Review by linwong 
member for 7.5 years, 73 visits, last login: 213 days ago
lodged 4.7 years ago
 Duarte,Los Angeles,CA
 $20 per month- (month by month)
 about 15 days "Month to Month" "Tech support, reliability" "My new number 1 most hated company"
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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Prior to ordering Charter HSI, I had always been hesitant about ordering Charter cause I've read and heard about their poor history with customer support. I would soon experience this soon.
I had emailed Charter through their website about service in my area. At the time, Charter only offered 3Mb down, 256 Kb up. And I had emailed on 3 separate occasions if they offered any higher upstream than 256, but I never received a response. A few months later I saw a deal for Charter HSI, $19.99 for 6 months (~$50/month afterwards), and it had advertised 3Mb/512Kb service. So I decided to order it anyways through charterspecial.com. I received a free cable modem with the order.
After ordering, they called me within the next day or so to schedule the installation. The contractor showed up about an hour after the scheduled time, but that was still satisfactory for me since I had planned to be home the entire day anyways. Once the tech arrived, installation was completed within 45 minutes on 1/9/07.
For 3 weeks, the connection was nearly flawless. Signal was good. A few minute outages every once in a while, but nothing more than a couple minutes. In early February, the free 5 Mb preview kicked in. It was around this time the sync on the modem would drop in and out. I checked the signals from the web admin on the modem, the signals dropped significantly. Downstream power levels were at -17dBmV to -19dBmV. Power cycling the modem fixed the problem.
On March 1, around 11am PST, connection dropped for the entire day. When I returned home, I would power cycle the modem, and connection would re-establish, but it'd only last from 5 to 60 minutes. I'd have to power cycle the modem each time to get back on the internet. I checked the signals again, and they had dropped again. Power levels at -23dBmV. Signal to Noise ratio at 28 dB. I called customer support at night. The lady that I spoke to told me that there were problems in my area, and they should be fixed soon. That's fine.
The next day, again my connection is out the whole day. The same problem persisted. Power cycle the modem, and it would be fine for only a limited amount of time. I did some more checking, reading the broadband report forums to see if there are any outages with other customers. Nothing that I could find. So I give the customer support another call about my dropped connections. The guy this time around told me there were no problems in my area (not even yesterday, so someone was mistaken). He had mentioned that possibly it could be the modem. I could go into the Charter office, and exchange my modem for another one to test. If it's not the modem, then they could do further testing into fixing the problem. I'm almost positive that my modem is working fine. But all I wanted is a working connection, and I was fine with doing some testing for them, even going out of my way to go the their office.
So the next morning, I drove to the Charter office. I approached the lady behind the desk and explained my situation again. My connection has been going down. Signals are getting worse. I was told by the tech support to come in and exchange my modem so I can verify if the modem is having problems. After explaining everything to her, she begins to look things up on the computer, and this is when I started to get furious.
She tells me that I purchased my own modem and that she can't exchange it, although the tech support the previous night said it would have been fine. She goes on to say that she can only exchange the modem if I was leasing a modem at $2.96 a month. I tell her that I don't want to lease a modem cause I already have a good modem. She keeps trying to push this modem on me just to "test" it out. So I continue to tell her that I'm almost certain that it's not my modem. I tell her that the signal coming in is too weak (I read on the forums that Charter's specifications power levels are to be -12dBmV to +12dBmV) and it's most likely something on their end that needs to be fixed. So she goes on to try to push more services on me. "For $3.95 a month, you could have a wiring service in your home." Again, I tell her I don't want any more "services." I just wanted my internet service to work. I told her it's not the wiring in my house, it's the signal coming into the house that's weak. I tell her if they want to test it, they can send a tech out to verify the problem. And then she tells me it costs $35 to send a tech out to the house. Unbelievable.
There should a general understanding. If I break something, or something of mine breaks, I'll pay for it. If I'm paying for a service, and that service doesn't work because of something on the service provider's end, they should pay for it, right? That doesn't seem to be the case with Charter. The only way I was getting working service is if I paid to fix their stuff as well.
I told the lady at the counter that I wasn't interested. I wasn't going to pay any more money for service Charter can't provide sufficiently. I did not want Charter to have any more of my money. I was already paying for a service that I expect Charter to provide, which they haven't done a very good job at. She tries to work with me. Well... Not really. She keeps trying to push the modem lease on me. For only $3 I can test out the modem. Again, I tell her I don't want it. It's not the modem. This seems like her only solution to my problem.
So she asks me, "what you want to do then?"
And I tell her that I'm leaning toward canceling the service. I have options. (In the past whenever I've threatened canceling service with other companies, I've always gotten better service. Not the case here. Apparently this lady just flat out doesn't care.)
"So what are you going to do about internet? You don't want internet?"
I tell her that I can go with DSL. I don't need Charter high speed internet. (It seems like she doesn't quite understand that I had options. That I was either stuck with them, or I have no internet at all. Thank God there's DSL.)
"So what about your modem? The DSL company is going to replace your modem?" (In a sarcastic tone)
Well I've had DSL companies in the past replace modems which I had purchased without charging me. But that's beside the point since this cable modem doesn't work with DSL. And I'll be getting another modem when I order my DSL service anyways. I won't be needing this cable modem anymore.
Apparently she was out of questions to trap me into keeping the service. And she cancels my service. I quickly walked out of the office, forgetting to get her name cause I was so infuriated with the way I was treated. It's probably best that she remains anonymous in my head, since I don't want to be cursing her name anymore.
I have gone on to order DSL, which has had its own problems. But at least they're actually willing to help and get my service to working order. They've even sent techs out without charging me! Wow!
My time with Charter was absolutely THE WORST EXPERIENCE that I've had with any company in my lifetime. I would recommend dial-up to friends rather than them going with Charter.
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