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Charter Communications Can Piss Off

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:21 am
by Apoptosis
While I was out of town Charter came into my neighborhood and put in the charter cable lines... The boxes were supposed to be placed behind all the homes, but it looks like they were installed in the front. I got a big ******* green box in my front yard now and they tore the piss out of my yard... Multiple holes have been dug... the terf was fucked and it's yellow and dying as a result of having the roots cut off... I called the cable company to complain this morning and they said the raw mud, rocks, dead grass and holes are normal and THEY ARE NOT REQUIRED to leave the yard as it was before... I'm so pissed off it's not funny...

So when it comes to a utility company in my front yard I have no say at all? They can come in leave piles of rock, mud and dead grass in my yard and call it a job well done?

If Charter doesn't fix this I'm going to get dish just for the fact of how they handled the customer.

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:39 am
by bubba
That sucks, most times they have something like that done it wasn't charter that did the work, but a contacted company to run the lines.

Couple years ago I had cable, they had a contractor come and run the line, about 2 hours go buy, guy knocks on the door and tells me the house is hooked up, cool, let me show you where the TV's are, hes like "oh I don't hook TV's up thats another guy, he'll be here in a day or so." WTF

then he starts to pack up I go look at where he put the box and I have a neon orange cable in my yard, I yell for the guy and ask him about the cable, he tells me that the cable is buried by yet ANOTHER guy and he should be in an hour or so. 3 days later, the kid shows up after I had to call them due to the fact my neighbors dog chewed the cable in half.

I'll never have cable again.

article from last friday

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:49 am
by road
Here's a gm claiming he can solve problems.


"If our customers have any suggestions on how we can improve our service, they may contact me directly at [email protected]."

To contact the BBB, call 314-645-3300 or log onto http://www.stlouisbbb.org


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/c ... enDocument

Get em dude! Workers will do the least amount they can get away with sometimes. =(

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:02 am
by Bio-Hazard
I don't know about the St Louis area, but back home in Colorado Springs, when a utility company does any work that requires them to dig up your yard, they are required by law to repair it and leave it in the condition that is was in before they started work. That goes for Power, gas cable or whatever.

I'd go after them and nail their ass to a wall.

Re: article from last friday

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:07 am
by Apoptosis
road wrote:Here's a gm claiming he can solve problems.


"If our customers have any suggestions on how we can improve our service, they may contact me directly at [email protected]."

To contact the BBB, call 314-645-3300 or log onto http://www.stlouisbbb.org


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/c ... enDocument

Get em dude! Workers will do the least amount they can get away with sometimes. =(
I e-mailed that Steve guy and will see if he responds... I've also called the lawyer for the neighborhood and alerted him to the situation, so I'll hear what my $225 an hour real estate attorney has to say. Being a trustee has it's advantages. Got a $20,000+ budget to fight people with ;)

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:07 am
by novicegamer
Usually utilitie companies have to sign a contract with the city to leave the area in the same shape as when they got there,so contact your city controller.Good luck on this cause they are trying to pass the buck.Let us know how it goes :(

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:21 pm
by camaroguy1998
I feel your pain Apop! Being a 20 yr St Charles resident I was around when it was ATT@HOME and now Charter. Since Charter took over the service has gone down and the price has gone up!
In the last several yrs the price has went up about 40-45% and the speed has went down by 50%, thats just the internet service. When it was ATT@Home I could peg a 6MB speed test, when I switched to DSL I couldnt even pull 3MB's.
The quality of the cableTV(analog) service is average at best! If you have digital the quality is not bad but not great either.
Their customer service and billing suck to say the least! I went to DSL last year when they raised the price and cut the speed and ever since then I get the frickin' "Courtesy Call" that my bill needs to be paid! I cannot get them to credit the right acct. They keep crediting my closed internet acct. with my cable TV payments and then call to say they are shutting my service off If I dont make a payment NOW! They've gone as far as calling on a Sunday afternoon and say if you dont make a payment now we are turning you off in 2-3hrs!
That is just a drop in the bucket of my experiences with Charter!
I did hear theres some kind of warning through the BBB in St Louis about Charter!.

OK Thats enough ranting for now!
Like I said I feel your anguish and totally agree.....Charter SUCKS!

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:25 pm
by Apoptosis
Just got this e-mail from one of their Field Techs...
I sent you a massage last week,about moving cable to the rear,I check with design we can not go to the rear with out redesign most of the subdivision. The contractor are not done yet give them a chance, they will take care of any yard issue,
I never got the message from them and they ignored my complaint by just saying give them a chance... Too funny.... I'm calling the sub contractor now.

