anything tomorrow but they had something next Saturday and he could give me my first month of phone service free for the inconvenience. I said what about cable and internet and he said he couldn’t give that to me free because he worked in the phone department. I said fine I’ll sit around and waste another whole Saturday and took the appointment for Saturday October 28th between 8 and 5. Then when I got off the phone I thought don’t I already get the first month of phone free anyway? So he really wasn’t giving me anything for my inconvenience. I called Charter myself this time on Friday just to make sure I really had an appointment on Saturday and they confirmed that I did and I asked them to make sure it was for phone, internet, and cable hookup with a DVR and the lady on the phone looked it up and said yes it is. So on Saturday I waited again and the technician actually showed up around 2:30. He said I’m here to hook up your phone service and I said yeah and internet and cable. He said the work order only said phone and it said the other services were already connected last Saturday. I said no, no one ever showed up last Saturday and I even called to confirm yesterday that everything would be done today and she said it would. So the technician used what he had in his truck, an old internet modem and a DVR that he was suppose to give someone else that day. Neither one of them worked. He said he would contact his supervisor and get someone to bring new equipment out that works.
The next day on Sunday the same tech called me and asked if he could come hook up the equipment. He came and hooked it up and it was working fine. He said it would take awhile for the MOXI box to download the channels. I checked it Monday morning before work really quick and the channels were all downloaded. When I came home after work to watch tv the MOXI system wasn’t working at all. It kept rebooting and then it would say “there is a problem with your media center that prevents it from operating properlyâ€. It wouldn’t do anything else but I could still get digital cable. I called customer support at about 7pm and spoke with someone who was probably in India. He wasn’t helpful at all and he had me reset the box and do things I already tried and answer questions I had already answered. I said so am I going to get a new box? He said the work order hadn’t been closed and I would have to wait 24 to 48 hours. So I hung up and called back and talked to a lady who must have been in India also. I explained the whole thing again and told her I wanted a new DVR. She said the next appointment for a tech to come out was Wednesday. I told her I work Monday through Friday and she said the next Saturday appointment was November 11th which was 2 weeks away. I said I’m not going to wait 2 weeks and waste another Saturday and hope a technician shows up. She said she would have a technician contact me and put urgent on the order. I got off the phone and was in tears after all this crap I’ve been through. I got on the internet to talk on the live chat that Charter has to see how I could get in touch with a supervisor in my area. She gave me a number that was disconnected but she said she would put a request in for a supervisor to contact me.
The next morning on Tuesday I got a call from a technician who said he was calling about connecting cable and internet services. I said I already have service my DVR just isn’t working. Then he said he was suppose to collect $100 from me. I said I already paid the $100 when it was hooked up, I just need a new DVR. Then he called dispatch or whoever and called me back and said I had an appointment tomorrow, on Wednesday between 8-5. I said I don’t know what good that is going to do me if I work 8-5 unless someone can give me an exact time and come during my lunch hour. He said they would call first before coming to maybe set up a time while I’m at lunch. While I was at lunch I called Charter to try and get a hold of a supervisor in my area. I had to go through this whole automated thing before I could talk to someone. Finally I got a person, I asked if I was talking to someone in my area and they said no I was talking to someone in Panama City, Panama. I told her I wanted to talk to someone in my area. She said I would have to call back. I said no I’m not going to call back cause I still won’t get someone in my area. She said she can’t transfer me. I said do you have their number or something? She put me on hold and then just gave me an address that was already in my phone book. I hung up and called Charter back again and got the automated system again and I yelled at it that I want to speak with a supervisor and it transferred me to a person. I told the girl on the phone I just want to speak to a supervisor in my area and I don’t want to explain the situation to another person on the phone, I want a supervisor. She said she would send an email requesting that a supervisor contact me. I doubt they ever will and I doubt I will get a new DVR anytime soon.
