Charter misses customer service goals in Greenville

[gs3]

Story

IMO, Charter is one poor excuse of a cable company. I've used Comcast before, and they were far superior in their offerings, customer service, etc.

I wish our area would be more progressive, tos out franchise agreements, and make the market wide open to competition. The ability to choose from multiple cable providers would be great, and would drive down costs.

Interesting story. I think Charter sorta sucks compared to others. Had Time Warner in another city I lived and they were great!

Either way, if Charter is good or bad, shouldn't the city be careful with this? I mean there is this new 4 story Southeastern office for Charter on 385. Would hate to see Charter pull the plug on those jobs.

[g-man430]

Charter might not be as good as other cable providers but at least they aren't doing a 6% increase on their prices like Time Warner and Comcast are doing in the next few months. Also, I think cable is better than satellite and thats why I have cable on my tv and on my internet.

[RestedTraveler]

Wouldn't you know it, my internet (not my cable) was out from Sunday Afternoon until this evening.

My thanks go out to the fine folks at Port City Java on Mills for tolerating my becoming part of the furniture for a couple of days.

[upstate29650]

With the ongoing debate over burying power lines after last weeks' ice storm, and the general thrust of this thread, I feel the need to bash Charter.....and HARD!

I was lucky enough to keep power through the ice storm, but lost cable that Thursday evening. fast forward to today (Wednesday). Still no cable. I do have rabbit ears, so I do have local channels, but no broadband. The recorded message at Charter says they're aware of the issues, and cannot do anything, in most cases, until power is restored. That's understandable...BUT THERE'S BEEN POWER IN A 5 MILE RADIUS OF MY HOME SINCE SATURDAY MORNING!

More than likely, all Charter needs to do is reset a headend. But good lord, there's no issues with lines anywhere near me. I need broadband, but that keeps me a slave to cable, as dish can't help me here, and I refuse to pay for redundant home phone service (re: no dsl for me)

[jr7777]

I'd like to see the competition here like there is in Charleston. Comcast and Knology are the two providers there. Bellsouth is already ahead of the cable game Likewise, I'm ready for high speed access faster than the 6MB service I'm getting with Bellsouth DSL now.

Actually, there's 3: Comcast, Knowlogy, AND Time Warner.

[gs3]

I thought the deregulation of the Cable industry some years ago was suppose to add competition. How is it that Greenville only has Charter?

[gs3]

OK, a rant about Charter here! I have the digital package and have my personal e-mail through them. Went online today and the home page for Charter e-mail looks totally different.....AND....it now says my username and password are not recognized! I called and was put on hold so long that I hung up!! I'll call back later to give them an earful. Charter definitely gets low marks from me!

[jarvismj]

They still say that I have 3 digital converter boxes and a modem....3 years after I canceled service. Yeah, its gone on my credit, but to no avail have I been able to rectify this. As far as I'm concerned, its a lie, because at the time I only owned one TV, and I already owned my cable modem, which is now for sale Charter....Bleh

[gs3]

yeah...they're one sad company. My cable was out for almost two weeks a year ago, because one of their own men cut the line. Tried to get my cable pro-rated for that month. Nothing but red tape and rude treatment by them. Out with Charter, in with Time Warner!

[GSP Tiger]

Charter raises rates

Greenville News (SC)

2006/2/2

It seems Charter strives to continue to miss customer service goals in Greenville. I doubt raising rates when customer service is pretty low is a good move to have a contract renewed in 2008. Yes, services may be more complicated and expenses going up, yet the price should be kept minimal to offer a great service at the best value. Would it be beneficial to have some competition now?

[upstate29650]

Better believe we need competition. It's up to us to go to city council/county council meetings, and encourage our elected officials to do away with franchises for cable, and to open the marketplace up for competition.

I'm sure there's some kind of "usage fee" government can concoct to absorb the loss from franchise fees.....

But the supposed reason for rates going up is higher fees being charged from the likes of ESPN. They are a cable network behemoth, and pretty much think they can charge what they want. Personally, I'm tired of the love fest ESPN always seems to have with itself.

[StrangeCock]

Screw 'em. I can't believe those morons haven't added FOX-HD and ABC-HD to their lineups yet. Thank God I have an antenna.

