Cox Communications Inc Cable Consumer Reviews - Page 2

OMAHA, NEBRASKA -- I signed up for Cox Contour in Jan. 2014 at a local Cox store. The customer representative quoted me a price of 142.00 locked in for two years. I get my new bill and find out my price will go up to 225.96 because there were some promotional rates included in my price that I was not told about. If I had been told what my price would increase to, I would not have signed up.

Talking to any Cox representative is like talking to the wall. It seems that they have this complaint so often that they read their response to you from a script. I know because I talked to 3 customer reps and they all repeated the same phrase word for word. What a joke of a company. Go with Dish, DirecTV or any company that is honest. I hate a being lied to.

EL CAJON, CALIFORNIA -- More like "A huge lying thief in the digital age." Similar to a prior review, when signing on with Cox it had been recommended that I get a bundle package so that technically even though I didn't need my land line it would be the cheapest route. My bill has never been the originally agreed price!!! Since Mid January. So for the first couple of months my bill was 20 bucks higher because I was on the installation payment plan for original hookup (5 payments).

After that, in my original order I had requested an HD Cable Box with DVR, but by the time I had gotten to sit down and look at my cable setup after the clueless tech finally left I realized the box had no DVR or HD for that matter. After 2 more weeks for waiting for someone to come out and trade it with a HD/DVR one they still had ** messed up on my account!

On my next bill they thought I was paying for 2 DVR boxes and I was getting charged for 2 because the technician hadn't turned in the old one correctly and removed it from my account. So by the time this was figured on my bill I was already sick of Cox. I actually got it credited back 2 billing periods later, better late than never, but still wondering when the dust would settle and I could get to sticking to my budget!!! What pissed me off the most is the run around, transfers and wait times to tell them they messed up again. I value my time as much as anyone else but the wait times for every phone call was at least 10 minutes no matter when I called.

So now being on a tight budget and ready to save $$ I was like OK... I know my bill will be $152, no extra on demand movies or fights, bundled "cheapest" package and my installation paid off... then BAM! For no reason (they still have to explain to me) my Cox promotional discount decreased from $35 to $20.. all of this within 6 months of initial hookup... so this is another unforeseen increase and is killing my budget!!

And my taxes and fees stayed the same - Yes $20 is a big difference in this house. Even if was rich it would be the principle of the situation, but since it's slim pickings I take this quite personally... this money takes away from other things that my family could enjoy hella more than cable... As of last night I bought a Roku 4, set it up all up by myself thank you very much, and have at least 3-4 media devices streaming from it and couldn't be happier. I D/C my Cox half an hour ago and proudly told them Roku... they didn't seem surprised.

Wish I would have pulled my head out of my ass earlier and saved me over $400 bucks, a lot of frustration and time wasted listening to terrible hold music. That is at least an hour of my life I will never get back... not being from this area I thought this was the company to go with, after research I know I have more independent options. Hope this review helps anyone else out there who are having similar problems with "your friend in the digital age."

My wife, two month old baby, and I moved into our new home this weekend. We called Cox to arrange for the installation of our cable service, and were given an installation window of 3-5 PM. 5 PM arrived, and nobody had shown up. My wife called, and was told by the representative that the technician was on his way to our house, and should be there in a few minutes. He even went so far as to say that he was "tracking" him and assured her that he was driving to our house. So we said okay and waited a bit more, since it was only a few minutes past the estimate. Only we waited, and waited, and waited.

Fast forward and it's now about 7:30 PM. We blew past the baby's bath time. We didn't go out to pick up dinner. We didn't run to the stores and do the errands we needed to with the move. I called the customer service number and got a voicemail greeting saying Cox's offices were now closed, and to call tomorrow, so we decided to finally go out. We took the baby to my mother's, so that she could get to bed and we could finally run the errands we put off for the last 4.5 hours. When leaving, we saw a van pulling to our house. It was almost comedic. We made a U-turn and went back to the house, just happy for the eventual installation.

Here's where I get angry. The technician, while installing the cable, told us that the representative at Cox LIED to my wife. There was no tracking, the representative had never spoken with the tech, and the tech didn't tell him he was on his way to our house. In fact, he didn't call dispatch until after 6 PM, well after my wife's call. I was incredibly disappointed to hear that we were lied to, and wasted all of our evening based on such disrespect and disregard. So the weekend passed and I called today, to alert customer service of the fact that representatives are making things up and completely lying to - not misleading, but telling blatant untruths - customers.

Perhaps to no surprise, the "supervisor" who spoke to me was completely apathetic to the story. He treated me as if I was asking for a handout (which I was not... at no point did I ask for anything other than respect and an apology), and then with the most ridiculously condescending tone explained how "if you divide your bill by 30, you get like $4 a day and the $20 credit we're offering you is much more." I'm an MBA - I can divide. I also spent about six years in undergraduate and graduate business schools learning that it's sometimes good practice for an organization to not treat its customers like pieces of crap to be taken advantage of and wholly disregarded.

