Heart Attack Patient Has No Phone Going On A Week, Time Warner Botches Repairs

Thomas is on the 7th day without Time Warner Cable phone service, which is a bit of a problem since his mother just had a heart attack. They’ve promised multiple times to come out and fix it, and either broken those promised appointments or only partially fixed the issue.

My mother was put back into the ICU on Friday, after having a heart attack while still in hospital after 2 weeks. I was on my cell phone with Time Warner Cable, as I had been for several hours over the previous two days, trying to convince them that I needed them to come out and fix the service to my apartment, which provides my cable, internet and phone. They promised to make it a priority, and they told me they would send another technician Saturday morning. That would be 3 in as many days. After several weeks of complaining about the signal quality to my place, it took complete failure for them to even believe that my intermittent issues were a real problem.

All of this happened, while @TWCableBryanP was supposed to be monitoring my account for signal outages after seeing complaints online.

On Thursday, they sent a guy to the house who established that I had no signal coming in. On Friday they sent out a line tech, whom they said did the work that was ordered, but who didn’t fix my problem, and left without verifying the fact. Friday night, I was told that the problem was being escalated to a supervisor. Saturday night, I was told that my service order had simply been canceled by the tech, without calling me or letting anyone know. They said that they couldn’t do anything else until Monday.

I was promised a phone call Monday Morning to let me know what was being done about my account. That never happened. I called them in the afternoon to let them know that my mother was being released that evening, and that having a working phone was essential to her safety. I was told by a supervisor that they he would personally contact
corporate and call me back in an hour. 2 hours later, I call him back just before he was getting off work. He admitted that he lied to me, implying that he never thought I’d call back and track him down. He told me they had someone scheduled for Tuesday.

Finally, last night, they sent someone out, and I have partial service. The home phone can receive calls, but we can’t be heard when speaking. The internet is slow and splotchy, and the cable delivers sound and some channels are watchable. They are telling me that they will be out tomorrow to finish the repairs. After a week and lies and
let-downs, I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m shopping around, but no one else can do an install at my place this week, anyway, and with the prescriptions, we couldn’t afford a new deposit, anyway.

That stinks. Maybe you guys can get a prepaid cellphone so that she doesn’t have to only rely on your cellphone as her only means of communication. They’re pretty cheap and that way you can be guaranteed a working phone until/if/when Time Warner gets their act together.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.