"How Do YOU Spell P*ssed"?

[koØm]

-Me to them-

Executive Manager, Onsite/Field Service
Time-Warner Cable Southwest Ohio
11310-11319 Reed Hartman Hwy # 100
Cincinnati, Ohio 45241

Dear Sir/Ma’am:

The purpose of this letter is to communicate to you the level of disappointment and frustration that I have experienced with your organization within the last week. It is my hope that this letter will help resolve the billing problems that are going to surface as well as address the inadequacies on the onsite response to my outage that was caused by the improper installation of my cable phone service (7/13/11) and the network outage problem (7/16/11) that I received a recorded message about.

I am a retired Field Service Engineer with 30 plus years experience of onsite support of leased and company owned office equipment. I have worked for the Xerox Corporation, Eastman Kodak and a division of IBM called Wang Laboratories specializing in mainframe computer systems.

Sir/Ma’am, my problems started when the Technician haphazardly install the phone unit. Instead of properly assessing my install, he literally slaps the phone inline and leaves; there was no assurance that the phone worked. The phone would not accept incoming calls for another 2 days after install until I called support and, they flipped a switch to activate my line.

On Saturday, (7/16/11) I partially lost internet connectivity when something went down in the network (DNS servers), Internet Messenger Clients were working and Cable phone service worked but, I could not access any web sites. As an IT professional, it did not take long to determine that the problem was not in my equipment but in the network; (this was later confirmed by a recorded call from the Road Runner Help Desk on 7/18/11) I called the RR Support number and was assisted by an off shore person working from the Philippine Islands. Via network diagnostics, the Help-Desk person completely removed my gateway from the system and made a service appointment for 5 days later. What was working equipment was disabled from the network; I have 2 TWC internet gateways installed and, could not get assistance to get connected.

On Wednesday, (7/20/11) the technician arrives to repair my services (I’ve already been notified that the problems with the network infrastructure are fixed) he notes that the phone is improperly installed with spliced and split cable input. There is also an issue with my billing, the “Service Package” that I subscribed to countless years ago (Digipic 1500) included “Home Networking” and I was provided with a Wireless Cable Interface from TWC. When the service person arrives onsite, he attempted to downgrade my service by installing a device that would not allow all my devices to connect to the network. Although he was very courteous he did not fix my problem and I ended up having to sign for an install and upgrade of equipment that was replaced when the real problems were infrastructure related. I had to run to my parking lot to catch the service person before he left because the internet was not available to the computers connected to the cable device.

After the Technician left for the second time it was obvious to me that I was not going to get anywhere, I called the Roadrunner Support desk and, after 3 calls, I was connected to the Tier 3 Support where I spent a total of 1 hour and 37 minutes with “Brian”. The Tier 3 Support person, Brian was competent and complete in his assessment of my problems and was able to remotely configure the network as well as my locally installed cable router and phone modem to work properly and, connect to the internet.

To summarize, Cable telephone service was not installed properly and the operation of the service was not verified before the Tech left site, in an effort to fix a problem that was caused by the network infrastructure, off-shore support disabled my account, five days later, another Technician comes onsite and leaves with my network less than fully functional while generating Installation Fees for equipment that was not inoperable just improperly configured. I, the customer had to spend 5 days without service and then I had to spend 1 hour and 37 minutes on one of 4 phone calls to Customer Support before the problem seemed to be resolved.

Sir/Ma’am, I realized that the paradigm has changed and that Customer support is delivered in a different manner however, I do not believe that my expectations for a service person onsite performing repair of an IT system, office copier or, even a plumbing job are out of line; I am extremely disappointed in the level of service that I received as a long standing TWC customer.

Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration of this issue, it has an escalated to a ‘Problem Number’ 6712053.

Sincerely,




Melvin E. Griffin

Enclosed: SASE

[W3WN]

A very well written, articulate, detailed letter.

Expect little to no response. At best, you will get a standard form letter that is designed to sooth your feelings without admitting fault or blame.

You should have asked for credit for those days you were without service, at the very least, but you can still do that if you get a response. If.

Send a copy to your lawyer. Make sure you cc: him on any further correspondence. And make sure it's very clear to the reader... such as "cc: Michael Lazaroff, Esquire" or "cc: Michael Lazaroff, Attorney At Law" THAT will get their attention.

[KG4CGC]

The technician who slapped together the lines is just insuring his job security and the job security of the rest of the service department from the people handling the calls to the guys who are sent out on location. This is standard practice.

[PA5COR]

Dang.......
I had a few such problems in my life, and i was a bit less friendly...
;)

[W1GUH]

Makes Time-Warner New York look golden! Sorry about your problems....wish your TW was as good as ours.

[NQ6U]

What? No "fooking bastards?" That just ain't Island Style. You getting mellow in your old age?

[WØTKX]

I forbid Comcast to touch anything here, due to experiences I've had.

The final straw was blaming my ham radio station, for interference coming down the line.
After escalating to a senior service technician, they found the problem in their equipment.

But the ham radio excuse stayed in my service "record" with them, and they later used it as a ploy.
Escalated to higher ups again, and I got six months of free HBO, and they agreed to only test the
line coming into the house from here on out. I lease the cable modem and DVR from them, but
the equipment can be swapped over the counter at a service location... and my account waives
any authorization from a technician. I can just bring it in.

Tech companies have to realize that some of the customers are NOT morans. And many (like me)
have done plenty of customer service techie work. We know better, so errrrm....

[KG4CGC]

I forbid Comcast to touch anything here, due to experiences I've had.

The final straw was blaming my ham radio station, for interference coming down the line.
After escalating to a senior service technician, they found the problem in their equipment.

But the ham radio excuse stayed in my service "record" with them, and they later used it as a ploy.
Escalated to higher ups again, and I got six months of free HBO, and they agreed to only test the
line coming into the house from here on out. I lease the cable modem and DVR from them, but
the equipment can be swapped over the counter at a service location... and my account waives
any authorization from a technician. I can just bring it in.

Tech companies have to realize that some of the customers are NOT morans. And many (like me)
have done plenty of customer service techie work. We know better, so errrrm....

Bite you indeed. BTW, it's "waives."

[WØTKX]

And I know better too. So, I edited it in both places.

[KG4CGC]

And I know better too. So, I edited it in both places.

OH! You dirty fish turd trailing from a basses behind!
"Pretty sneaky sis!" Oh wait, that doesn't fit.



It says 80s but I know it's from the 70s.