RCN Consumer Reviews - Page 2

100 BALTIMORE DR, PENNSYLVANIA -- I have been with RCN for 10 years now because they are the only company that offered the phone/cable/internet bundle. In that time, I've been SO unhappy! One may say "Why don't you just switch", it's because RCN is a monopoly in this area and I have no choice. They have horrible customer service. I set up a password 7 years ago on my account. Today they tell me a cannot access my account without a NEW password and I can't set it up today. I have to fill out the letter they were going to mail me and then I can find out some information.

They gave us converter boxes a few months ago.... charging us $3 per converter box, I needed two. They came out, set them up and I had a pixelated picture for a week. After asking for a credit, they gave me (hold on to your socks) $2.37! Oh and another thing, my very expensive Tivo didn't work like it used to due to only one tuner in the NEW converter box that I did NOT want in the first place. I was forced to buy a new HD Tivo for $300! Since I had a bundled package, I had 5 phone features. Well, that was thrown out the window and then they started charging for the features that used to be free and then raised my package price without my knowledge.

The internet is constantly slow and often disconnects due to the router they have given me (for the price of $3 per month for renting it). Last year they took away channels I had gotten for free and added them to the premium package that you have to pay extra for (like TruTv). I am going to buy a house somewhere in a different area just so I can move away from the endless crap that I have dealt with for all of these years. If you were smart, stay away from these crooks.

LONG ISLAND CITY, NEW YORK -- I had the RCN account for almost 2 1/2 year. I then had to move out of city in July so I needed to close the account. I called Customer Services to cancel it and they directed me to the billing department for cancellation of service. I had to wait for almost 35-45 min every time I tried. I am a busy person and can't hold phone for more than 30-40 min. so I could not get hold of them.

I got that RCN connection from a person seating in the lobby of my building claiming himself as RCN agent. Almost all the residents who had RCN in that and surrounding buildings bought connection through him. His name is Zareef. I tried to call him to let him know that I need to cancel this connection as I was moving out. He never responded. 'Til the day of my moving, I was trying one or the other way to know what am I supposed to do with the modems.

At last I left modems in the apartment and informed the owner of the apartment. After reaching my new place which is in different state, I tried RCN again to let them know that this is the case. A customer representative would take the call but would not help me to resolve my problem stating it's job of billing department even after knowing that billing department won't take "cancellation call" before 45 mins. I stopped trying further as I did my bet enough.

In October I got a phone call from RCN asking if I still live in the same apartment because someone called from that address for new connection. I told them the whole story and they then canceled my account!!! Let's say if no one would have come to occupy that apartment, RCN would never know whether I am still there or not. Ridiculous. They charged me with good amount of money for not returning modems.

I told them that I tried what I could but could not get hold of them. That's not my fault. No one has time to hold phone for 45 minutes to cancel the service. I demanded explanation and told them that I am not going to pay this money because it's not my fault. If their claimed agent is not responsible to call me back, I am not supposed to pay for their carelessness.

Now I have received a letter stating that they might inform the credit bureau which will spoil my credit history. This is sort of harassment. I don't have any other choice but to pay that money. Additionally they have added some service charge strangely for using their service which I have stopped using for last 6 months. This is really ridiculous. This RCN company is very careless and don't care about customers. I WOULD RECOMMEND NOT TO TAKE THEIR CONNECTION BECAUSE SOME OR THE OTHER WAY IT CAUSES TROUBLE.

MORTON, PENNSYLVANIA -- Is it me? Are we the only household with three or more TV sets? RCN recently went digital in our area. We received our "free" converter box. ($2.99 for each additional.) Won't go into the hours wasted and anxiety levels in getting the unit working. (Hello? RCN… You've got to get more people on the phones for cable service support. The wait times are inexcusable.) So step back a bit. I went from four TV sets. (Living Room, den, kitchen, bedroom. ) to one. Oh yeah, forget the days of recording on one channel and watching another. Unless you fork out for another converter box, that convenience is out the window.

I haven't made the leap of faith as to how to add more converter boxes. The cable modem is one split for my feed. Add two more converter boxes and you've split the signal even more. The field tech said my signal was marginal for the one box that I installed. Blamed it on the quality of the cable I was using. OK, so what kind should I get? No help there in that department. I envision a bundle of cables flying to the house from the utility pole to feed my insatiable thirst for entertainment. One for each box. Speaking of entertainment. Now that we're "digital" I have more channels than ever to sift through to find ones that will work using my basic package.

Hello? RCN Are you listening? It is too much to ask that only the directory listings of operational (active) channels for a given cable package be downloaded to that customer's converter box? And it's not like you can picture in picture scroll down to the ones that do work. Clever marketing on your part. Make me cave in for the full-blown package so ALL the listed channels will work. Stick it. And it's not like I had a choice. It was go digital or NOTHING. It's subtle but we have to adjust our mindset into learning that the cast is already made and you will pay for each and every device connected to the system. Makes me re-think the awkward question. "Do I REALLY need TV?"