My wife and I have had Charter on and off for a while. However, this last time will be the last time we ever use them again. Charter’s services are very competitive, but when you have a problem with them, you’ll really have a problem! We were moving from Madison, WI to Oconomowoc, WI and even though Charter was still offered in our new area, we decided to go with DSL instead, because it was a better deal. The initial call to cancel our service was made in August 2006. There was no problem disconnecting the service, but returning the internet modem was another story. The guy that I talked to said that we could have someone come to our apartment to pick up our cable modem or we could drop it off at the nearest location. He assured me that both options were free, so of course we decided to go with having them come to pick it up. The date we set to have them pick it up was our moving day and my wife was there all day. They were supposed to come between 10:00am and noon but they never did. At 12:30pm my wife called them and got someone who said that the order didn’t exist and that they don’t send anyone out for modem pick ups. She told her about my initial call and that someone was indeed supposed to stop by that morning. She said she would check on things and that someone should come by 2pm. When no one came by 2pm, my wife called again and talked to someone who said she saw the order and was not sure why no one had come by yet, she said they should be there by 3:30pm and if not to call back. When they didn’t show up again, my wife called back and was transferred to 4 different people and was on the phone for more than an hour and a half! She finally spoke with a gentleman who said they could schedule to come back another day…and she told him that we were moving that day and would no longer be at that address. He said we could mail it in and my wife said that would be fine but she refused to pay for shipping. He then said he would check into having someone come by and pick it up at our new place in Oconomowoc. He kept putting her on hold until finally he said that he would keep doing some investigating and then call her back. Of course, he never called back.
So we moved to our new home and we had still heard nothing from Charter. We got preoccupied with moving and about a month had slid by without hearing anything from Charter. We decided to renew our efforts once again to have someone come to our new address to pick up our cable modem. After all, it wasn’t our fault that we didn’t return the modem. This time I called again. I spoke with a gentleman that was not very sympathetic to our situation. He scheduled to have someone to pick up the modem and then I realized that they were probably going to send someone to our old address. So I told him that we had moved and that they should send someone to our new address. I gave him our new address and we finished the call. The day came and we got a call from the technician who said he was at our old address in Madison and no one was answering the doorbell. We explained the situation to him and he said he would see what he could do to have someone pick up the modem at our new address and then call us back. He never called us back.
A few weeks later we were sent a notice that Charter was sending us to collections for not returning our cable modem. I called once again. This time as I went through the automated system, I got to the option where it said something like, “…press 3 if you have a question regarding billing…†So I pressed 3 and it transferred me to a number that was answered by the recorded operator telling me that the number was not in service and that I should hang up and try again. I tried again just in case I had hit the wrong button and sure enough, the billing department had a wrong number. I then called sales and had them transfer me. I talked to someone who put me on hold while she tried to bring up our account. While I was on hold I got hung up on. So I called sales again and they got me to billing again. This time I talked to a man who told me we would have to be billed to have someone come and pick up our modem. I told him that we were told it would be free. Eventually he told me they would pick it up for free. I gave him our new address again and he assured me that someone would give me a call in a couple of days to set up an appointment to pick up our modem. I told him I was concerned because I didn’t think anyone would call us and he assured me they would. Well, three days passed and no one called.
It was now November. I called again and this time the billing department’s phone number was working. I talked to a lady who tried to bring up our account information. The only thing she could bring up though, was a very old account we had at a different address 3 years back. As she continued to look into it, she placed me on hold and transferred me to another department without telling me. I talked to that person about my situation and told me he would have to send me to a different department. I got transferred again, talked to another person again and they transferred me yet to another department! The next person told me I was talking to the wrong department again and transferred me while I was in mid-sentence! I then waited on hold for about 20 minutes before someone picked up the phone that claimed they could help me. I explained our situation and she seemed completely clueless to everything, as if there had been no notes in our account from the beginning. I told her we wanted someone to pick up our modem at our current address and she told me we would be charged. I told her that they weren’t going to charge us and eventually she agreed. I gave her our new address and she set up an appointment for about a week and a half in advance for someone to come to our new address to pick up our modem. She even told me the she put in her notes that we were not going to be home, but that we would leave the modem behind the screen door. The day of the pick up arrived. We got a call that morning from the technician confirming the appointment; only his notes said that he was supposed to pick up the modem at our Madison address. I informed him what we have been going through with Charter and this situation. He took our new address to see if it was serviced by Charter, but said that it wasn’t and therefore no one would be able to come by and pick it up. He mentioned that we could mail it or drop it off at the closest Charter location, which was about 30 miles away. I didn’t want to do that. Charter is the one that should be making up for its own mistakes. His final suggestion to me was to call the 800 number again and request that a pre-paid box be shipped to me to send the router back. I thanked him and let him go. He then called back a few minutes later to tell me that he would be sending me a pre-paid box to send the modem back. I thanked him many times and now we just need to sit and wait to see if that box actually comes.
