I still love you Sheila B but....

Since my internet has been in and out all freakin' morning I was forced to compose and send this letter to the CEO of Charter Cable:

Mr. Neil Smith
12405 Powerscourt Dr.
St. Louis, MO. 63131

Mr. Smith:
This is the second time I have been compelled to write you about the craptastic high speed internet service that your company offers and the awful quality of service I have received from most of your employees when I tried to get this problem addressed.


My internet service, which I pay on time for every month and because of that I expect to be able to use it anytime I want since I pay for 24 hour service, has been in and out all summer. Finally a few weeks ago I had had enough and I called your toll free number to report that it was out and to ask for some credit on my bill. I was told by your employees that the matter would be taken care of and that I would get a credit for three days worth of time on my bill.


However when I opened my bill yesterday I saw much to my shock and horror that I was not being given a credit, instead I was being charged an additional $88.98 on top of my usual bill! Your insanely stupid employees apparently decided that they did not like people who called them and asked that they be given bills that reflect the actual amount of usage of your shitty internet service. I can hear them cackling now, “Ha ha, we fixed that guy. How dare he have the gall to ask for credit on his bill! We’re the damn cable company and while we have the monopoly on service we’ll do what we damn well please! I’ll fix his ass, I’m not giving him credit, I’m gonna hike his bill instead!”


Unfortunately for you I did not take this laying down. I called your toll free number and I finally got a person in your call center who speaks a better brand of broken English than most of your employees, and I complained that I was being over charged. She hemmed and hawed and said she could give me a $30 credit and that was all and that if I did not pay the balance then she would see to it that my service would be cut off. I hung up on her.


Since I got no help from your people via the telephone, which by the way IS NOT on your company’s phone service plan, I drove across town to the local office. There I met a nice woman named Sheila B. She has been the ONLY person in your company that has been nice and helpful in all my dealings with you people. Oh crap, I should not have said that, now you’ll fire her and replace her with some bitchy teenager who can barely speak English. Sheila saw right away that I was being charged twice for internet service and she saw that the second charge was for your more expensive 5 meg service. She made the adjustments to my account and for a moment I was prepared to let bygones be bygones.


Until I got home that is and I found out my internet service was out yet again. And it stayed out from 1:00 PM until well after 8:00 PM. And then this morning it is out yet again.


Against my better judgment I called your toll free number again. This time I got a young man who speaks fine fluent English. Unfortunately for me though, he also had quite a chip on his shoulder and it took him all of five seconds to start blaming me for my internet outage and to give me crap.


Since your shitty company has the monopoly on the cable and high speed internet in my city you have us all by the balls. If I could switch to another company I would in a heart beat. Your employees, with the exception of Sheila B. suck. They are down right rude and they are liars who will tell you anything to get you off the phone.


I demand a written apology from you and I demand that your company fix the problems with your internet service immediately. I shall, when I can get online that is, post all my correspondence with you on my web log, http://monkeymucker.blogspot.com/ and I shall post all the times that my internet is out starting with yesterday’s outages. I’m going to keep this up until I get satisfaction.


You know Mr. Smith, what I am asking is not a revolutionary thing. In fact it’s quite common to ask that when you pay for something you actually get the thing or service you pay for. The bottom line is this Neil, I want what I pay for, and every time I do not get what I pay for I will demand a credit on my account and I will spread the word about how crappy your company is until I get satisfaction.


The ball is in your court now Mr. Smith, you can either give us consumers what we pay for or you can continue to screw us and take our money and give us shitty internet service and shitty customer service.


I await your apology and I await better internet service.