Ted in Brooklyn wanted a visible public record of his interactions with Time Warner Cable. He decided to liveblog his experience, somewhere that people might actually see it. That place was a review on Time Warner Cable’s New York City Yelp page. He updated the page as events became more convoluted and Kafkaesque. There are a lot of updates.

Here’s what he wrote:

It’s 1:58 pm. The appointment to install cable in my apartment was from 11-2 pm. The call center rep is making me sit on hold until 2:00 pm when they’re officially late until she’ll transfer me to her supervisor or to dispatch. You would think 10 minutes out they would be able to tell you if they’re going to be late or not, but the laws of time and space do not apply to Time Warner Cable. I hope NYC gets another provider soon – this company sucks so bad.

Update 1
Its 4:31 the same day. Still no cable guy, but they gave me a month’s free cable because of the f-up. I’m on hold with the company again, waiting to talk to the supervisor, who at 2:10 told me it would be about a half hour and volunteered the month of free cable. I am curious what the excuse is now? BTW – my friend who kindly volunteered a couple of hours of his time to wait on the cable guy at my house now has to leave to meet an obligation. So now, I’ll probably have to leave work early to get back to my apartment. If only they could give me a realistic estimate so I could plan for the commute.

Still no cable.

Update 2
Just sat on the phone for 15 minutes only to be put on hold with a member of the help center who said he would put me on hold for 1 minute while he looked into rescheduling. He ended up transferring me to the russian speaking line. Russian speaking guy is now putting me on hold to wait on a supervisor. BTW – at 4:00 o’clock dispatch was supposed to call me back with an estimate – never got back to me.

Still no cable, or information.

Update 3
After waiting on hold for a long time, I hung up. I called back and got a very nice rep named [redacted] who also offered me a free month of cable, not knowing someone had already offered it to me and to waive the installation charge. However, she told me she has to push the installation date to Friday at the earliest or put in a nebulous early installation form. So now I’m on hold waiting to talk to a supervisor in hopes that they will just pay an engineer overtime to intall the freaking cable and internet tonight. This has now become a 7 hour ordeal.

Still no cable, info, or satisfaction.

Update 4
It 6 pm. I spent about an hour calling Time Warner Cable, being put on hold to talk to a supervisor, waiting 20 minutes, getting someone only to be put on hold again. One of the supervisors tried to say that someone did show up at my house at 4:20 and that they tried to call me. However, the call log on my cellphone shows there were not attempted calls and my friend waiting at my apartment until 5. They tried to say that I didn’t get the call because I was calling them, but the number I was calling from was different from my cell phone, so I would have seen the call. Now they’re telling me a Senior Supervisor will be calling me back within 20 minutes, to try and do something for me. They’re trying to reschedule me until friday, but I pleaded the case that if I got skipped how come the next guy on the list shouldn’t be pushed to accomodate me?

Why does it always have to be a test of wills with Time Warner Cable. “The Power of You” my ASS! They make me want to have digital rewind on my life.

Update 5
Its 6:20, and there was no phone call back from [redacted] the Senior Supervisor. I guess he’s making a liar out of [redacted] the rep who promised me he would call. They have a real fire hazard over there with all their pants bursting into flames all the time. I think I’m gonna call the President of Customer service just for the heck of it. I just want to see how bad this can get. At this point it has become hilarious, I am past mad and now just kind of in a state of disbelief.

Update 6
Just called the office of the President at Time Warner cable, got a voice mail machine telling me he only works till 5:30. God forbid, he wouldn’t want to strain himself.

Still no cable.

Update 7
No one ended up calling me by the time I got home from work last night. So I followed up around 8-ish, after sitting on hold for about 20 minutes I was transferred to a supervisor named [redacted]. He told me that the best he could do for me was to put an ‘early request form’ in, and that he would stress I needed service first ting in the morning. He said someone might call back that night before 9 pm or tomorrow morning to try and get me into the 9-11 am slot. Neither call happened.

Update 8
10:47 am. I just called to follow up about getting the early request form in. After hearing my concerns for what seemed like the 100th time, I was transferred to a Tech Supervisor named [redacted]. She told me that she understands why I am upset but that there are no contractors who can install my cable today because they’re out helping people who’s cable is down. When I asked why I am so low on the priority list, she claimed I wasn’t she just wasn’t going to have them stop doing their job, to help me out because they’re out helping existing customers. TLDR-TWCable Sucks.

Still No Cable or internet

Aren’t monopolies great?

Ted B.’s Review [Yelp]

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