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:42 pm
by Apoptosis
called the sub and the owner actually just called me back... Said they will bring out my tall fescue sod and replace it correctly. They said that Charter called them and left my number, so it seems that might have sealed the deal. They didn't say WHEN they would do it though, so we shall see talk is cheap.

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:43 pm
by dgood
Apoptosis wrote:Just got this e-mail from one of their Field Techs...
I sent you a massage last week,about moving cable to the rear,I check with design we can not go to the rear with out redesign most of the subdivision. The contractor are not done yet give them a chance, they will take care of any yard issue,
I never got the message from them and they ignored my complaint by just saying give them a chance... Too funny.... I'm calling the sub contractor now.
I don't think he sent you a massage and definatly no happy endings either. Too bad you never got a message either. Good Luck with that. I say screw em lol. Companies that give poor services or poor customer services don't deserve to still be going imo.

Re: article from last friday

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:56 pm
by Apoptosis
road wrote:Here's a gm claiming he can solve problems.


"If our customers have any suggestions on how we can improve our service, they may contact me directly at [email protected]."


I wrote to Steve and this guy just responded...

Mr. Kirsch

Thanks for taking the time to write to us. If you could provide a contact number I would be happy to have a contact from our project office call you to discuss any issues you might have.

Thanks and let me know – I look forward to hearing from you.

Doug Kappauff
Charter Communications
Email: [email protected]


Maybe in the future this will help someone else

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:35 pm
by Bwall
Maybe I will get my roommate to call them and complain about the dodgy internet service lately. I've been down over 15 hours in the last 2 weeks and at critical times (right Apop?). Last night their DNS servers decided to go on the fritz. Luckily I remember the IP's for DNS servers of the ISP I used to work for...I couldn't get to anything at all, yet Trillian was working.

It's getting so bad that I'm looking at getting Verizon mobile broadband, a Linksys MBB router, and a load balancing dual WAN router just so that I KNOW I'll be able to work on articles and do some gaming when I want and need.

Ball is rolling

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:53 pm
by road
kickass :lol:


So far so good!

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:22 pm
by HONkUS
just wondering here but if its on your property couldn't you just take baseball bat to the thing and keep doing it until they move it to someone else's yard?

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:33 pm
by Dragon_Cooler
Hit the box with your car and say....oops

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:34 pm
by HONkUS
yeah I mean seriously im not trying to be funny here what is stopping you from "removing" this thing?

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:40 pm
by Apoptosis
Utlity companies have the right of way, so there is nothing I can do and since I complained I'm sure they would mess up the yard worse if I did that... I'm going to see what happens.

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:15 pm
by Pesto
I had the same issue with a gas company and my house being the only one with the gas meter in the middle of my front yard...

so we planted a few large cactus and other various prickly things around it.. hehe.. im sure the gas man curses me every time he tried to read that meter..

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 2:35 am
by NAiLs
I absolutely hate Charter myself. They have the worst service and their prices just keep going up, up, up!! In my entire county, Charter only has their service in my city, no where else. Their contract ran up last August and my city was stupid enough to resign them. Time Warner was ready to buy my city. You drive 15 minutes in either direction, Time Warner or Comcast (I think??) run those cities. Charters internet dies a lot, as it did last night for several hours, and the TV is poor. They're tossing the digital signals over coax and the picture gets blocky and freezes a lot.

Charter didn't offer HD broadcasts until they were resigned about a year ago. Sure they offered digital cable, but there were no HD broadcasts until my city forced them to offer such. I think they have a whole 6 or 7 HD channels. :roll:


AT&T is bringing digital television and internet to parts of WI, and there are rumors of them coming to my city soon. I'm almost positive AT&T has fiber all laid out throughout town too as we have some fiber in our back yard from them. One of my friends has their service in a county an hour away and said the service rocks along with the tv/internet. He gets 100+ digital channels plus the internet for $65/mo. 3mbps down/1mbps up... and the downstream is only to increase at no/little extra cost.


Anyway, Nate, do you have some pics of the ugly green box in your front yard? I also think it's funny how poor that Steve guy types up his e-mails.

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:14 pm
by Dragon_Cooler
im being serious too, hit it and say sorry not use to it being there. LOOLOL even if its like in the middle of your yard.

I cant believe they would do something like that, extremely professional of them.... take it to the local news company!!!!!

that will certainly get something done!!