kathrynloch
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 15, 2011
- Messages
- 266
I've been really quiet lately because both my husband and I have been laid-off of work. You'd think I would have all the time in the world the past three months. In order to have some income, I kicked my miniature painting business into high gear.
War Horse Miniatures started better than I could ever hope for. My first eBay sale went significantly higher than I expected and landed a large commission deal at the same time. Was ecstatic! The only problem - I can't paint fast enough. LOL!
So I have been extremely busy with that. I also enrolled in an online university (don't worry it's accredited) to get my Bachelors in Network Administration with an emphasis on Digital Investigations. I have a ton of job experience with IT and network admin but because I don't have a degree, no one wants to hire me. So I've also been a full time student.
Unfortunately with both of us out of work our small 401k's dried up pretty quickly. The biggest problem would be me losing the internet connection.
My apologies but this is going to be a rant because TIME WARNER CABLE is one of the WORST companies I've ever encountered.
We've lived here six years now and always paid the bill on time. We had the package deal, phone, cable, high speed internet. We live In a rural area so for the most part Time Warner was our only choice.
The moment I saw there was going to be a problem with the bill, I called them and explained the situation. The representative told me because our account was current, there was nothing he could do. I would have to wait until it went past due. WTF? I'm trying to stop a problem before it starts but you can't do anything until AFTER it becomes a problem? There's a fine example of a sound business practice. Don't worry, he tells me, we will call and send emails before we stop service.
I was dubious but wasn't getting anywhere. About a week later, I get 1 email which shows our account balance still completely current. The next day about 10am everything quits. No phone, internet, or TV. So I call and the account has been suspended. No phone call and the only email says account is current, with current balance.
My dad had just switched his home phone from Time Warner to Verizon because TW has recently gone through several rate hikes. So I went to his place and promptly switched our phone to Verizon. Mysteriously the cable and internet returned two days later. Again no phone call or communication whatsoever. It wasn't an outage either because the neighbors still had full service.
I also tried out Verizon's mobile hot spot. It's a broadband internet connection. I don't know what it is about our house but no cell phone works inside. I don't care what carrier they don't work at all. So I was surprised that the home phone system works so well. It's a little station with an antenna and I plug my home phone directly into it instead of the wall. The station then uses the cell towers for phone service. Unlimited nation wide calling, $19.99 a month plus tax. That saves a ton right there. But the broadband didn't fare so well. I'd get dropped every minute or so and it slowed to dial-up speed after about 5 minutes. I had 14 days to try it and I had to send it back.
In the meantime, I'm trying to make sales with my mysteriously working Roadrunner so I can get the bill paid. But we're not even 30 days past due yet. Then my husband finds a job and 2 days later a friend calls me wanting me to work for her for pretty good money. I start the next day and unexpectedly didn't get home until pretty late. There is one message on my phone from TW. Okay, I'll call them after work tomorrow since it will be normal hours and I'll be home at 6.
I get home the next day and everything is off again. Under 24 hours from the phone call? Wow!
I have one large sale going on the internet and the person is supposed to send the money the next day. I can pay the bill out of that if they actually send it. Sometimes they don't send it when they say they will. But this one does. This time after work I call TW with my payment which they were very happy to take INSTANTLY over the phone.
But we are sorry to inform you they have already physically disconnected the line. Seriously? Again this is less than 24 hours. They never move that fast. Oh but we'll have it connected by tomorrow. Okay, I can live with that. As we finish up the phone call, the guy repeats the appointment time but he says Monday instead. THREE days later.
WHAT?
We lost the appointment time before we finished the call and it is now three days instead of next day. I was not happy but he said he'd put a request in and call me back. He never called but I knew he wouldn't. They had their money, that's all they care about. The lighting speed they were moving at suddenly vanished.
Well I have other bills I need to take care of so in Saturday, I get my ancient prepaid cell out and refill it. There is one spot in my room where it will work and I can access the internet.
The poor old thing did it's best but locked up and died. Dead as a doornail. This stuff can't wait and they don't take phone payments. Off to the Verizon store I go.
I got a brand new HTC Merge for $50 and a simple phone for my son's Christmas present for another $50 but after rebate its free. Plus I again have 14 days. If I don't like them, I can return and get my money back. So please excuse the typos. I'm still getting used to the touch screen but I like more than the keyboard.
I at least get the other bills resolved with it but its a chore because of the connection issues. Finally Monday gets here and I get home looking forward to real internet.
Nothing.