Good luck even getting these idiots out to your home. This is the most inept company I have ever had the displeasure of trying to work with. I have yet to find one single person in customer service (that is what I call anyone who answers the line when I call) that knows the slightest bit what they are talking about. Its at the point to just laughing if anyone mentions they have to call Charter for anything. I wish I had the time to list all the issues experienced with this company but I honestly cannot figure how they stay in business, it must be they operate without competition except from dish. I know its not due to their competency. I hope ATT and others do get in the cable business, if so, I am betting Charter will be gone within a year. Any choice is better than Charter. I am completely Charter free now and do feel for anyone that still has to deal with this company…and I use that term company loosely.
Hey Sheppy –
You ever figure out why Charter keeps dumping the AIM connection? I have the same problem and it persists whether or not I’m going through my router.
Charter is worthless about this. All they want me to do is to reboot the modem, yada yada yada. Or they say it is my firewall, etc.
Nope. It seems to happen less if I tell iChat to use port 80 on the AIM server instead of the usual port though.
There is no corporation in America that has worse customer service or cares less about their customers that Charter. For the most part they have a monopoly and therefore they do not need to care. They can give whatever level of service they chose and there is nothing, not one thing, that anyone can do. The best idea os to call your local municipality and demand over and over and over that they allow cable competition in your neighborhood. Charter will not change until someone else comes along and begins to take away their customers in large numbers. I do not know if other cable companies are any better but I have Charter and I know thaT they are the worst.
Terrible, unreliable service, even worse technical “support.” In Louisiana, had Charter Internet for several years, was plagued by unreliable signal. Switched to Bellsouth DSL and no problems for two years. Yesterday, Charter Cable TV service was out and over 24 hours had to call four times (with long holds) to report outage. Every time I called, I got a different person who reported that this was the first time they’d received an outage report at my address. And this after several neighbors who also were without cable also reported the outage. And do you know what the last Charter “rep” told me? “Well, unfortunately we have people here at Charter who will take your call and just not do anything. They just tell the customer anything to get him or her off the line.” I couldn’t believe I was told this! I’m going to join the majority of my neighbors here in south Louisiana who are abandoning Charter for satellite. And my father in Asheville, NC tells me that Charter reliability and service is just as bad in that area, too. The only reason they remain in business is because of minimal competion. Thank goodeness for the alternative that satellite and DSL provide. This company deserves to go bankrupt.
If I had any alternative here, I would switch in a heartbeat. We live too far out from the central office to get DSL, and for the type of work I do satellite isn’t a viable option.
Currently waiting for a technician to call me ,at 8:37 p.m.
They were suppose to be here yesterday morning to see why I don’t have a f*ing dial tone for the 9 millionth time. Yesterday a.m,the guy said there were no outtages in my area,so he would have someone call me right away….fast forward to 5 p.m when I called them back,only to have the drone on the other end of the line tell me there WAS an outtage in my area,and he didn’t know when it would be back on.
This morning I called back,where they told me there was no record of my call,and no one had been dispatched to my address.
I called back again,after they put me on hold for 18 minutes,and was told I would receive a call from a technician promptly. ( Im not holding my breath)
4p.m,I called yet again,and was told that they would be here before 8 p.m. At 8:01 p.m., I called back,got transfered 3 times,hung up on once,and put on hold for 14 minutes. I called back,and they said the technician was running late( no f*ing duh),and I will receive a call from HIM promptly! OMFG! I hate Charter.
The phone is out more than it works,not to even go into the f*ing nightmare that lasted 10 days trying to get the sonsabiches out here to hook it up in the first f*ing place.
Had the same phone support experiences as previous posters. Decided to send an email hoping to get a response from an American who spoke English as a first language. Well, I did get a response……but it was nine days after my original email. In the interim I had called Directv and by the time Charter answered my email I had been enjoying Directv for three days.
