Everyday Randomness

Dear Charter

Seriously, do you guys make it a point to hire idiots? Do you hire someone, throw a book at ‘em and leave them to it? I mean, really, do you train your employees at all? Honestly, if you’re going to hire employees for your company, shouldn’t you make sure they at least know something about your services?

I had another run-in with a Charter customer service rep today. Things started off as usual this afternoon. Being that it was Sunday, and we wanted to be lazy, my hubby decided he wanted to rent a movie. We sat down on the couch, curled up in a blanket, and ordered The Departed from On Demand. NINE MINUTES into the movie, the picture and sound started blipping out again. When I say blipping I mean the picture completely goes out, comes back in, we lose sound, the picture then gets pixelated and starts flashing in and out. You can’t watch it, much less actually pay attention to what’s going on in a movie with it cutting in and out. My hubby immediately got pissed and decided to call Charter yet again. He was on the phone with the service rep all of about 2 minutes before he got fed up with her less than adequate knowledge of the On Demand service and threw the phone at me.

I re-explained the problem to the woman. I basically said the movie was cutting out again, I wasn’t paying $3.99 for something I couldn’t watch, and I’m sick of this happening all the time. I yet again made sure to tell her this is a nightly and weekend thing that doesn’t happen during the hours a tech would come out, so I’ve been dealing with the problem for 3 years. I also explained that it wasn’t just PPV movies that give us problems. This happens on basically all the digital channels, but worse on the movie package channels and On Demand. Our conversation went something like (wording not exact) as follows. SR is short for service rep. I don’t feel like typing it out over and over.

SR- What was the problem again, mam?

Me- We can watch the channel or the movie we ordered for about 5 or 10 minutes, then the picture and sound start cutting in and out continuously. It just happened again after we ordered a movie, and it’s not right for me to have to pay for something I can’t watch. I’m already giving you over $100 a month (during the times I actually have to pay for it) for a service that hasn’t been fixed in 3 years.

SR- What channel were you watching?

Me- We weren’t watching a channel. We ordered a movie from On Demand.

SR- What channel is that?

Me- 999 is the On Demand access channel, but I accessed it through the menu.

SR- And what channel were you watching the movie from?

Me- I wasn’t watching a movie from any channel. I was trying to watch a movie I ordered on On Demand from the PPV section.

SR- And what channel is that?

Me- (at this point I was getting REALLY pissed) Look, you must not know about the services you’re offering support for. On Demand is an additional service received with Digital Cable. We have the biggest value package, so we get the service free. You access the service through channel 999 or by going to the menu and choosing On Demand. There is a PPV section. I ordered a movie from that PPV section. There isn’t a channel number for the movie because it isn’t on a channel.

SR- Okay mam, what movie did you order?

Me- We ordered The Departed. We were able to watch the first 9 minutes of the movie before it started cutting out on us, and we can’t watch anymore.

She went through the whole process of resetting my converter box even though I explained it wouldn’t work, then she got mad at me because I couldn’t go back to the On Demand menu after she reset it!

SR- Could you please access the On Demand menu and tell me what the screen says.

Me- I can’t load On Demand right now. After you reset the cable box, it will take about 30 minutes before On Demand can be loaded again.

SR- Just go to menu or channel 999 and choose On Demand.

Me- You must not have understood me correctly, I CAN’T access On Demand right now. When you reset the converter box, you have to wait for it to receive the signal, and then you have to wait for all the services to load again. It will take about 10 minutes for the guide and menu to come back, and about 30 minutes before I can go to On Demand.

SR- You must not be doing it right. Go to channel 999 and On Demand will open.

Me- (I get pissy and try to go to the friggin On Demand menu and get the error message) I can’t load it. The screen says this feature is not available at this time. Please give us between 15-20 minutes to restore your services.

SR- There’s your problem. You don’t currently have service.

Me- No, you reset the converter box. It hasn’t finished loading all of the services yet, so of course I don’t have On Demand right now.

SR- That message means you don’t have any services. You must have been disconnected. I need to transfer you to the billing department.

At this point I just completely gave up. She didn’t give me a chance to say anything and tried to transfer me to billing, but of course billings is closed on Sundays, so the call just disconnected. I waited 15 minutes, called back, got a guy this time who wasn’t much better but at least understood he needed to put in a work order, so we’ll have yet another tech coming out tomorrow afternoon. Wish us luck!