Cable guy hasn't been here. So I call TW again. The lady tells me the work order is still open but the techs are In the field until 9. So she will have dispatch call the tech who will then give me a call and let me know when he will be there. I will hear from him in 15 to 20 minutes.
An hour later, no call. Oh there's a surprise!
I call again. Different guy then tells me the appointment is for TUESDAY.
I hit the roof. The lady I talked to an hour ago confirmed the appointment! Now you're telling me its not until Tuesday? This day four without service and going on day five and its something I tried to take care of BEFORE this entire mess started.
I called Verizon immediately and pleaded with them to help me find a way to get a broadband service to work. I am sick of Time Warner holding me hostage. The Verizon tech support guy spent over an hour with me on the phone. I shipped back the hotspot but we could still learn a lot with my cell phone. The mystery is why the cell and the hotspot hardly work but the home phone works great plus we're only 2 miles away from the tower.
There is a hotspot with an antenna I can get but that's a little pricey. He put in a work order and they will test the network in my area. Almost anything can interfere with cell service, especially trees but its unusual to have absolutely no service on my porch or driveway when I don't have trees in my yard and I'm so close to the tower.
Then I called Dish Network and they have a package equal to what we had with TW and cheaper. So new tv provider here I come. While they advertise high speed internet its not available here. Rats!
After talking to Dish, I again called TW and told them I needed to cancel my cable. All I wanted was internet. The lady said she could take care of it. She pulled up my account and noted the appointment. Yes, when the tech comes, I will give him the dvr. I'm switching to Dish and all be needs to do is hook up the internet.
All of a sudden the lady couldn't help me with that. The people who cancel services only work from 9am-9pm. Well there's a load of shit right there AGAIN.
Fine I'll call at 9am Sharp. They will probably tell me my appointment isn't really scheduled until NEXT Saturday.
So TIME WARNER a customer of 6 years without a problem hits one little bump in the road and you give them hell. It's worse because I called BEFORE there was a situation.
It's definitely a situation now. You may hold me hostage with the internet. But the competition knows there's blood in the water. They are more than happy to provide better prices and better CUSTOMER SERVICE. And it won't be long before they will also provide the internet service I need and ill be able to kick your sorry excuse for a business to the curb.
On that day I shall rejoice and say GOOD RADIANCE!
Hopefully I'll be able to make a post about painting this weekend.
More...
War Horse Miniatures started better than I could ever hope for. My first eBay sale went significantly higher than I expected and landed a large commission deal at the same time. Was ecstatic! The only problem - I can't paint fast enough. LOL!
So I have been extremely busy with that. I also enrolled in an online university (don't worry it's accredited) to get my Bachelors in Network Administration with an emphasis on Digital Investigations. I have a ton of job experience with IT and network admin but because I don't have a degree, no one wants to hire me. So I've also been a full time student.
Unfortunately with both of us out of work our small 401k's dried up pretty quickly. The biggest problem would be me losing the internet connection.
My apologies but this is going to be a rant because TIME WARNER CABLE is one of the WORST companies I've ever encountered.
We've lived here six years now and always paid the bill on time. We had the package deal, phone, cable, high speed internet. We live In a rural area so for the most part Time Warner was our only choice.
The moment I saw there was going to be a problem with the bill, I called them and explained the situation. The representative told me because our account was current, there was nothing he could do. I would have to wait until it went past due. WTF? I'm trying to stop a problem before it starts but you can't do anything until AFTER it becomes a problem? There's a fine example of a sound business practice. Don't worry, he tells me, we will call and send emails before we stop service.
I was dubious but wasn't getting anywhere. About a week later, I get 1 email which shows our account balance still completely current. The next day about 10am everything quits. No phone, internet, or TV. So I call and the account has been suspended. No phone call and the only email says account is current, with current balance.
My dad had just switched his home phone from Time Warner to Verizon because TW has recently gone through several rate hikes. So I went to his place and promptly switched our phone to Verizon. Mysteriously the cable and internet returned two days later. Again no phone call or communication whatsoever. It wasn't an outage either because the neighbors still had full service.
I also tried out Verizon's mobile hot spot. It's a broadband internet connection. I don't know what it is about our house but no cell phone works inside. I don't care what carrier they don't work at all. So I was surprised that the home phone system works so well. It's a little station with an antenna and I plug my home phone directly into it instead of the wall. The station then uses the cell towers for phone service. Unlimited nation wide calling, $19.99 a month plus tax. That saves a ton right there. But the broadband didn't fare so well. I'd get dropped every minute or so and it slowed to dial-up speed after about 5 minutes. I had 14 days to try it and I had to send it back.
