The Wargos

Posted: February 14, 2010 | Categories: Miscellaneous

I knew things would start to go wrong as we approached the closing date for our house in Charlotte. Yesterday it all began.  We had slight issues with the mortgage and closing and I think the closing in Charlotte will be a bit late because of it, but we should be OK.

I called Time Warner Cable a few weeks back and scheduled the discontinuation of our cable service. I scheduled it for the 19th, but the buyers couldn't get theirs connected on the 19th (the day they get possession), so they asked me to move it up. I called Time Warner Akron and asked them to schedule the disconnect for the 17th. Nope, they scheduled it for the 12th.

Late in the day, Anna tried to turn on the television for the kids to watch while she prepared dinner and found that we'd been disconnected. I immediately called Time Warner Cable and was informed by the first person I spoke with that she would transfer me to someone who would get it reconnected ASAP. She promptly hung up on me. I called again and discovered that it had been disconnected at the street and they couldn't reconnect it until Saturday. The representative I spoke to indicated that it was an 8 to 5 installation window but that she would ask to have it performed as early as possible. She assured me that she'd emailed the scheduler and asked even if it could be done that night (Friday Night).

Well, Saturday came and went and at about 5:15 I turned the TV on to find that nothing had changed. We were still disconnected.

Bad Words Ensued. Many of them.

I called them yet again and found that their records indicated that the service call was canceled at the customer's request. Huh? Me? I called and canceled the call? Nope, I did not and I proceeded to explain that I was not happy and that I was disconnecting everything tomorrow night (Sunday) for the move and I needed to watch some shows we'd taped. He assured me that he would get someone out there as quickly as possible to reconnect the service.

How amazing is it that you can't even watch your taped shows after they shut down your cable. I guess it makes sense, but boy I'm not happy about it. Anyway, back to the story!

He put me on hold and a few minutes came back and told me that the earliest he could have someone out there was Monday morning. Huh? Seriously? Didn't you just hear me tell you that I'm disconnecting everything on Sunday? How are you helping me by reconnecting my cable service AFTER I unplug all of my television watching equipment for the move? Are you deranged?

Of course, the night they do all of this is the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics. Go figure. Fortunately our bedroom TV Still had service. We never got a cable box for it and we were watching analog TV (the first 85 channels or so. Apparently what they disconnected was the digital TV thingie. Doesn't make me any happier about the way they treated me, but at least we could watch the olympics in standard old 4:3 analog television.

Anyway, that's the story. If you're the person who canceled the service call today - shame on you and I hate you. If you're reading this and you work for Time Warner Akron - you suck (although you probably already knew that)!

I'm seriously thinking of canceling the Time Warner service in Charlotte and just getting everything from my telephone provider. We'll see what happens - I bet he doesn't show up to install the service on the day I've scheduled it. I bet he's already been there and wonders why we didn't answer the door.

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