Every time I email Charter for help, they tell me to call instead. I’d like to know why so many companies that “offer email technical support” insist on telling you to call every time you send them email.
If I have to call them one more time….
It all started when we were trying to save $$$ by switching our services (CenturyTel for phone, DirectTV for TV–totalled at least $150/month). Well, we decided to just transfer our phone # from C.Tel to Charter. The Charter morons requested the incorrect # from C. Tel, but we didn’t know until the techs came to the house to do the install. As a result, we weren’t able to make the phone switch for 3 weeks. Anyway, in the meantime, our house which was on the market for a few months, finally sold–we decided to transfer our services to our new address. Now, 3 months after we moved, I’m still being billed at the old address! I called at the beginning of the month to see why I was getting a late charge, and they said that they’d take care of it and credit our account. Today, I rec’d a bill from Charter, as well as creditors! I am SOOOOOO tired of being on hold waiting for their stupid supervisors that I should probably just drive over to their offices in Chesterfield and fix things, but I have a 2 year old that wants to play at home, and anyway, why would I go out of my way to do that?
These people are complete morons…. changing back to satellite ASAP.
I concure with everyone here;Charter’s connectivity is horrible.I use a cell phone and don’t have a land line phone so I’ve stayed with them for several years;at least 3 days out of the month I loose connection all day.It’s been this way from the start;they try to pass the buck and blame it on everyone but themselves.It’s the router(which I don’t use anymore;that was never the problem)they blame my computer.When I visit my friend and bring my laptop and connect to their Comcast conection.My speed is great.I have several friends with Comcast and Time warner roadrunner;they never have connectivity problems.Their (outsourced agent)lured me into getting a package deal 3 meg internet,expanded digital cable with a added tier like movie or sports and Hbo for $69.89.I took the bait and later was told that HBO was not included.I call that “bait and switch”.They tell you they tape conversations with customers but when you ask them to look into the taped conversation you just had with their agent where you were promised a too good to be true deal they tell you they can’t produce the tape and that they don’t tape all conversations.How convenient for them.This is the most inificient scewed up company I have ever dealt with.If you can get DSL go with that.Direct TV has promotions with dsl companys that can give you a competative packaged price.I hope they go bankrupt too!
I can not believe this company is still in business. I think the only reason for this, as others here have stated, is a lack of competition. Charter doesn’t really care about lying to their customers or having bad service because they are the only option for cable TV in the area.
My major complaint with this company has always been the same. Their TV and internet service is OK (works most of the time). What kills me is the lying and deception that the customer service reps feed to customers. If you call Charter about new service, they will offer you the best sounding deals, and tell you that the price for “this package” will remain the same for a year. Then, 3 months after signing up, your bill will suddenly jump by $30 a month. When you call to find out why your service has gone from $70 a month to $100+ per month, they tell you, “The $70 a month was a promotional package deal that was only good for 3 months”. They will deny that anyone ever told you the initial price would be good for a year, because, “We wouldn’t have told you that”. Oh, really? If you request a promised package in writing, they will NOT do it.
If you sign up for auto-pay, they will charge your bank account twice, sometimes even three times in a single month, sometimes overdrawing your bank account in the process and of course accepting no responsibility for it.
When your service *does* go out, do they offer any credit for extending outages? Of course not. This has got to be the worst company I have ever dealt with, and since looking into it more online, I have come to believe that it is company wide practice to promise whatever it takes to get people to sign up for service, and then start screwing them out of more money a few months down the road. They flat out disavow any knowledge that you were ever offered a package deal in the first place, or were told that it wasn’t a package deal but the regular price for the next year of service. Unbelieveable.
By the way, this is the 6th time between myself, my girlfriend, and my other roommates that Charter has done this EXACT SAME SHIT over the last 4 years. I’ve had it. We are contacting a different company to sign up for DSL internet, and cancelling our cable TV altogether. None of us can stand to give anymore of our hard earned money to Charter ever again. I hope the company goes under.