In the meantime, I'm trying to make sales with my mysteriously working Roadrunner so I can get the bill paid. But we're not even 30 days past due yet. Then my husband finds a job and 2 days later a friend calls me wanting me to work for her for pretty good money. I start the next day and unexpectedly didn't get home until pretty late. There is one message on my phone from TW. Okay, I'll call them after work tomorrow since it will be normal hours and I'll be home at 6.
I get home the next day and everything is off again. Under 24 hours from the phone call? Wow!
I have one large sale going on the internet and the person is supposed to send the money the next day. I can pay the bill out of that if they actually send it. Sometimes they don't send it when they say they will. But this one does. This time after work I call TW with my payment which they were very happy to take INSTANTLY over the phone.
But we are sorry to inform you they have already physically disconnected the line. Seriously? Again this is less than 24 hours. They never move that fast. Oh but we'll have it connected by tomorrow. Okay, I can live with that. As we finish up the phone call, the guy repeats the appointment time but he says Monday instead. THREE days later.
WHAT?
We lost the appointment time before we finished the call and it is now three days instead of next day. I was not happy but he said he'd put a request in and call me back. He never called but I knew he wouldn't. They had their money, that's all they care about. The lighting speed they were moving at suddenly vanished.
Well I have other bills I need to take care of so in Saturday, I get my ancient prepaid cell out and refill it. There is one spot in my room where it will work and I can access the internet.
The poor old thing did it's best but locked up and died. Dead as a doornail. This stuff can't wait and they don't take phone payments. Off to the Verizon store I go.
I got a brand new HTC Merge for $50 and a simple phone for my son's Christmas present for another $50 but after rebate its free. Plus I again have 14 days. If I don't like them, I can return and get my money back. So please excuse the typos. I'm still getting used to the touch screen but I like more than the keyboard.
I at least get the other bills resolved with it but its a chore because of the connection issues. Finally Monday gets here and I get home looking forward to real internet.
Nothing.
Cable guy hasn't been here. So I call TW again. The lady tells me the work order is still open but the techs are In the field until 9. So she will have dispatch call the tech who will then give me a call and let me know when he will be there. I will hear from him in 15 to 20 minutes.
An hour later, no call. Oh there's a surprise!
I call again. Different guy then tells me the appointment is for TUESDAY.
I hit the roof. The lady I talked to an hour ago confirmed the appointment! Now you're telling me its not until Tuesday? This day four without service and going on day five and its something I tried to take care of BEFORE this entire mess started.
I called Verizon immediately and pleaded with them to help me find a way to get a broadband service to work. I am sick of Time Warner holding me hostage. The Verizon tech support guy spent over an hour with me on the phone. I shipped back the hotspot but we could still learn a lot with my cell phone. The mystery is why the cell and the hotspot hardly work but the home phone works great plus we're only 2 miles away from the tower.
There is a hotspot with an antenna I can get but that's a little pricey. He put in a work order and they will test the network in my area. Almost anything can interfere with cell service, especially trees but its unusual to have absolutely no service on my porch or driveway when I don't have trees in my yard and I'm so close to the tower.
Then I called Dish Network and they have a package equal to what we had with TW and cheaper. So new tv provider here I come. While they advertise high speed internet its not available here. Rats!
After talking to Dish, I again called TW and told them I needed to cancel my cable. All I wanted was internet. The lady said she could take care of it. She pulled up my account and noted the appointment. Yes, when the tech comes, I will give him the dvr. I'm switching to Dish and all be needs to do is hook up the internet.
All of a sudden the lady couldn't help me with that. The people who cancel services only work from 9am-9pm. Well there's a load of shit right there AGAIN.
Fine I'll call at 9am Sharp. They will probably tell me my appointment isn't really scheduled until NEXT Saturday.
So TIME WARNER a customer of 6 years without a problem hits one little bump in the road and you give them hell. It's worse because I called BEFORE there was a situation.
It's definitely a situation now. You may hold me hostage with the internet. But the competition knows there's blood in the water. They are more than happy to provide better prices and better CUSTOMER SERVICE. And it won't be long before they will also provide the internet service I need and ill be able to kick your sorry excuse for a business to the curb.
On that day I shall rejoice and say GOOD RADIANCE!
Hopefully I'll be able to make a post about painting this weekend.
More...