Charter

[goodbye]

All this does is solidify my case for going to and sticking with the Dish. That's a hilarious emoticon, StrangeCock.

[NYTransplant]

Charter will never get a penny of my money, EVER! I have DirecTV, and I will keep it that way. Someday, if I have some time, I'll type out all my dealings with Charter and post them here. Its pretty comical.

If I wanted to start a company built purely on customer dissatisfaction, I don't think I could try hard enough to be able to keep up with Charter.

[goodbye]

Well said, NYT! I can't understand how a company could be so careless with customer trust. To disregard the marketed consumer is to commit financial suicide, not to mention the bad name you'll carry for the rest of your life.

Besides all of this, both DirecTV and Dish Network offer better packages with better products and service.

[NYTransplant]

Here's my saga:

It started before I even moved into my house. Two weeks before I closed, I called all the utilities and let them know when I wanted my services turned on. I arranged for Electricity, Gas, Telephone, Garbage, and Cable TV. In NY, I had DirecTV for years and liked it, but wanted to do away with DSL and try a cable modem.

I had been contacted by all the utilities except for Charter that my service was ready to go. When I called Charter, they told me they were still waiting for a report to make sure that my area had cable running to it. Well, I live in a subdivision where other people had Charter, so I assumed that they could deduce from my address that I might have it. No dice.

A few days before closing, I still hadn

[goodbye]

<speechless>

[Chickenwing]

The other day, I was actually considering getting cable, for the HD local channels. Yes, I know I can get them for "free" OTA, but I don't want to pay $300 for the tuner. Plus it would be nice to consolidate TV, Internet, and Phone.

Glad I didn't change after hearing this, as well as, they are out of stock on the HD DVRs, and don't know when they might get anymore.

[wellen]

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[upstate29650]

My biggest gripe is price, overall.

I've mentioned before that I have an excellent cell phone plan. So excellent, I have no need whatsoever for hard-wired phone service at home. To me, that's redundant.

Having a high speed connection (one of higher speed than dial up), to me, is a necessity. That's why I'm still using cable for tv & internet.

Now show me where I can save some bucks by switching to satellite tv & dsl (meaning, home phone service as well), and I'll switch in a heartbeat!

I wish someone would bring Wi-Max to this area, or even BPL. That would rock!

[jarvismj]

I wish someone would bring Wi-Max to this area, or even BPL. That would rock!

There is WiMax...One of the local businesses was trying it back in 2004, and I think that the beta is still going on.

[RestedTraveler]

I can't even begin to try to top that one, NYT. I'm sorry you had such a horrible experience with Charter.

The worst experience I've had at all was due to someone that Charter hired to come out and bury the cable line between my house and the street underground. They cut my telephone line in half in the process. So, a new telephone line had to be put down and those guys cut the cable line. It went back and forth for a couple of weeks before both lines were finally underground in one piece (until construction began on the lot next door a year or two later, but that's another story).

That's been it. Other than some minor "borderline signal strength" issues with my cable modem which were easily rectified, my service has been outstanding compared to any cable company or dish network that I've had before.

[NYTransplant]

It really is kind of funny when I write it all down in one place, how many things went wrong. I figure that if I had that many things happen to just me, imagine how many are out there with just one complaint about Charter. Its got to be a high percentage of customers.

[g-man430]

I've always have had Charter Cable and I have never had any problems with it, except with the cable modem kind of screwing up sometimes but it's really easy to fix yourself.

[jarvismj]

What I want to know, is if the city is going to take the innitiave in order to make sure there is competition with cable. Who reaps the benifits of having a single franchise in place, other than the cable company? I'm sure that the city gains from the fees, plus the fines that are levied, but what about us, the consumer. I have DSL, and granted, I'm not crazy about having to get a landline, I've got it. If the state were to mandate naked DSL, the world would be happy, and Charter would have reason worry.

The one major reason I don't use Charter phone, or Vonage, is that DSL and cable modems have upload caps, and unless the line is on a dedicated T-1 minimal, I won't touch it. The good news is that T-1's are about $150/month in Greenwood....shame I live here.

As much as I hate Charter, the blame doesn't lie soley with them. It lies within the state government which allows monopolies, and IMO, hates technology.

/forgive for ranting.