If you ever have any internet problems you can count charter’s customer service out! I recently had a problem and used a friend’s computer (cause my charter would not work) and I went through eight different reps and not one of them could fix my problem. They said they would and then I would try to get connected and could not. When I asked for a manager they kept refusing and then they thought it was cute to put my live chat on hold for, I kid you not, two hours, and then they would disconnect me. Also, they are great at refusing to give any contact information for management, I’m sure cause they don’t want to get in trouble. I’ve worked in the business world for over 30 years and I’ve never seen such disrespectful and incompetent service in my life. I have since gotten rid of all my charter services and am much happier.
I had a serious problem with my high speed and when I called their customer service line they told me for six days in a row that their system was down so they could not help me. What happened to the customer is always right or I will take down your information, fix the problem, and call you back. They acted like I was inconveniencing them when I called and they laughed when I demanded to speak with a supervisor! Terrible!!!
We’ve had 156 service calls in 4 years. They’ve closed my BBB complaints because “they didn’t want the paperwork”. I’ve been lied to on multiple occasions by Maurrissa Wilcox in Charter Corporate Escalation. We’ve taken off work for dozens of no shows by Charter. We’ve paid for wiring they claimed to be the problem – it was not. Now they’ve increased our bill $45 per month and are charging us $26 per service call – even though then never fix the service. I’ve contacted politicians – who are in the back pockets of Charter so that does no good. I’ve sent 6 certified letters to Charter corporate offices – none were responded to. Our house is now up for sale in the hopes that we can get away from this fraudulent, malicious company. There is not a more unethical entity on the face of the earth.
i used to work for charter communincations. the whole place i worked at was run by a bunch of slack jawwed yokels who never gave a shit about their customers. when i took calls for trouble calls i knew that 50 percent of the time they never showed up or came the next day. we had to tell people complete lies. i got in trouble so many times for saying to switch comapnies to customers lol
Charter still hasn’t fixed our internet. It has been up and down for 4 years. I’ve caught their corporate office in multiple lies. Their technicians admit the company they work for is fraudulent. The technicians are only there for a pay check. You must go through your city councils to get charter out of the area. The problem is it’s easy for Charter to buy off 8 city council members when they are collecting $150 per month from millions. This company is evil from top to bottom. They do not follow standard ethical procedures and they laugh when customers have problems. If you do business with charter…you WILL get screwed and lied to. It’s only a matter of time.
Well the problem started when I signed up with Charter back in September of 2006. I have been having problems with my internet ever since. 3 to 4 days out of a week I experience either having no internet or it is extremely slow. I have called and called and called….I am sick of calling and nothing happens! A service guy has came out twice and what do you know…he found nothing! I pay $54.99 + tax per month for 5megs of internet and like I said 3-4 days out of a week I do not have internet or I run a speed test and I am barely getting 3 megs of internet. And this speed test is ran through a brand new laptop that is hooked up directly to the modem. Every time I call…the representatives try to say its my computer or its my modem or its something wrong on my end! It has all been checked and it is not! I believe they have to many customers for their server and that more than half of us are not getting the service we pay for! It is a huge rip off!!! I called last night (April 10, 2007) and spoke with Brian Hill, a supervisor for Charter and we went through the same troubleshooters as before. This time…he tried to say it was a AT&T router on the backbone of the internet that was causing me to have such a slow signal. I don’t have anything to do with AT&T…how is that effecting my internet!!?!?!?! He said it was neither my equipment setup nor was it Charters. How is this not their fault? They cannot give me the services I pay for! I am considering taking a class action lawsuit out and I have names and addresses of many people down my street who are having the same problems! I just feel that I should have a choice of a cable company in my area. Especially when Charter cannot give me my services to the extent that I pay for!
Well… to be fair, AT&T runs several of the major “pipes” across the country through which the vast majority of Internet travels. Charter can’t control any problems or failures on AT&T’s network. However, blaming AT&T for ongoing and lasting problems doesn’t make sense because they would affect millions of people, not just one or two or even a neighborhood.
you know, when I talk to charter on the phone they act like I’m the only person who has ever had a problem with any charter service. the internet has a 50/50 chance of working and cable tv service is always coming and going. in February they decided that by cable box was fried from all the times they tried to reset it. so a repair boy came out to the house and installed a replacement box. a used replacement box that died Saturday night. so I’ve taken the day off to wait on another repairman and what I hope is a new cable box that can last longer than 3 or 4 months.