It's maddening how he didn't get it, and fought to convince me I was being irrational because I was complaining about having my moving day destroyed like this and my wife being lied to. Oh, and the proverbial cherry on top: the installation was messed up, and our upstairs cable didn't work. Had to have it fixed the next day. If you can, just get FIOS. I don't even trust Cox to disconnect my service without hosing it up or being dishonest with the transaction.

FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS -- For the past seven weeks, my cable internet, television and telephone services have been intermittently been failing; sometimes several times per day. As the failures became more frequent, I called the technical support staff on March 11th and explained the issue to them. After a horrible round of circular logic and suggestions for resetting the router, even disconnecting the router from the modem and connecting the computer directly to the telephony modem; the on-call technician finally suggested that I should purchase a cable splitter, extra coaxial cable and a new cable modem to separate internet service from my phone service.

Very dissatisfied with the inept suggestions; especially with the "final" solution that involved me having to purchase additional equipment to correct the problems possibly stemming from the Arris model: TM502G telephony modem installed by a Cox technician or the connections in the MDU box, I ended the phone call. Four days and a total of three calls later, the on duty manager from Cox Technical Support called me at home around 20:15 to inform me that a technician had finally been sent out to one of the relays where he found a bad amplifier unit that could not maintain the power level needed to provide consistent service.

He believed that service should have returned to normal and at that time we cancelled the on-site call that was scheduled for the following morning. Service seemed to improve briefly, but after having my internet, telephone and cable service interrupted five times within a 40 minute period, I called technical services yet again to schedule an appointment. The following day a technician came to my apartment to test the services and attempt to diagnose the problem.

While he was here, ** was able to monitor the signal from the living room and change out one of connections in the green cylinder outside, though we both noticed how horribly loose the foundation was for the unit. However, when he attempted to open the MDU box, he discovered a major problem with the lock and had to begin drilling it out. After several attempts, he was still unable to open the MDU box and test the connections that enter the apartment. At that time, he called the supervisor on duty and assured me that they would be coming back with more equipment and would call me later in the day.

That was over a week and a half ago and I have not heard from the tech or his supervisor again. This afternoon, I went outside to see if they had come back and completed the work on the MDU box and just failed to contact me, however as I had already suspected they had not. With the lock still partially drilled out, the box was still impossible to open and has probably been this way since the last technician replaced a bad splitter in the MDU box two years ago.

Two days after the technician came out, a young woman from the sales department called to "thank" me for being a "valued" customer and offered to upgrade my internet service to the next tier for only five dollars per month. When I informed her of the problems with services dropping, she changed the offer to telephone service and then television. My question to her was simple, Why would I want to spend additional money with a company that cannot even provide an adequate level of service for me now? She still failed to understand my point and continued talking as I told her to have a nice day and terminated the phone call.

Perhaps, Cox Communications should funnel some of the funds currently spent on advertising into upgrading and maintaining the failing infrastructure that is currently in place. Instead of just telling people again and again that you are "their friend", you should be showing them with improved service.

I have attempted to submit this via email using the Cox Communications website. However, the server was down according to the incredibly unhelpful online chat technician and they would be back online in an hour... that was over 24 hours ago. The chat technician refused to offer any additional email addresses for a technical supervisor that could respond to this issue. As it stands now, I feel that no one in Customer Support or Technical Support cares about the individual customer and that is truly sad.

Several phone calls have been met with ineptitude and inaction from this subpar company. Not one time have I been offered a refund for the $165 a month I have been paying for failing services or an actual apology. I am so tired of hearing false apologies from call center representatives that do nothing to actually help the situation.

TEMPE, ARIZONA -- I had a service technician come to my house today and he was awesome! He replaced my out-of-date modem, replaced both remotes, and installed a new cable box. Not to mention he replaced outside wiring which was old. His name was Edgar and he exceeded my expectations! I was very impressed too since he wore booties inside every time he came back in after going to the truck to get equipment. He also explained how to use the new remotes. I am extremely satisfied with Cox Communications and the professionalism! Thank you Edgar for all your hard work!!

MESA, ARIZONA -- I will never again have Cox services. Rude employees that are incompetent. My bill was different every month. I wasted ten hours no exaggeration on the phone with this company in two months. I couldn't be happier to cancel my services.

2312 NORTHWEST 10TH STREET, OKLAHOMA -- (Oklahoma City, OK) I have maintained service with Cox since 2001. Due to the always increasing fees, I decided to get a Netflix account, and terminate my services with Cox. When I called Cox on the afternoon of 12/18/2009 to terminate my service, the customer service representative (who was very pleasant), indicated to me that I needed to bring my cable box and remote into the drop-off location. I told him that I have not had a cable box in over 2 years. He said that the bill indicated that I DID have the equipment, and that I was being charged the monthly equipment fee under the "digital converter" fee heading.

He was willing to investigate the bill and I told him I would go locate my receipt and other records and that I would call back later in the day. I went home, located the day I downgraded my service (October 26, 2007) and the receipt for turning in the equipment (a few days later) and returned a call to Cox. The next customer service technician started off nice, but didn't remain that way. He stated that the bill did indeed indicate that the equipment had been turned in, and that I HAD been overcharged approximately 11.00 a month for about 2 years.

