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Throwing money at a problem instead of fixing it

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  • Throwing money at a problem instead of fixing it

    Wow, I am having a bad week in dealing with companies. My cable provider is terrible. We have been having a variety of issues since August and no one can fix them.

    The primary issue is a tech issue that no one can fix. We have had 4 techs out to the home and numerous long phone calls between mid august and now. They offer small credits each time that the problem is not fixed.

    I called to cancel over the tech issue and a rep convinced me to stay and give them more time to work on the tech issue on their end. He discounted my bill for 12 months. I agreed to give it a little more time but advised him that the discount doesn't fix the issue.

    I took advantage of a free movie channel promo. I called to remove the free one when it was over. The representative would not remove it until repeatedly trying to sell me another movie package that I already have. When I pointed out that I already pay for that service she just kept trying to sell it to me. I had to call again and have someone else remove it.

    They goofed up one of the credits and put a very large credit on the account. This resulted in me getting a bill for 0. No one could figure out how to fix the credit and calculate a correct amount. I paid my normal amount to avoid a double bill the next month and the next bill was a little lower.

    This month they show a second payment that was reversed as well as a request statement fee. I do paperless billing. They reversed the duplicate statement fee but are insisting that I made both payments and one bounced. I have bank statements and confirmation from my bank that only one payment was processed and that I had enough to cover two payments at that time anyway. They refuse to remove the fee.

    The tech issue is still happening. I call 1-2 times per month for these and other issues.

    I understand that they have to be careful with returned check fees as customer's will lie to have them removed. I understand that they have to sell. I understand that tech issues can be hard to diagnose.

    However, they have this idea that taking money off the bill will solve any issue that is not billing related. When I have an actual billing issue they won't fix it. The only credit that I requested out of all of this is to fix the returned check charge and the promo movie channels. The movie promo was open to all customers so was not a special request.

    **This is as short of an overview as I could manage. I apologize if I was not clear on some of it. I also didn't include every time we have had to call.

  • #2
    The thing is, in their mind they did fix it. Your problem is the technical problem, but their problem is you wanting to leave. The discount prevented it without them having to do any technical work. So in their mind they did fix the problem.

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    • #3
      I cannot leave their services completely as my hubby works at home. They are our only available ISP. We are now cancelling the phone and cable. I can't imagine that the discounts are working for them in the long run. Of course, the people making thee policies never seem to think about the long run.

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      • #4
        Subscription based service providers care more about the number of subscribers they have, rather than the amount of money they actually bring in. As long as they have you, they have the potential to make money off of you. Their investors like that idea better than actual revenue.
        Some People Are Alive Only Because It's Illegal To Kill Them.

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        • #5
          Ugh. My company kicked AT&T to the curb for a similar issue. Only in their case, they kept charging us for shit we weren't using (and had to fight to get them to take off our bill) and then they've tried to bill us for services twice, after we'd dumped them. >_<

          As for retention agents, their only job is to keep you from leaving, no matter what it takes. I had one from Earthlink (whose English was atrocious) fight with me for 45 minutes despite the fact that I'd already replaced them with another company. I don't blame her, though, as that's what she's being paid to do; it's the company policies that suck.

          ^-.-^
          Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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          • #6
            I finally decided to e-mail the corporate offices. I hate to do this. I remember from my days in customer service that the front line employees generally get the blame for upset customers even though corporate policies generally cause the problems.

            Now, they have fixed the billing issue and are calling me 3X a day with updates on the technical issue. Many of the updates are the same. They seem to have a lack of communication in their department. Ah well. At least they finally seem to want to fix the issues instead of making excuses and giving discounts.

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