Time Warner Cable Almost Made Me Cry
At some point during the night on Thursday, the modem that was provided by Time Warner Cable, the company that provides my cable and internet service, quietly gave up the ghost. I called tech support on Friday morning when I discovered its lifeless corpse, and they said they could get a technician out to replace it on Monday.
MONDAY? No internet for THREE DAYS???
NOPE.
I decided to go to the local Time Warner office and exchange my dead modem for a perky new one, and my husband told me to take the worn-out remote, as well. So, I did. After waiting in line for half an hour, I finally got to the lady who handed me a new remote and a new modem that was a different brand from the one I had had. This new one was a Ubee, which I've never heard of (I'd had an RCA). I asked if I needed to do anything special when I hooked it up to get the cable up and running. She said, "No, just plug it in."
HA.
It didn't work. MANY calls to tech support later (I literally spoke to THREE more tech support people on Friday) determined that the modem simply did not work. In the mean time, I had to drive to my local McDonald's and sit in the parking lot on sub-freezing temperatures just to suck up their wifi long enough to let people know why I was offline.
So, even though I had a lot of other stuff to do Saturday morning, I went BACK to the cable company and took my useless modem. After a forty-minute wait THIS time, during which I was hit on by a snaggle-toothed gentleman who had no idea what broadband internet was but did enjoy NASCAR and WWF, I got a new modem. I was suspicious, because the new one, although clearly a different one (the old one was blue and the new one was black), was also clearly the exact same kind (this one had a brand name of Ambit, but Ubee and Ambit are the same company and they make the same...uh, let me figure out how to say it without getting sued...can't quite do it...oh well, read on...
Anyway, after a long day of doing other stuff that I needed to do, I got the new one home, hooked it up...and it was the same, exact, stupid mess. ANOTHER call to tech support ensued. I was on the phone for half an hour with this person, who wanted to try EVERYTHING before admitting that yes, the modem itself was pretty much nothing more than a plastic box with a light bulb in it. Useful as a nightlight, but not for connecting to the internet. He said a technician could come to my house on Tuesday.
TUESDAY.
It was at this point that I said, "Forget this," and went to Best Buy. Now bear in mind, the cable company has been charging me $5.99 a month, in advance, to "rent" their modem, which is supposedly "free" but is actually NOT "free". So, I found a very nice cable modem from Netgear, a company I already knew and liked because they made my wonderful, dependable router, for only $80. All it had to do was live for 14 months, and it would pay for itself. And since it already had a one-year warranty, I figured that was a gimme. I happily took it home and plugged it in.
I called Time Warner Cable back to tell them my new modem was hooked up. All they had to do, theoretically, was get the model name and number and the MAC address of the modem, put that on y account, and activate it. I was told such a thing would take five minutes. It took TWO MORE HOURS and speaking to THREE MORE PEOPLE to finally get everything up and running. When it was FINALLY done, I was SO happy. I had literally been so angry and frustrated by the situation that I almost broke down in tears, but now I was FINALLY online.
So guess what?
NOW my CABLE is not working.
Image Credit » http://pixabay.com/en/sledgehammer-smash-angry-broken-151228/ by OpenClips
Comments
nbaquero wrote on March 13, 2015, 5:36 AM
AliCanary What a nightmare... I would have switched providers by now, it is really a pain in the rear when it takes this long to solve a problem that could normally be fixed in an hour or two. You will have to spell the last tag in your post for me
Soonerdad3 wrote on March 13, 2015, 6:32 AM
I know your frustration with Time Warner Cable very well, we have Cox Cable here in Oklahoma and have been dealing with horrible television service for the better part of six months.
AliCanary wrote on March 13, 2015, 7:50 AM
LOL! Just reading it out loud should do the trick
AliCanary wrote on March 13, 2015, 7:55 AM
Time Warner's main failing is that they farm out their customer service to overseas workers who are not tech-savvy, just cheap. So they have these troubleshooting checklists that they run you through, instead of having a feel for what might actually work , based on the problem.
