Cablevision Sees Nothing Wrong With Month Of Super Slow Or Nonexistent Internet Service

Nicole is a web developer, and as such, relies on a steady and speedy connection to the Internet. That’s why she shelled out around $415 in installation and fees to Cablevision for access to their 100MB “Ultra” Internet service. But in this case, that 100MB promise has been like a flickering mirage of an oasis in a very dry desert.

She writes that since the $300 installation, the Internet service has never worked, which might make one think it was installed incorrectly. Nicole says speeds are usually about 0.5MB — so slow that Gmail recommends switching to “basic mode” — to a max of about 60MB before dropping again. Cablevision doesn’t agree that any refund is warranted, and says nothing is wrong with this situation.

I’m a web developer, and have almost lost my job because of all of this.

Yet, Cablevision refuses to refund us these massive fees after a month without a working service. We have spoken to people from their corporate office, and are constantly reassured that the service will be fixed, and that they cannot refund the $300 installation fee (which we feel we should not have to pay because, well, it wasn’t installed correctly, right?) because it will be fixed.

Today was the worst. The sixth technician to come out, a Jose from the engineering department, came to our apartment today and insisted nothing was wrong with our internet (because once in a blue moon, the Internet will spike up to half of the speed we are paying for!), shouted at us, and his assistant technician stared me down in an extremely uncomfortable and misogynist way.

These technicians have just left our apartment, and now our internet is capping out at about 3MB. But Jose claimed that everything is now resolved, so we will receive no refund, our internet is still broken, and we have spent the last MONTH dealing with this, constantly staying home from work to allow the endless flow of technicians who do nothing access our apartment.

Nicole can’t even leave Cablevision, as it’s the only ISP in her neighborhood outside of DSL service.

This reminds us of going to the doctor with a health complaint that sort of resolves itself when you’re actually in the office and you’re caught being like, “But I swear, it really hurt like five minutes ago…”

Anyway, that doesn’t make it any less of a real problem, and paying for a service should (ideally!) mean you actually receive that service.

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