Tornado Victim's Cable Complaint

[PaulKTF]

WHEATLAND - The Friel family lost nearly everything they owned in Monday's tornadoes. Their house is gone. Because of the severe damage and rain, very few of their belongings can be salvaged.

Yet, as this family works to put life back together with the help of friends and charities, Time Warner Cable informed them they will be receiving a $407 bill for their cable television converter box. The box was destroyed by the tornado.

The story is continued here:

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/13685017.html

What a bunch of crap. Time Warner are being asses. :mad:

[Paul S.]

Well...thats stoopid.

[Tom Snyder]

Well...thats stoopid.

Time Warner Cable agrees with you. Later in the article they said the customer service manager was wrong and that the cable company did not plan to charge the tornado victim for the lost equipment. The company blamed the customer service manager for not following the "talking points" that were issued to employees after the tornado.

[PaulKTF]

Time Warner Cable agrees with you. Later in the article they said the customer service manager was wrong and that the cable company did not plan to charge the tornado victim for the lost equipment. The company blamed the customer service manager for not following the "talking points" that were issued to employees after the tornado.

Yes, and notice they said all that after they got this bad publicity...

[jkane]

Would they do the same to a single home fire?  Or is this very public event making them do something special for public relations purposes only?

[bradsmainsite]

Would they do the same to a single home fire?  Or is this very public event making them do something special for public relations purposes only?

Time Warner's policy:  Lets see what we can get away with first and we can always play the blame game second.:mad:

[Dan the Man]

The story is continued here:

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/13685017.html

The link to the story no longer works. Did WTMJ remove the story from their web site? I looked quick and didn't see they story. I would fid that interesting if they did.

[Tom Snyder]

MSNBC Has the story

[Dan the Man]

You would think they would have situations like this covered in advance and the CSR's and managers would know what to say right away. Something no one should have to hear after a horrible catastrophy like that.

[Tom Snyder]

This is evidence that their CSR's STILL don't have a way to access even basic anecdotal or experiential information with each other or pass managemnt policies down the pipe real time.

My firm was called in to talk to Time Warner downtown 5 or 6 years ago about building an Intranet. We were absolutely stunned that they had no knowledge-base sharing capability for their CSR's. So we were going to pitch them on a an Intranet mechanism so that the CSR's could share their knowledge base. But they didn't even have a knowledge base!

We gave them a proposal for that functionality (and it wasn't much)...and they felt it was expensive and unnecessary. Not sure if they've done it since with another company, but it doesn't sound like it.

Three years ago, they convinced us to go with residential digital phone on the condition that we'd be able to keep our phone number. They assured us they could do that in our exchange. The guy came out, couldn't get it to work, switched our number without our permission and lost it forever with no ability to EVER get it back, or even put a "the new number is..." message on our old line.  We raised holy hell, told them what they had done, flushed TWC forever.

Despite the fact that I personally visited the rep at Mayfair to warn him that our exchange was not portable, within the next three weeks, the EXACT same thing happened to two other people in our neighborhood.

Ready for prime time? Hardly.

[John L]

Time Warner should take the loss. Man if that was me, Bye Bye TW, Hello DT.

[Gilbert]

You know...a more fundamental question needs to be asked here. If I were a cable company operator, a secret but necessary part of customer service is this bare minimum:

1. If (a) device(s) is lost due to a disaster, including cable modem, converter box and accessories, the customer does not pay, BUT a rep comes out to verify. If so, service is terminated and cost for that month is eliminated, and disconnection fees are waived.

2. If the customer lies to us about said disaster, then a lawsuit is followed through for 5 times the damages and all court costs.

This policy shouldn't be "passed on" down the line AFTER a disaster. This is basic customer service modus operandi because disasters happen to individuals due to fires, tornadoes, floods, accidents, "acts of God", etc EVERY DAY. Sure, few people experience it, relatively speaking, in any one given day. Which means that it will cost the company next to nothing, and ensure they get their business when they get back on their feet. This should, nay, MUST be an active part of ANY business.

That manager should have been immediately terminated, as well as that CSR. And if I were TWC, I would, immediately, give the family a $1,000 check and a sincere, profuse public apology from a head honcho saying to the effect of "we are embarrassed about our bad judgment/mistake and I am very sorry this happened." That's just basic human compassion here. Business is business, I realize that, but my word.

And as for TWC in Wisconsin, and to all of you on this list...this just demonstrates you have (a) much bigger issue(s) with this company than the lack of HD channels. It goes way deeper than that. If you have U-Verse or D* or E* available, I would join the 300,000 others (or whatever that number was) who dumped them this year. It's obvious before this issue that they really don't care. This just takes that concept to a very scary and dangerous level. Seriously, if I were a TWC subscriber, I'd dump them tonight.

Between this experience, ones on this board including Tom's above, here's a public service announcement: friends don't let friends subscribe to TWC.

[mhz40]

Between this experience, ones on this board including Tom's above, here's a public service announcement: friends don't let friends subscribe to TWC.

Are we building a mountain out of a molehill here?  What's the beef?  Insurance should cover this, so whats the big deal?
If (for example) should the leased SUV that was (hypothetically) trashed as it sat in the garage also be written off?  In the end, companies don't pay - their customers do.  That goes for corporate taxes as well...
I don't care one way or another, but IMO the affected families have bigger headaches to deal with than a lousy cable box.  It must have been a slow news day, or it wouldn't have made the cut here.  The family isn't saving anything... their insurance company is.

[Doug Mohr]

Are we building a mountain out of a molehill here?  What's the beef?  Insurance should cover this, so whats the big deal?
If (for example) should the leased SUV that was (hypothetically) trashed as it sat in the garage also be written off?  In the end, companies don't pay - their customers do.  That goes for corporate taxes as well...
I don't care one way or another, but IMO the affected families have bigger headaches to deal with than a lousy cable box.  It must have been a slow news day, or it wouldn't have made the cut here.  The family isn't saving anything... their insurance company is.

Homeowners insurance generally doesn't cover leased or loaned items. If I loan you my table saw and it gets destroyed in a fire, your insurance has no obligation to cover it and usually won't. I used to have a body shop where customer's cars were in my building for periods of time. The vehicle was covered, but any of their personal belongings were not covered by my insurance. I had to have anyone who wouldn't empty out their car sign a release stating that they understood that the contents were not covered.

Insurance can be very tricky to understand. You pretty much need a law degree just to understand the average homeowners policy :bang:

Your leased car example is different because you purchase car insurance specifically for that leased vehicle.

But I agree, none of this matters compared to the human aspect of this story.

Doug

[Gilbert]

Are we building a mountain out of a molehill here?  What's the beef?  Insurance should cover this, so whats the big deal?
If (for example) should the leased SUV that was (hypothetically) trashed as it sat in the garage also be written off?  In the end, companies don't pay - their customers do.  That goes for corporate taxes as well...
I don't care one way or another, but IMO the affected families have bigger headaches to deal with than a lousy cable box.  It must have been a slow news day, or it wouldn't have made the cut here.  The family isn't saving anything... their insurance company is.

Insurance won't, as described below. Still, that was just heartless. And yes, they have much bigger things to deal with, but if anyone has ever kicked you when you're down, you understand how it feels. Even the little kicks are big ones in a large personal disaster.