Because they follow this stupid protocol before turning you over to an actual tech person, it just wastes your time and gets you angry. Half the time, they can't even work their own stupid phone system, and when they say they are going to transfer you, they drop the call! I imagine Cox is pretty similar.
CoralLevang wrote on March 13, 2015, 9:13 AM
I am so technologically stupid that I simply want to plug something in and then have it work. Period.
crowntower wrote on March 13, 2015, 9:32 AM
Waaahhhh! Pain in the neck. L have the same sentiments most of the time from my internet provider. But the only thing they can do is from one employee to the next until you lost your patience, they will still not entertain your complain and will transfer you to different employee that will not answer you, and mostly are arrogant and rude.
wolfgirl569 wrote on March 13, 2015, 9:39 AM
I always buy my own modems, a lot cheaper in the long run. But very sorry that now your cable is down. That would make me want to cry to
WesleyMesser wrote on March 13, 2015, 10:06 AM
Oh Time Warner Cable you are a special thing in your own right at times. Also your tags cracked me up. I feel so bad that they brought you to the point of tears though and you got shuffled around so dreadfully much. I miss the days around here when it was TCI (Time Warner bought them out) and it was much easier to deal with. Keep hoping the merger with Comcast doesn't happen, I could only imagine how much of a pain that phone call could be if the merger happens.
Arvi wrote on March 13, 2015, 10:48 AM
Wow, that sounds like a project. I think places like that should ONLY hire people that know what they are doing to save us all that stress. Really, how many people do we need to talk to for something like that. Good luck to you, hope you get it working properly.
nbaquero wrote on March 13, 2015, 1:49 PM
WordChazer wrote on March 13, 2015, 4:52 PM
I believe the word you were looking for was 'items'...
And who needs cable when you have wifi and the WHOLE DAMN INTERNET AT YOUR FINGERTIPS?
GemOfAGirl wrote on March 14, 2015, 12:25 AM
Those morons at TWC can't keep my cable operating properly, and every time I call them with a problem, they try to upsell me by offering me internet. And my response to them is always exactly the same: "You guys can't keep my cable working. Why on earth would I trust you with my internet access when my internet is so much more important to me?" Not a single rep has ever been able to answer that question satisfactorily.
Nancee14 wrote on March 14, 2015, 1:14 PM
Time Warner Cable can be an awful company to try to work with. It's a shame that they don't seem to value their customers very much. Prompt problem-solving and lower rates are two things that don't seem to be on their agenda. Then they always want you to upgrade...to more bad service.
AliCanary wrote on March 15, 2015, 9:35 AM
I doubt you're any kind of stupid, but that still seems like a very reasonable expectation.
AliCanary wrote on March 15, 2015, 9:37 AM
At least these people are nice, not rude, but they just really don't know what they're doing! The third person I talked to just basically flat-out said that the second person had lied to me.
AliCanary wrote on March 15, 2015, 9:38 AM
That's the smart way to do i. I think they make a lot of money off people who don't want to try to do it on their own.
AliCanary wrote on March 15, 2015, 9:39 AM
Indeed. I'm glad to see that people enjoyed my special tag
AliCanary wrote on March 16, 2015, 11:31 AM
Really, when you call "tech support" and you get connected to someone who knows less than you do, how could that instill any confidence in the business?
AliCanary wrote on March 16, 2015, 11:41 AM
Uh, yeah, "items", with an s and an h and an i and...
Oh, the internet is way more badass, but when ya pay for cable, ya wants ya cable!
AliCanary wrote on March 16, 2015, 11:42 AM
Yeah, I had a friend who worked there--in tech support, and he said that they wanted even the support people to try to sell stuff!
AliCanary wrote on March 16, 2015, 11:43 AM
Exactly! And why do they CONTINUALLY get to raise rates? I swear, it's like every few months, they tack on an extra few bucks. They nickel and dime people to death