Today is the 5th straight promised installation date that we were given. The first 4 no one showed and no one called!!! I have talked to reps in Panama, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and who knows where else. We call the morning that they are suppose to be here and were reassured that they would be here that day. Still no show and no call. This installation from what I understand is from the Athens, Al. Charter Store. The person that dispatches the installer has promised me twice that it would be done & the last one’s name was Brian. Not even a courtsey call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is what makes me more upset than the fact that they didn’t show!!!
WILTON McNIEL BAILEYTON, AL.
charter has to many chiefs and not enough indians to do the work they screw there employees as bad as they do there customers,,,, hell they dont even have the training to do the job to exspensive lets do it the cheap way overbook work hell the guys dont have a life they will get home sometime tonight yea and lets start call centers in india and other countrys we will save a fourtune
Hi
I got charter Internet.
I am having trouble logging into my email.
I called tech support they are not very helpful. I would never go back to them for help. THEIR TECH SUPPORT SU#*S
I used to work for Charter and I have to say: When I was an employee I wasn’t pleased with their service. I’m still not. Charter’s main focus is to try to sell you something every time you call in for help. They came up with this program called “Service to Sales” which means if you should call in and tell them your service is not working, they would try to get the service working again and then, they would try to sell you a package or a feature. Basically, they took advantage of people who depended on their service that is in reality completely unreliable.
If you look up Charter Communications in the Better Business Bureau’s website, you would see multiple complaints against them for their terrible business practices. As an employee of Charter Communications, you are mandated to check your morals at the door. They claim they have “World Class” customer service however, they have low class practices and products. As far as my services go, I chose to downgrade to 1.5 DSL which is more reliable than Cable 5 meg and I chose to go with Satellite.
charter is on its last leg , they cant compete, the employees hate them as much as there customers paul allen has run it into the ground with dedt just trying to keep up with the times they have been sued so many times by there own employees they have a hard time geting someone to work for them ,,, what ever you do dont buy the stock they screwed the investers once they will do it again ive got dish it just plain works for internet dsl no problems ….
Dont wast your time with them there service is crappy allways will be way to go charter !!!!!
Gee, wish i had come across this before I bothered even using Charter services. I haven’t had proper service for over a month, they have changed out my equipment 3 times. I have spent over 400 minutes on the phone with these people in the past 30 days. My stuff still doesn’t work and they are refusing to give me a refund. I have never dealt with such an inept company in my life. Word to the wise don’t bother, cancel services and find other means for TV and internet.
A little run down of whats happened since January. I was going to send this to Charter, but really, why bother?
To whom it may concern,
I’d like to give you a little run down of what I’ve had to deal with while dealing with your Customer Service.
Sometime between the 15th and 16th of June, my server went down. I called Saturday afternoon to report this.
First I was told that Marshall,NC and Asheville,NC were having trouble.Then she walked me through unplugging and restarting the computer. Then she said a program you use was down, and she could’t get my computer back in the system, she made a service call for me Tuesday, the 19th 8-12.
I called Tuesday the 19th to confirm the appointment.
The tech came around 11am, took out the Webstar, and left a Netgear. Said it was running fine, and left .At 12;30, the server was down again.
I called you at 12:35 and was walked again through unplugging, restarting, got it up, and told to call back if it went out again.
12:45, it went out again.We did the same thing. I was told to call back when it went out.
2:30,I was told when I called that the usb port was probably bad,to try switching ports, got it running, told to call back if it went down.
I made 3 more calls on the 19th, two of which were women in the Phillipines whom I could not understand very well, neither of them could get the server back on, but I did learn that if I ever wanted to visit their country, I should come between March and May! ( totally unsolicited advice).
5:20pm. I called, spoke to a lady who had me typing things in the run:box, and was told that the Netgear box I had was faulty, and I needed to call Netgear, and get a new one. I informed her that the Netgear was what your tech had installed that day, she then told me that the router/modem combo I was using wasn’t suported very well by Charter, and I needed a new modem, at a $49.99 install fee, and an extra $9.99 a month charge. I asked to speak to a supervisor who could straighten this out. She transfered me to billing.(?)
Billing transfered me to Shawn, who was fielding calls for a supervisor. He heard my mess, was sympathetic, and assured me it would be handled. He made another service call for Wednesday, the 20th.