He put me on hold to talk to his manager about getting me a credit. The manager was only willing to credit 6 months of overages. He said that it was my fault for not reading my bill. I tried to explain to him that "digital converter" does not indicate to me that I was paying an extra fee for equipment. I have digital cable, so I just assumed that was a fee (in addition to their other numerous misc fees) that pertained to the digital cable, not for a piece of equipment. They are only willing to refund about $60 of the $290 that they owe me.

ENFIELD, CONNECTICUT -- Instead of simplifying the process, Cox Communications makes it impossible to figure out: (1) what services they actually provide; (2) who to contact; (3) where to go to pick up a cable box; (4) how to install the equipment; (5) how to figure out what channels you are actually able to receive in the channel guide. There is more, but hopefully this gives any Cox customers or would-be Cox customers the idea. I don't blame the Cox employees, they are nice enough, some very competent, others not so competent. Who I actually blame is the management of the company, and therefore, the CEO.

I am sure Cox Communications is a successful, profitable company. But their customer service is terrible. The website lists certain hours an office is open, those hours of a local office are all wrong. One employees tried to sell me a 6 ft. HDMI cable for $63.74, when there was another one that is 12 ft., same quality and compatibility for $19.99. An online chat with technical support hooked me up with a woman who cannot understand basic English. I cannot count how many times I have tried to log in to my account when the website says "server error."

Cox Communications is not focused on their customer, but is all about making money- this is fine, but don't the customers deserve better? Maybe it's because in most areas there is a "monopoly" on cable in that town? I have no choice in my town, and the apartment complex where I live doesn't allow satellite dishes, so I am stuck. The quality of the actual connection, whether it's HD or otherwise is excellent- but, the customer service is awful. So, when you deal with Cox Communications, make sure you have a bottle of aspirin or Advil available.

PHOENIX, ARIZONA -- If I could give this horrible company negative stars, I would. All the reps are nice and pleasant when there's an opportunity to sell you something but if there's not, they are extremely rude and talk over you. When I signed up for Cox TV, I chatted with a lady (well, she had a female name) and I asked if I would be charged a fee if I moved to an area Cox does not service. She said I would not be charged a fee for early termination. I called in November to cancel my service and the representative says I will be charged a fee and no matter what the circumstances are, there will be the ETF.

I asked to speak with a supervisor and I was trying to look for the conversation I had with the lying representative on my computer because I thought I saved it. It was taking too long so I asked the supervisor if he could call me back the following day. He said he had meetings that day but could call me at 2:30 P.M. I gave him my phone number, which is the same on my account, and never got a call from him.

Today, I called to get this finalized with this horrible company, since I actually had time to wait the 30 plus minutes to speak with someone, only to find out the supervisor who was supposed to call me put in the notes on my account that he called me, nobody answered, and there was not a Voicemail. This is the year 2011, who doesn't have Voicemail??? He is a LIAR as well, and now, I don't mind paying the ETF to get out of a contract with this company who hires nothing but a bunch of liars!

I asked for a credit from November to December and the rep, **, spoke with her supervisor, **, who denied my request because I still have the equipment and because I did not call back to disconnect. Their representative was to call me back but did not! The representative I spoke with today barely told me what to do with the equipment, so of course, I still have it! Cox is definitely not "my friend in the digital age" because I do not associate myself with liars, thieves, or crooks!

We switched to COX recently, but given an opportunity, we would switch in a heartbeat to any other cable company. Unfortunately COX is a monopoly in our area, and they couldn't care less about customer service and general usability of their product. First, service is very unreliable; in any given time, many channels are off air and can't be accessed. Only free air channels work consistently, so if you like to watch HBO or MSNBC, you may be out of luck. However, they bill for the channels that are not available half the time. In all fairness, they should issue refunds to the customers who they shortchange on a regular basis.

Second, the programming guide (the grid) is unusable. You can'€™t make favorites list for the grid, so even if you have your favorites on TV remote, you will have to scroll through all channels on the programming guide. There is about a thousand channels there that we do not subscribe to, including those off air, but they'€™re still are in the guide lineup.

There is no other way to find out what'€™s on. It may not sound as a big deal, but it is extremely frustrating, because you simply can't find what's on right now, flipping through hundreds and hundreds of channels you do not want. This mess makes it impossible to find out what will be on next -€“ you have to flip through all the channels. COX does not have picture in picture, so if you switch to guide, you can'€™t continue watching what you're watching.

Third, COX constantly rearranges its lineup. However, abandoned channels stay on and there is no way to skip them! So if you flip with your remote, sometimes dozen of empty channels show up with horrible screeching noise before you actually get to watch something. There is no way to get rid of them; they stay in the lineup, sometimes for months which is very aggravating. And when COX migrates their channels, all the numbering changes, without warning, but all these empty channels will show up in your favorites and there's no way to get rid of them.

COX cable is probably the worst product in the world, but they have very aggressive marketing and they are a monopoly. If you have any other choice, stay away. The only result of our switching to COX cable is that we are watching considerably less TV, because it is simply impossible to watch!