ILLINOIS -- When I first moved to Chicago from Ohio, I went and called RCN to get internet and cable for me and my 3 roommates I was living with at the time. When the tech. first came out it was impossible to understand anything they were saying (not to say it's their fault) but they were very rude as well. Throughout having RCN, it was like playing musical chairs, because every week it was either me, or my 2 roommates that were out of service. Either one of us was SOL and had to use our computer, or which was even worse was when all 3 of us had no service.

Needless to say this made our living situation tense just because of all the stress that they caused and calling them up was pointless because you would spend 2 hours of your day trying to talk to some idiot who either gets you disconnected in the middle of waiting or does nothing to help your problem and says they can have a tech come out. Once the tech comes out 4 days later, we get a bill the next month for $250.00. We pay each month, but figured maybe something happened as to why it was so high as usual. Instead of complaining as that gets us nowhere with them, we just decide to go through and pay.

No matter how many times we would call to lower our bill, it would never get resolved even if they would say countless times how many "discounts" we would receive and the money that would be taken off. Finally our service was back on, we were happy.

Not even 24 hours goes by where everything shuts down both cable and internet. Of course I'm pissed and call RCN in a rage only to find out that they are experiencing an outage in my area. I understand that but when this is about the 20th outage since I've had RCN it gets to be a bit ridiculous. Please save your money and your time and get Comcast. Believe me, it's cheaper than RCN regardless what you hear. Good luck!

VIRGINIA -- RCN.COM has to be one of the worst companies ever. We're completely held hostage to this company. Horrendous customer service, technical support and products. For over two months now they have been returning my email as SPAM and then today they started blocking all mail as being blacklisted by me. They have no clue on how to fix a problem after 6 phone calls that go on for hours. Problems never get fixed.

Tonight I talked to a supervisor pertaining to email issues and was told that he had no IT experience that he was just a supervisor. Now how is that. They hire people to supervise so-called IT staff and the supervisors have no IT experience. This is one reason problems don't get fixed. You call RCN to report a problem and they never get back to you on the problem of get it fixed. Call back a week later and have to go around in a circle going over the same thing you had to tell them the week before and it goes like this week after week.

ARLINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- We had RCN for less than 1 year. ON July 1, a Thursday, our on-demand went out. I called RCN. They took the call. The next day, I called again, they took the call. I called every day, July 1-5. Of course being a holiday weekend, I did not get any response on my service call July 6th. We then canceled our service on July 22nd for RCN's non-ability to provide service.

They then are billing us for 1 week of service after we canceled. We have tried calling. To no avail - None on the other end of phone can help you or resolve your problem and supervisors who can resolve the problem are not reachable!!! Our problem is not resolved and we don't know how to resolve it. DO not get service with RCN.

MASSACHUSETTS -- Well, another 40 minutes on hold & why? Because they sent me a letter of service suspension and I want to find out why. I received their latest invoice last week, and the notice of suspension arrived today. Only the current month is owing, nothing else. They have also left phone messages about the non-payment. Their representative told me that it was all automatic and there was nothing she could do - but that I was overdue by 1 day. So the notice of suspension was sent out before the bill was even due! Their rates are not even that good anymore - time for a change.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- I've had RCN for the past two years and am moving out of state. Their rude customer service person told me I would have to pay for an additional 10 days BEYOND my regular billing date (which is already 10 days out). They said their final billing process is long and it takes that long to get the technician out to turn off the service. As if that is my fault! I just cancelled my electric service, cell phone and newspaper with no "disconnect policy". When I complained to a supervisor, she said that I "was lucky-- it's usually longer than 10 days." I've also complained to the BBB in MA, where there are already 59 complaints in the last 36 months.

SECANE, PENNSYLVANIA -- A RCN agent came in our apartments building to disconnect the "illegal" users. I was disconnected by mistake. It took me dozens and dozens of phone calls to finally learn that I was the "guilty" and had also to pay for a technician (that I never saw) who, according to them, came to my place. In all the phone calls made (and then you reach each time a new "face" and have to start all your story over from scratch) RCN always refers to their notes (which are right by definition) while your notes are all false.

I even wrote to their headquarters (big names in their company) and they even never answered me. Their slogan is right. "YOU'LL GET MORE WITH RCN", they just forgot one word. "MORE PROBLEMS". I have now a better service and less expensive with Comcast.

MARYLAND -- I called to have my phone service turned off with RCN because I was moving. They said Feb. 5 and when you called my number it said disconnected. Two months after my move and shut off date, I get a bill for phone service after the shut off date. I call and they said they had to put a work order in for the bill. This is two months after the shut off. So I wait and call a week later to make sure the work order went through. NO! "We have it scheduled for later in the week."

Is this a joke? I will never use this phone service again. They are so unreliable. Once I went to use my phone and couldn't because it was long distance and they dropped my long distance carrier. It took them over a week to straighten out that one. I hope I can get this straightened out. NOT RECOMMENDED.