I received a bill with a $30 increase and called to find out why. I was told that when I first signed up it was a 1 year promotion and now I will get charged for Showtime, DVR Funtion, and the HD DVR Converter Box. I can not afford $30 (total of $142/mo) for TW bundle and asked to get my pricing down. I was told there was nothing that they could do. So, I advised them that I needed to change the service to lower my price. I was upset since I just added the HD converter box (and had to go into the service office twice and have someone come out to the house because of faulty hookup & box) for 2 months and specifically asked if there was a charge - which I was told there wasn't. At no time was I told my package was up and an increase of 25% would be on my bill since my supposedly promotional period was up. I then advised the retention specialist that I was upset over their customer service, product and pricing. He proceeded to ask me if there was anything else he could do for me...I said yes, I need to know how much my bill is going to be with changes to my phone, internet speed, and deletion of Showtime and lowering my speed on the internet. He also needed to tell me when the scheduled date was for a technician to come and pick up/swap my converter. He advised he would be right back.after I was waiting for several minutes, we were conveniently disconnected. In addition, Time Warner allows you to ask that they give you a call after you are done speaking with customer service to ask questions about their service. I answered that I wanted the call back (they advised within 15 minutes of the completion of the service call). I never received a call back from either. Now - did the service changes go through? Is a technician coming to my house? I have no idea.

Time Warner Cable of Texas clearly has little respect for it's customers beyond setting up their products. Service for them is completely unacceptable. They do not answer their phones in a timely manner and when they do, you can expect to have a several weeks long delay in getting a service person to your home to address a problem - if they show up at all. (In my case, they phoned, said the problem "should be fixed" and we now have to wait an ADDITIONAL three weeks for a repairman with the THIRD call to report the problem. They're the only player in the system - how I wish there was a competitor here!

Good luck if you choose TWC in Wichita Falls, Texas.

SUMMARY OF PROBLEM From 6/14 to this writing (7/3) I have no digital cable. I have spent the last 3 Saturdays waiting for Time Warner technicians, with 1 or 2 more Saturdays to go. Two of the technicians have diagnosed the problem: the signal from the building’s cable room is too weak to run the digital cable box. The service to the building has to be upgraded. However, I can't get an appointment with Maintenance to do the upgrade. Instead, a third technician is scheduled to come this coming Saturday 7/5 to diagnose the problem again, then make a referral to Maintenance. So I think I won't get cable service until Saturday 7/12 (I work during the week so I can only let someone in on Saturdays.) .

CHRONOLOGY OF ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN DIGITAL CABLE

5/16/08 I called to arrange for digital cable TV service in my new apartment, made an appointment for 6/7/08.

6/7/08 A technician came to install the digital cable. He needed to get into the apartment building cable room and I didn’t have a key (didn’t know there was a locked room). My fault. I now have the key. I then called and made an appointment for 6/14. (I work Monday through Friday 8 to 6 so I can only let people in on the weekends.)

6/14/08 Another technician came. He installed the digital cable box. He said the signal from the building’s cable room was too weak to run the digital box. He said the service to the building would have to be upgraded and made an appointment for me for 6/21.

6/17/08 I came home from work to find a phone message from a technician who had tried to come by that morning to fix the cable. I called the main office and explained I work during the week from 8 to 6 so I can only do it on weekends. She said they’d had a crew free and tried, but I was still on for Saturday 6/21 between 10 and 7 because it was a major rewiring.

6/21/08 At 1:30 I called to see when and if the technician was coming. The first person I spoke to said
a) there was no record I had an appointment [despite what the 6/17/08 person had told me],
b) that I must have “made a special arrangement with Maintenance, ” and
c) that there was no way I could get in touch with Maintenance by phone to see when and if they were coming. I said I didn’t want to yell at her but I needed to speak to a supervisor because she was not giving me the information I needed to solve my problem. She said I could yell at the supervisor and transferred me. The second person I spoke to said his records showed that a technician had come on 6/18, fixed the cable, and that the service order was closed, therefore nobody was coming on 6/21. I asked how someone had gotten into the locked building and locked room to fix it and why, if the problem had been fixed, I still couldn’t get internet service or digital cable. He tried sending signals to the digital box but it would not display any picture or information, so we set up an appointment for 6/28.

6/28/08 Another technician came. I told him the story on the digital cable box. He discovered that the cable box brought by the 6/14 technician was not working and changed the box. He also looked at the cable room in the building and agreed with the 6/14 technician that the cable service within the building did not provide an adequate signal for my digital cable (so obviously the claim that the problem had been fixed on 6/18 was incorrect). He called someone at Netsource Communications and suggested they send someone the same day to see if an amp could be installed in the cable room, otherwise
Maintenance would have to come and change out the cable. He said Netsource would call me back within an hour but he left me a phone number. I called them an hour later and spoke to someone who said he would get back to me within 5 minutes. He never called back.

6/30/08 I called the main Time Warner number to make an appointment with Maintenance for the cable change out. After 40 minutes on hold I spoke to a supervisor. First he said the record showed I’d already had a visit from Maintenance on 6/18. I explained that was not true because: there was nobody here to let them into the locked building lobby, there was nobody here to let them into the locked cable room, I still can’t get digital cable, and the 6/28 technician confirmed the work had not been done. The supervisor then said the 6/28 technician had not written a referral to Maintenance so he would have
to send a third technician over on 7/5 to diagnose the problem (yet again) and write a referral to Maintenance. He said he would send an e-mail to the 6/28 technician to see if he could get the Maintenance referral from him and someone would call and let me know. He said if he didn’t manage to get in touch with the 6/28 technician, to let the 7/5 technician know he/she should write a referral to Maintenance on the work order. Maintenance would then come the following Saturday, 7/12. I asked if I could talk to this person’s supervisor to see if we could skip the step of the technician coming for the 3rd diagnosis of the same problem and just go straight to the Maintenance appointment, but he said his supervisor would not be able to do anything.

As it stands now, a third technician is scheduled to come to my apartment on 7/5, diagnose the same problem for the third time, and give me a referral to Maintenance. I've e-mailed Customer Service to ask them to get Maintenance to come on 7/5 instead, so I can get service this weekend, but all I got was a rote reply saying how much Time Warner cares about customer service, but a field technician has to come out to schedule a maintenance appointment. I also wrote this whole saga to the TWC Executive VP of Operations for the West Division, pointing out that this fiasco is costing them money for multiple visits for the same problem, plus I won't pay for service that I'm not getting. So far no response.

The service is unpredictable, the quality of service is poor and right now my phone is not working and at 3pm each day channels 2-9 blank out. The internet service is another headache. When I asked for a refund for days service was not available they offered me $4.95, this company is a joke - and they are robbing me blind. I think I'll try EMBARK.

For several weeks, the bottom 1/4 of the TV screen on most channels (but not ABC nor CBS) has been cluttered up with an "Emergency Alert Message - Required Weekly Test". This is ridiculous, that this has been going on for so long with NO EXPLANATION as to why it is NOT just a weekly test but an ongoing 24/7 thing.