Colby writes:

I moved this past month to a new apartment in the same building — when I was setting up the account transfer, the representative uncovered that I had been misbilled for nearly 2 years for service on a 3rd, non-existent, television. It wasn’t clear due to the billing information, and I was instantly promised a credit for $170.20 that was calculated by the rep and his supervisor. As a loyal consumerist reader, I got all their extensions and representantive ID’s — just in case. After the move, I received a bill and there was no credit. I called, and was informed my credit was denied due to a ‘disclaimer’ that would allow them to only go back for 3 months with a credit. They didn’t care what I had been promised, nor did they care what another rep and their supervisor had noted on my account.

My countless calls every few days kept me in a runaround, as I was told this was being researched on “microfiche” (Hello 80’s???).

I had enough of the runaround… I searched on your website, and found a number for Barry Rosenblum’s office, he is the president of TWCNYC. After a quick conversation with the friendly woman, I was transferred to Ed Urbanowski, who pulled up my account and saw the entire history of my runaround… within 3 minutes, my call was done after Ed happily resolved all the pending issues. My credits were put through immediately by him, and he provided me with his direct number should I have any difficulties interpreting the next statement that arrives.

While I’m thrilled that Ed was able to resolve my issue so expeditiously, I hope that they look further to uncover other issues which prevented me from resolving this through the normal channels.

Kudos to Consumerist, Barry’s office, and Ed… and shame on TWC Billing.

Who the hell came up with this, “if we’ve ripped you off for more than 3 months, you’re screwed” policy? It seems to be endemic to most service companies. They call it a company policy, I call it a scam. They get away with because people don’t challenge it, or when they do, the words “company policy” are like a instant killshot. In those cases, you do what Colby did and escalate your ass up to executive customer service. Also, be checking those bills to make sure everything’s legit. There’s no need to let an excess charge like that slip by for so long unnoticed.

(Photo: USAgent)

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