Wednesday, 20th. I called to confirm the tech was coming, they assured me I would recieve a call from him.( He showed up with no call. )
He changed the Netgear back to a Webstar, climbed the pole outside, came in and said the server was up, but if I had any trouble to call back,but to try to “hang in there” till Saturday or Sunday, because some wires and connections on the pole were bad, and someone would be out Thursday or Friday to fix it. He left at 2:25, the server was out at 2:32.
I called back at 4 pm , to the Corperate office, and asked them to make sure someone came out Thursday or Friday.She assured me that I would get a call back from someone within 24hrs.
Thursday the 21st. 5:30, I called and asked for a supervisor, because I had received no call within 24 hours, and was told that it was too late to get ahold of the Techs, but I would get a call back on Friday.
around 6, I got that call from when I talked to Corperate, and he said that he would call back, he did, and said I would have a tech out on Tuesday.
Friday the 22nd, 9:30 am, I had a message on the machine from Steve, who said my modem looked good, and the signals were okay, and it looked like everything was running fine, and to call back if I wasnt happy. (?)
I called back at 7:30pm to let you know that NO, everything isn’t working, and please dont cancel the tech for Tuesday. The lady I spoke to didnt understand what I wanted and transfered me to a supervisor, at which point, I was hung up on.
I called back, and spoke to Jack, who told me that it was likley that the ethernet cable was bad. Then he wanted me to unplug the computer and restart it. I explained that I just wanted to make sure the tech was still coming on Tuesday, and he said no, the tech is scheduled for Wednesday, the 27th.
So far, I have been told that my computer was outdated, and recomended to buy a new one.
(when I asked her what my computer had to do with the server going down, she said my computer was like a transmission in a car, and your Webstar and router was like the engine,and it was my responsibility to keep my end maintained so that your end could do its job! This is the lovely lady who also tried to tell me I needed to pay $49 install fee for a new modem,with the $9.99 monthly fee)
That my usb ports are bad.
That the original order on my record showed incomplete.
Told twice that my computer was struck by lightning.
Told the tech must have wired it wrong
Told that there was an error on your end,and to call back later,twice!
Told that my router/modem combo wouldnt ever work properly in the future.
Told twice to take my modem in to the local office and get it fixed/switch it out.
I have been hung up on 3 times total, one of which after I had been holding for a supervisor for over 45 minutes.
Out of all the people I spoke to during this, Shawn, who gave me his email to contact him by, was the only person who didnt seem to try and put me off, or pass the buck. Your Customer Service speaks for itself. I know my opinion doenst matter, and Im less that a drop in the bucket for you, but I wanted to say, that I would recomend dial-up over Charter, because at least they are consistant.
Im sure if you pull up my records, you will see that I had a similar nightmare of equal proportions when trying to get Charter installed in the first place.
June 26,a.m. got call from a supervisor I had previously spoke with, he said everything looked good, was I happy? I told him no service, and he confirmed the appointment for wednesday the 27th.
June 27th. Wednesday 9;40 am. Tech called to say he is on his way.
He worked on the lines in the house, said he would put a amplifier on the box outside, and that he guaranteed it would keep me connected until thay could come repair whats wrong at the pole.The last tech had left ethernet and usb connected.
When he was done, he sat in the drive doing his paperwork.The server went out. I went and told him, he came in, unplugged something in the back, and it worked again.
30 minutes later, it was out again.
I called and asked for a super, was told they would be back between 1 and 5pm.
Monica called a few minutes later, and said she would call dispatch, and they would be back within the hour. That was at 1;32pm. She also said she would call me back within the hour. Neither called or showed up, so I called her back at 4pm. She called dispatch and called me back to apologize, and said dispatch wouldnt answer the phone, and she will keep me posted as the day goes on until she goes home. She assured me that things would be resolved today, considering its raining and 4:32 pm, I have my doubts.
5:25pm. Tech called to say will be out in 10-15 minutes.
Same tech who was here last Wednesday. He says he knows nothing about the connection on the pole being bad, even though *HE is the one who said last wednesday that someone would be out thursday or friday to work on the pole,and to “hang in there till the weekend. ” Why do they have no record of a connection at the pole being bad, when Monica ordered this call because OF THE CONNECTION AT THE POLE BEING BAD!!!!!!!!!!!
