Charter Communications Internet Service Consumer Reviews - Page 5

MADISON, WISCONSIN -- This story begins on a snowy 12/23/08. Out of the blue, while surfing and enjoying WOW, my internet service takes a royal dump. I was using Linksys cable modem and wireless g router (1.8 years old). After trying out my own expertise, with no avail... I called CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS to figure out what was wrong with my connection. Being a very Liberal ANGLO-SAXON, with a Hispanic Bro:Law, I accepted the communications with a very poor English speaking IT representative. Long story short they could not communicate with my modem and scheduled a service call.

Being the addict I am, I tried to fix the problem myself and ventured to Wal-Mart to purchase a new modem and router. HEY PROBLEM FIXED. Enjoyed 4 days of "SUPER FAST INTERNET SERVICE". THEN BAMMM. Started having network timeouts. Called Charter once again and spoke with 4 folks from the Philippines, none of which could understand what I was telling them. "I had service but it was inconsistent." (Problem was likely on Charter's end locally.)

They pinged my end, (didn't feel good) and insisted the problem was on my end of things. Fine. Come check the line outside my house. Knowing that just 1 hour ago everything was fine and it was server side on Charter's end of things. (They don't admit to anything, unless a certain number of complaints come through, am I right or wrong???) Blahh blahh, I am getting bored writing this review.

In the end Charter OUTSOURCES. And those representative who are in the USA are only connected to the customer via a computer and they can't tell what's going on. They simply follow a troubleshooting program, like all other companies today and leave the real problems to Third Party companies who don't give a damn either. Welcome to the New World.

If you want to talk to a Hot sounding Guy or Gal from the Philippines call Charter Support. If you want a problem solved. Wait for some outsourced "CABLE GUY" to come to your house to fix the problem. BTW. They don't usually really work under Charter. They are outsourced also. 1-3 seems to actually have a "Charter Truck".

Speak English and looking for service. Move to Mexico. You will get better Service and Tequila to Boot! Charter Communications is Rotten to the Core. Funny. After visiting this site, now my internet seems more consistent???

TEMPLETON, CALIFORNIA -- Try working from home, relying on a VPN connection to get into the corporate office, and have your internet connection start dropping packets on an almost predictable time table. Welcome to my world. I keep a log of all known connectivity issues. During the day - say 9 - 5 or even 6, M-F, service is usually "normal". But, after 6, and often on weekends, packets begin dropping out. How do I know? I use the DOS command "ping" with the -t option which keeps pinging indefinitely. The screen clearly shows the drops, and best of all, a quick Ctrl-Break shows statistics including a lost packet percentage.

Once that percentage hits around 6-7%, I can guarantee the VPN will die. I can also guarantee slow, sluggish response time. You can forget all about their touted download speeds. You are back to less than dial up, if it works at all. If that percentage gets to 20-30%, the internet is unusable. I have seen it run as high as 60%. And of course, it has completely died on other occasions.

Now, my log clearly shows this pattern. And it makes some sense - people come home from work, jump on the net and start downloading who knows what. I can only imagine what some Charter technician, monitoring the network (they do monitor it, don't they?) says as they see the spike in lost packets. It goes something like this: " ha ha....oh man...ha ha ha ha ha! Hey Joe take a look at this! Zillions of packets lost! I'll bet lots of people are really ticked off right now! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

Folks, I am hoping knowledge is power. I have a log. It is as black and white as you are going to get. How can I put this to use? We CANNOT LET CHARTER GET AWAY WITH TAKING OUR MONEY while providing less than promised service. THIS IS CRIMINAL. Complaining on forums like these is fun, but I am looking for a way to get these crooks out of the industry to allow someone with character and integrity to take their place.

APPLE VALLEY, MINNESOTA -- I have subscribed to Charter Communications for several years. Over the past two years their customer service has gotten worse and worse. Frequently when I have contacted the company for assistance I have been placed on hold for in excess of 10 minutes. One time recently I was on hold for 45 minutes (I just wanted to see how long it would take them to even answer the phone!) and often when I call I get an individual who does not speak English as their native language. In other words their English is quite limited.

I have paid for services (on demand with a digital box) for several years and have not received the service in spite of the fact that I have paid the additional money for the converter box. When I have contacted Charter to complain I have been told that I have the box hooked up wrong and for $25 the company can send a tech out to my house to install it properly.

