Off The Charts

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A few years ago, Wonderwife and I decided we wanted to have high speed internet because we were tired of dial-up and we no longer wanted a land line. Our family would call us on our mobiles and the telemarketers called the wired phone. Who needed it? We switched to Charter Cable for internet and television. Our previous digital tv provider was Dish Network. Last month I had yet another internet connectivity issue and called Charter. After patching that issue, the tech then sold me on a speed upgrade and premium movie channels for only $1 a month extra. Well, not only did I buy the lie, I bought $30 extra in this month’s bill.

I called Charter and went right to a supervisor (after waiting for 12m) who apologized profusely but flatly refused to credit my account because he couldn’t/wouldn’t verify my claim. Not only that, there was a $4.95 wire maintenance fee tacked on that wasn’t asked for. Again, no credit. I promptly told the guy that the next time I called Charter, it will be to close my account and come get your hardware. If I make a mistake, I will pay for it. If Charter makes a mistake, you pay for it.

My next call was to AT&T to get a basic, no-frills landline and 6MB DSL internet. After that, I called Direct TV and got a satellite TV package. Both will be ready to go on Monday (this being a short work week). On Tuesday, after everything is installed and verified to work, I will call Charter and tell them to go do something with themselves. With Charter Communications, I was lied to, unappreciated. Now I will have faster internet speed for less and the crystal clear digital picture that Charter promised will come true with the new satellite provider. Charter’s offer of $49.99 for above basic tv and $15 extra for our DVR service is a rip-off. Direct TV has more channels for the same price and only a $5 DVR fee.

Charter left me with no choice and I will be happy that I will no longer have to do business with them again. Now I just have to migrate our email accounts over to the new address.

Does anyone know how or if I can plug a dish tv receiver cord into the back of my computer’s tv tuner so I can record television to my hard drive like I did with cable tv?

 

6 responses

  1. Sir-

    I am a contracter for the cable companies. I’ve worked for the big 3 companies in several states over the last 7 years. I’ve done sales, installs, trouble calls.

    My first question is – were you not provided paperwork for your upgrade a month ago? When I do an upgrade for Charter I’m required to turn in a slew of paperwork that has been signed by you the customer. Paperwork could fix your billing situation on the spot. You might be required to fax the paperwork, but that seems a small price to pay.

    Second question- Have you ever had DSL? If you get 6mbps, I will be shocked. You also face the challenge of dropping offline more often than you did with your cable services due to the way the DSL system is set up – Hubs and distance from the head-end bla bla. I’ts a well known fact that Cable Internet services might not be perfect but it is a better product than DSL.

    Dish TV services are a decent product and I agree the picture you get on your ‘basic’ channels is better than what you get on Cable. That has to do with the way the signal is delivered to your TV. A majority of the Cable markets still are using analog signal to deliver your picture for your ‘basic’ channels. Because Dish uses satelites, their signal has to be digital. The analog issue will start to change in Feb of ’09 when cable companies will be required to start delivering an all digital signal. They were required to be completly switch by Feb ’09 but won a judgement to put that off for 3 more years.
    Dish services also seem to have a better HD line-up. I don’t see in your comments above that your interested in these channels but you might be interested to learn that Dish compresses their HD signal which, in turn, degrades the quality of picture you recieve. They compress, because they only have so much bandwidth to play with. They will get more when they put more birds in the sky – whenever that might be.
    Dish does not have OnDemand services. OnDemand has rocketed to popularity over the last several years.
    And, what about service calls? If your dish is knocked by a kid or by the wind, how much does it cost to have a Tech come out and re-align it for you? And your equipment – what happens if your DVR poops out on you? Dish, will charge you to fix the box/modem as well as a ‘trip charge’. If the Charter’s box goes bad, they roll a tech and replace the box at no charge to the customer.

    In my opinion cable has the better service. Yes, they cost more. People don’t seem to understand the amount of man power involved in keeping a cable system in operation. Take a look around when you are driving around town and compare the amount of trucks from Charter vs the amount of trucks from Dish. More trucks means more people employeed and more of your money staying in your town instead of filtering out to another economy.

    I value my time at about 40 bucks an hour. It seems to me that you are spending a lot of your time/money because of a 30 dollar error. You are also trading a superior service for two inferior ones. Not only will you be writing two checks a month, you are stuck dealing with two different versions of Customer Service who are rated just as bad as Cable.