He changed all the connections at the pole and all the wiring at the computer. He said if it still isnt working, that the problem is probably with my computer. BUT!!!! It has been working all night and ever since he left! OMG! He did leave the amplifier hooked up though.
July 13th. Internet service still connected( a freaking mazing!) Phone did go off two days ago for no apparent reason. Got hung on 3 times before someone finally put in a order for someone to come out. The phone came back on before the appointment time, so instead of letting the Tech waste his time coming out, like I should have done, I called and canceled the appointment.
Im currently fighting with the billing department.
soulstorms — keep us posted on how things go from here.
My service seems to be working okay now… haven’t had an outage in a while, and recently upgraded to the 10 Mbps package. I’m not getting 10 Mbps down (more like 5 Mbps), but the uplink speed is really fast (around 1 Mbps) which is really more what I upgraded for anyway. So I’m not going to jinx things by complaining.
Oh yeah, I called our local BBB, and they get so many complaints on Charter, they have their own rep. who handles nothing but Charter complaints!
Ok, get this. I pay my bill online every month. I paid $56.81 on July
4th. On the 12th, I wondered why it hadn’t came out of my bank
account yet.I called Charter twice to see if there was a problem with
the payment. They both assured me the payment had been received AND
cleared, and if it wasn’t showing on my bank account, to call the
bank. I called the bank, and of course, it was total crap.
The 14th, I get a letter from Charter saying Im freaking overdue, due
to an invalid account #. My bank account # is stored automatically in
Charters system!
I called twice this morning to try to make a payment, and was told
both times that my balance was $89! They both tried to tell me I had
to pay for this month AND last month!
I paid the $56.81 over the phone, of course for the phone payment fee
of $1.99.
We will see how bad they(bleep) up the billing next month, because
they still owe me for the 2 weeks the crappy service was out last
month. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I can say is F’n DITTO to all complaints about Charter!! They are absolutely the WORST of the BOTTOM FEEDERS!
If your a charter client do this now!
http://unsubscribe.charter.com
Then sue em if your info gets to third party.
It took me 5 calls to Customer Service, and 3 calls to Corporate Office to get it done, but they finally took the $37.00 charge for a technician to come out , off of my bill. It’s amazing to me that they would try to charge me that after it took 4 techs 13 days to fix the problem.
BTW, Charter sent me a Hallmark card last week apologizing for the “trouble” I’ve had with their company. (snort)
I used to have Astound internet and cable. They were great. More channels, 5 meg internet for charters price of 3meg internet. Then charter bought them….I don’t understand. The last time I had a problem, I called charter to come out and fix it. IT TOOK THEM OVER 14 DAYS….to come out and fix my internet….which completely didn’t work. This is the worst internet/cable provider on the planet….avoid at all costs!
This should make you smile – it has for many of us!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Eight-Charter-Champ-Shirts-going-fast_W0QQitemZ260140431458QQcmdZViewItem
Funniest thing I’ve seen on ebay in years!
I have had charter for years and it’s always worked great with no problems. I would bet that a lot of your problems with Charter is the wiring inside your house. I was a field tech for Charter at one point and honestly i would say 90% of the trouble calls we had was because the coax wiring in customers houses was like 25yrs old. Most people think just because they have cable lines running through their house, everything should work fine. With high speed internet and telephone service now, it’s not that simple. I’m not saying all problems listed here have to do with house wiring but i would say a high percentage are. Alot of wiring in houses goes through crawl spaces and unaccessable places like attics that we cannot always replace. If you educate yourself on the wiring of your house and how a modem and router works, i seriously doubt you would have so many issues with your service. As a former tech, i know that the cable tech can only do so much when trying to fix the problem. Also maybe some of you should mention that Charter very rarely charges for coming out to fix the problem…. Very few companies will even show up to your door for less than $100 if you have issues. Believe it or not Charter is a very goood company. As far as the issues with the phone service, well in many places it is a brand new service that they are still working the kinks out of. I have heard people say they have absolutely no problems with it and others say it is nothing but problems.
Every tech Charter has sent out here has been pretty much entirely incompetent. Apparently in my area they hire only uneducated buffoons.