Let it be known that if your modem starts smoking after a Time Warner tech was just at your house messing with it, it’s your fault for not having their branded router. Reader Paul writes:

I live in Columbus Ohio, and have been a Road Runner subscriber for about 10 years. We also have digital phone from Time Warner (TW provides the RR service in Columbus.) Our digital phone service went out on Monday morning. We called from a cell phone, and they sent out a tech this morning to fix it. He did. At around 3PM, 4-5 hours after he left, the Internet and phone service both went out (The Internet had not gone out on Monday when the digital phone went out.) I unplug the modem, plug it back in; standard stuff. It still won’t assign me an IP. I call them from my cell phone, and they confirm that it is out from their end as well. The person tells me that I can continue plugging it in/out just to test it periodically. I do. When plugged it in at 4:30, however, I hear a crackling noise, and see smoke. My modem has fried. Smells like crap, freaks my 9 year old brother out

Time Warner’s response?

They say “Well, we can get a tech there on Thursday at 3-5, but that’s all I can say.”

Paul escalated through several supervisors, and after much personal strife he got a tech to come out sooner. When the tech finally showed up, he diagnosed the problem.

His analysis of the fried and smoking modem: our router did it….And then he tells us why we should buy the Time Warner router. I explain to him that I have looked into theirs, but we actually have the the same model that they sell, they just put some new logos on it.

Silly, Paul. Didn’t you know that your router was in league with Voldemort? You can tell by its lack of Time Warner logo stickers and the production of magical blue smoke. And there were other signs, too:

Meghann Marco: Does your WiFi breathe fire and make it rain?
Paul: Yep. It also makes all children within a 15 foot radius weep.

There you have it. The tech had nothing to do with it. The story has a happy ending, Paul took his business to another company. Let’s hope they have better techs…for the sake of muggles everywhere.—MEGHANN MARCO

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