After paying them to do this once and continuing to be told that it was improper installation of the box (which a tech from Charter had installed!) I took the box back to Charter. Lo and behold the box was determined to be "defective". I asked for a credit and have yet to receive one for the MANY months that I paid for and did not receive the on-demand features I was supposed to be receiving.

Charter has continued to ignore my complaints as well as the complaint which I filed with the city in which I live. I have been told by the city employee who handles the complaints against Charter that complaints are up 150% in the past year. Clearly this is a company which believes that customer service means that the customer should service Charter Communications. I have also have my internet connection through Charter Communications. The connection has been sporadic at best and nonexistent at worst.

When I have complained about this I have been told it is the result of the cable wiring into my home. That would be the cable wiring that Charter Communications installed less than two years ago. When a tech came to my home to "correct" the problem (and showed up several hours after his scheduled time -- clearly my time is of no value to this company) I was told that a booster needed to be added to enhance the signal.

While this helps somewhat I regularly lose the signal for the internet connection. This is a company that I would strongly encourage people to stay away from. They are unresponsive to customer complaints and seem to believe that they have no obligation to the consumer. As a result I will be switching my service to another cable internet provider and I anticipate that the disconnection process with Charter Communications will go as poorly as the complaint process has gone. PEOPLE STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!

I currently work for a call center and would like to pass along some maybe helpful information to customers, previous customers, or future customers of Charter. I work in a call center and I can tell you first hand that my job is not all that posh. When you call in we really do try and help. And although we may in most cases seem pretty useless, we are seriously working with all the resources that we have available to us. We don't lie to people on purpose. It is just that the information changes around here so often that it is hard to keep up with things.

When the tech doesn't show up please don't call screaming at us because it is not our fault he is late or decided not to do the job. Also when they are late and decided not to call you and let you know, please remember to blame the right person not the person on the other end of the phone when you call. When the services don't work we do try as hard as we can with the program we have, to help with troubleshooting but there is not much we can do over the phone. And when we schedule appointments we have to go with the appointments available to us. We don't make you wait because we think it's funny. It's because there is nothing for us to offer you.

Another thing I know you may not understand is why there is call centers in other places like Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines, but Charter is an equal opp employer and we think everyone should have the right to earn a living. We understand you may have issues understanding them but they have just as hard a time with English.

All I am saying is that we are all just trying to make a living in the corporate world where no matter where we are, we are getting screwed by the man in many forms. It's either government, economy, work, friends, family, or life, but all we are trying to do is keep a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, and our kids happy. Please remember this next time you call!

OREGON -- After signing up for Charter's high speed internet service, I can't decide what the bigger joke is. The customer service or the so called "self-install" kit. The instructions leave out what to do if you have a cable box and a VCR, so that was problem #1. I can deal with that. I've worked with computers for almost 20 years. I thought I'll just call the support line and they'll walk me through it. Wrong! 4 transfers later I get someone that I can't understand and that can't understand me. Somehow she communicates that there is a power outage in my area, so that is why the connection is not working. With the assurance that the issue will be resolved in 1 hour I call back.

After being transferred 2 more times, and repeating my name, address, phone number, and SAT scores for the hundredth time, I'm told yet again that it's a power outage. I call my neighbor who has Charter internet. Guess what? It's working fine. Call again after I was given an alternative number by a Charter employee. The gentleman tells me that he sees no power outage, I simply need to register my modem. He was great! He wasn't in the department that could help me of coarse. I make yet again another call. I get what sounded like that lady from my first call that had a difficult time speaking English. As I'm interrupted numerous times she starts to shout at me.

Then I get upset! I told her I'm trying to get some assistance and I'm frustrated at the situation, not you. I do not want to repeat myself or go over bundles. I just want to register my modem, have you send the signal and part ways. As she's rudely asking me about my computer, she gets her information second hand from someone else. I try to cut her off to tell her that's not my issue. She then raises her voice more. I get so upset I hung up. I'm stopping my cable, my internet, and I will never deal with them again. Beware!

ALDA, NEBRASKA -- Charter Communications and I have gone rounds for two years. Currently I ceased paying them. The cable was installed in May of 2005. To date it has not been buried, has been cut or accidentally disconnected in excess of five times. I telephoned, asked them what the problem was with having no internet upwards of five days per month. They responded that it was probably the fact that the cable had been flooded, cracked, baked in the sun and/or cut. All of those things had happened, and it was the technicians opinion that it would not work properly until buried.