    Now, I’m not saying that you are wrong in your actions. It simply seems, to me, that you have been re-active instead of pro-active with your problems with the cable company. Your problems can be fixed with a reciept for your upgrade.

    I hope your install on Monday works out for you and you enjoy your services. I would be interested to hear, in 6 months, how the services and the customer service compares.

    Have a good one.

    Reply

  2. Sir-

    I am a contracter for the cable companies. I’ve worked for the big 3 companies in several states over the last 7 years. I’ve done sales, installs, trouble calls.

    My first question is – were you not provided paperwork for your upgrade a month ago? When I do an upgrade for Charter I’m required to turn in a slew of paperwork that has been signed by you the customer. Paperwork could fix your billing situation on the spot. You might be required to fax the paperwork, but that seems a small price to pay.

    Second question- Have you ever had DSL? If you get 6mbps, I will be shocked. You also face the challenge of dropping offline more often than you did with your cable services due to the way the DSL system is set up – Hubs and distance from the head-end bla bla. I’ts a well known fact that Cable Internet services might not be perfect but it is a better product than DSL.

    Dish TV services are a decent product and I agree the picture you get on your ‘basic’ channels is better than what you get on Cable. That has to do with the way the signal is delivered to your TV. A majority of the Cable markets still are using analog signal to deliver your picture for your ‘basic’ channels. Because Dish uses satelites, their signal has to be digital. The analog issue will start to change in Feb of ’09 when cable companies will be required to start delivering an all digital signal. They were required to be completly switch by Feb ’09 but won a judgement to put that off for 3 more years.
    Dish services also seem to have a better HD line-up. I don’t see in your comments above that your interested in these channels but you might be interested to learn that Dish compresses their HD signal which, in turn, degrades the quality of picture you recieve. They compress, because they only have so much bandwidth to play with. They will get more when they put more birds in the sky – whenever that might be.
    Dish does not have OnDemand services. OnDemand has rocketed to popularity over the last several years.
    And, what about service calls? If your dish is knocked by a kid or by the wind, how much does it cost to have a Tech come out and re-align it for you? And your equipment – what happens if your DVR poops out on you? Dish, will charge you to fix the box/modem as well as a ‘trip charge’. If the Charter’s box goes bad, they roll a tech and replace the box at no charge to the customer.

    In my opinion cable has the better service. Yes, they cost more. People don’t seem to understand the amount of man power involved in keeping a cable system in operation. Take a look around when you are driving around town and compare the amount of trucks from Charter vs the amount of trucks from Dish. More trucks means more people employeed and more of your money staying in your town instead of filtering out to another economy.

    I value my time at about 40 bucks an hour. It seems to me that you are spending a lot of your time/money because of a 30 dollar error. You are also trading a superior service for two inferior ones. Not only will you be writing two checks a month, you are stuck dealing with two different versions of Customer Service who are rated just as bad as Cable.

    Now, I’m not saying that you are wrong in your actions. It simply seems, to me, that you have been re-active instead of pro-active with your problems with the cable company. Your problems can be fixed with a reciept for your upgrade.

    I hope your install on Monday works out for you and you enjoy your services. I would be interested to hear, in 6 months, how the services and the customer service compares.

    Have a good one.

    Reply

  3. Eric,
    There are several good points in favor of cable versus dish service and admit I may not have thought it out properly (reactive). The bottom line for me with Charter is the lying and lack of support for their customers. Usually if there was a technical issue, the service was fast, accurate and friendly but if you questioned their billing, then this is a different matter. They get defensive and try to justify what they say one month and bill the next.

    I had planned on doing an update on my current services after a month and probably do so again after 6 months by way of comparison. Thanks for the input!

    Reply

  4. Eric,
    There are several good points in favor of cable versus dish service and admit I may not have thought it out properly (reactive). The bottom line for me with Charter is the lying and lack of support for their customers. Usually if there was a technical issue, the service was fast, accurate and friendly but if you questioned their billing, then this is a different matter. They get defensive and try to justify what they say one month and bill the next.

    I had planned on doing an update on my current services after a month and probably do so again after 6 months by way of comparison. Thanks for the input!

    Reply

  5. Wow, talk about a self-serving snowjob. What a honk! If the cable folks weren’t telling LIES that had to be documented to the letter, it wouldn’t be an issue.

    Good luck on your truck, bubba.

    Reply

  6. Wow, talk about a self-serving snowjob. What a honk! If the cable folks weren’t telling LIES that had to be documented to the letter, it wouldn’t be an issue.

    Good luck on your truck, bubba.

    Reply

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