Thursday, July 26, 2007

I love you (for now anyway) Sheila B.

I've written before about the craptastic high speed internet service I am saddled with. I thought that Charter Cable could not sink any lower than they had before, but today I got proved wrong.The last time my "high speed" internet was out for a long period of time I called the cable company and I asked for a credit for a couple of days for the time I was not able to get online. The guy at their call center said that he would issue me a credit for three days worth of service. His accent was tough to negotiate since English was not his first language but I know he told me I would be getting a credit.Fast forward to today. I open my cable bill expecting it to be under $100 but shock of shocks it was a whopping $184 and change. I called the cable company immediately. and I got a series of people in the credit department who accents I had a hard time understanding. Finally however I got a young lady who was able to speak decent English with barely a trace of an accent. I told her I was being over charged and that my bill was supposed to be under $100. She did some checking and finally she said that she could issue me a credit for $30 and that was all. I told her I was due more credit that that and I asked if she could be so kind as to give me the name and address of the CEO of Charter Cable. She declined and then she told me if I did not pay in full my cable and "high speed" internet would be cut off. I promptly hung up on her.

I then told my gf, who was home for lunch, that I was going across town to the local cable office to straightenout this mess. My gf knowing me like no other said, "Don't get too excited. And don't get arrested!" She knows I get a little too pissed off in situations like these.

I drove across town and as I drove I decided I would be the nicest guy possible when speaking to the office people at my local cable company. I got to see a human being right away. She was a very nice person named Sheila B.

I said Sheila B, not Sheila E. I explained my problem to Sheila and I gave her my bill. She quickly saw that I was being charged twice for "high speed" internet. She said I was not only being charged twice, the second charge was for the much more expensive 5 meg service. She issued me a credit for the second charge and then she proceeded to issue me more credit for all the trouble the Charter Cable phone people had put me through.

Sheila E, oops, Sheila B then told me that she was so sorry that I had been inconvenienced by their company personnel that she was going to give me a special rate for all my services for the next six months. I ended up owing less than $50 for this months service and for the next six months I'll play just a shade over $100 for internet and the digital cable package we currently have. I walked out a much happier guy and since I did not let it bend me out of shape I was much calmer than I would have been in the old pre heart attack days.


I decided I was still going to write to the CEO, his name is Neil Smith by the way, to tell him about the shoddy service I got over the phone and to also to tell him what a great employee and all around nice gal Sheila B had been. So I get home and I sat down at the computer and guess what? My stinking internet service was out yet again and it stayed out all afternoon until about 8 PM this evening.


I still love you for taking such good care of me Sheila B but I'm warning you honey bun, my love does not last long in the face of craptacular internet service.


However my love for Sheila E will burn bright because I dig a Latino woman who bangs the skins and sings oh so seductively.

6 comments:

Dr. Zaius said...

You can also contact your Local Frachise Authority. Every town with a cable company has one. It is just a group of members of the local government that meet and negotiate the cable rates and such with the cable company. The cable company is there by the grace of the LFA. It's all set up by the FCC.

Your complaint will be one of the letters that your local government uses to put the screws to the cable company during franchise negotiations. This is the government body that is supposed to protect you from the cable company's crap in the first place.

You should be able to just write a letter and address it "Local Franchise Authority" and send it to City Hall, but call them first just to make sure that they don't have a special box or something.

Go get 'em!

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

Dr. Z-I'll try that thanks!

Dr. Zaius said...

Here are a couple of links from the FCC and wikipedia. I think that you have struck a common nerve among many people, the cable company. I like how you handled it. Great post!

Anonymous said...

I wondered what happened to you today!

splord said...

My only problem with teh internets connection is that it gets freaky when it rains - which fekkin' sucks in the Southern Appalachians in the summer, cause we get thunderstorms nearly every day.

I can't really complain, though, as I get my connection via my neighbor's wi-fi net (with his permission, I hasten to add).

Jenn Siva said...

Comcast out here sucks too. My husband wants to get fiberoptics installled in our house (he works online).