To date it is still undone. I phoned charter and asked why, if they could steal my money and not give me the service for which I paid, I should continue to pay them. The response was laughable. "Because if you do not, we will end your service." When I replied "What was the difference, it rarely worked anyway", the comment that was forthcoming was more unsettling. "You should get a business account. We tend to take a little more care with those". Interesting viewpoint. My response? "Why on earth would I pay you more for something that hasn't worked when I paid less?" Her reply? "If that's how you want to look at it."

All in all, I am not a satisfied customer. I advise anyone interested in charter to find an alternative method of internet. Currently I stopped paying. Owe them one months service and part of another... and guess what. They have STILL not disconnected it. NOR buried it.

The truly amusing part of this story is that my sister, having had the same experience, after nearly a year phoned and had hers disconnected. Amusingly enough, three weeks after it was disconnected... they came and buried it. Bypassing mine, still above ground, still active, and a whole year older than hers. Go figure.

STOCKBRIDGE, GEORGIA -- I scheduled an appt with them between 3 pm and 5 p.m. My technician was not here by 5:30. I called, they told me he was on the way... 2 hours later he arrived. Upon 3 minutes of his arrival he came in and told me that he was unable to do the job due to him not having a ladder that was tall enough. I asked if another technician could bring him the equipment out he told me now he would have to reschedule my appointment time before they can do anything.

I told him Monday would be a good day and he tells me there's nothing available on Monday so I'll have to wait until the end of the week. How is it my fault that they were not prepared? I could not tell you but they definitely did not do anything to help make matters any better so therefore I just cancel the entire service even though I wasn't even a customer yet. If they can't even get the installation process done properly I would hate to have them as a carrier and have to go through the type of customer service that I had. Supervisors were no help nor were any of the people that spoke with at the 800 number.

LACOMBE, LOUISIANA -- Locked in "price Guarantee" for 24 months. Bill is $90 for Basic cable and 15 Mbps Internet. Called and offered to pay my termination fee of $47.50. Asked that since I was losing my job next month and really needed to reduce my bills if I could cancel just the cable service and keep the same Internet speed at the current rate I was paying of $39.99. They stated to keep the same Internet speed would have to pay $ 53.99/per month and termination fee. I am very upset that I have paid my bill on time for the last 5 years and they are wanting me to pay $15.00 more for the same service or he offered me $54.99 for double the speed. Gee Thanks, but no thanks!!!

TAYLORSVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA -- After the promotion ended, the price shot way up there. I called and they split the difference with me, I was satisfied. I thought that was the end of it until today (about 6 or 7 months later). I got home and my bill had gone up about $20. I thought there must be a mistake, so I called Charter. They said it was no mistake. They said my promo had ended. I explained to them that I was not in a promotion deal. They said they couldn't offer me that price anymore. WOW. Then why did they make that deal to begin with?

I asked if they had any reasonable deals I could go with. I was told that my new price was the cheapest I could get. I tried to even get a lower speed, but they said they don't go lower than 30 mbps anymore. I don't even need that much to surf the Internet. After they get you in their service they sure don't do anything to keep you. Apparently, they think they've got you since they're the only CABLE Internet provider. Well, I'm sure going to try another provider. They're disconnecting mine tomorrow.

For the last 6 months, I have called the customer service line 57 times. Seriously, 57 times. They keep telling me they will credit my bill - nope, never happens, and I'm seriously going to change internet providers. There are constant "outages", and BTW, WTF is an "outage" and why the hell does Charter have so many of them??? I'm going back to AT&T - NEVER had an "outage" with this company. Charter must think I'm too stupid to realize that my monthly bill keeps going up, but I have noticed, and will be pulling my account.

I will NEVER recommend or use their crappy service EVER again!!! Charging me for crap they don't deliver - HEY CHARTER, since I have a service contract agreement with you, YOU ARE IN BREACH OF CONTRACT every time there is an "outage", and I do not receive what I am freaking paying for. Maybe you'll notice when I don't pay my bill this month. Your customer service reps are dismal at best - anyone looking for an internet provider, AVOID CHARTER - they are thieves and they are liars, and they are incapable of providing the service they expect you to pay your hard-earned money for.