  woody7Premium
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA | hmmmmm... It is ok for corporations to be frivolous and carefree and spendaholics and be able to declare bankruptcy, but when a private citizen does it, they are evil and irresponsible....peace
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BlooMe | |
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 |  jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
 ·voip.ms
| Re: hmmmmm... said by woody7:It is ok for corporations to be frivolous and carefree and spendaholics and be able to declare bankruptcy, but when a private citizen does it, they are evil and irresponsible....peace They are? I thought they were getting a big mortgage bailout program from the frivolous carefree government. | |
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| | woody7Premium
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA | Re: hmmmmm... Actually it is way less than the bailout the banks are getting, and it seems that all people seem to remember is the home mortgage part, which I also am not happy with but kind of understand. Peace
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BlooMe | |
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| |  fcislerPremium
join:2004-06-14
Riverhead, NY | I'm against the bailout for...oh...about 75% of it.
Should we help those who bought a $750,000 house on a $60k salary? Hell no!
Should we help the bank who made said loan? Hell no!
Should we help someone like this? I think so.
I have no pity for someone who is trying to live above their means - and then puts their hands out. Wanna live above your means? Go for it. Indebt yourself all you want. Max out that $60k credit card. But DON'T ask me to help pay it off when I'm busting my A*S and trying to live within my means!
But now i'm off on a tangent... | |
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| | |  RobIn Deo speramus, God Bless the USAPremium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
kudos:2 | Re: hmmmmm... I think we can help him by finding his mortgage broker and castrating him. | |
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| | | jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL Reviews:
·voip.ms
| Sad story -- but if it had happened 5 years ago, he'd have already been thrown out of his house and it would have probably been flipped and re-sold. Suddenly because it happened to a lot of people the rules have changed and we're trying to decide who was "too greedy" or "too gullible" or "too naive".
Who decides how much house is too much to receive bailing out? Is $500K too much? $300K? What if it's Chicago, vs. Kentucky? What about people who earned overtime as part of their income every single week and the numbers made sense, but now there isn't any overtime? What about people who stretched thin to buy a $110K condo? | |
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| | | | | well if you want sorrow where are his cop buddies pitching in to help him. guess they don't give a rats arse either. | |
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| | | | | | Re: hmmmmm... any person with sense knows not to depend on things that are not required. Overtime is extra money and should be seen as just that. Not counted on every week. They are the same as bonuses subject to allot of things more then your slandered wage. | |
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 CheesePremium
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL
kudos:1 | Grew to big to fast? More like spent to much to fast.... | |
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| | the Paul Allen effect? It is also possible that managers believed that Paul Allen would keep pumping in cash no matter how much they lost. | |
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| | | Re: the Paul Allen effect? Paul Allen...
First, he killed of TechTV (but it wasn't much of a loss, because the former show hosts now have gone in their own direction and started a number of great podcasts.)
Then, he killed Charter (which also shouldn't be too much of a loss, because they have some of the worst customer satisfaction levels in the industry.)
Perhaps we should be thanking him? | |
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approval from:
Core0000 
| Jerry Kent Someone should remind Jerry Kent that Charter still makes $1 Billion a year in gross revenue. Seems they are still suffering from the poor decisions that he made. They were not fine when he left. That's why Allen fired him. | |
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| Reviews:
 ·AT&T Southeast
1 edit | Re: Jerry Kent Kent left mainly due to the actions of some of his underlings, specifically lying about subscriber numbers. The stock was great and the employees and customers were generally happy. Once Vogel took over, that all went away. Stock tanked, partially due to the scandals but also for very poor business choices made by Vogel and his team of clowns. Kent was long gone before that. Also, you do know that Kent is a very successful businessman in other industries right? If he was the problem, how could the other companies be doing so well? Also, who cares how much revenue you collect if you cant pay your bills? | |
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| |
approval from:
jopfef
| Re: Jerry Kent said by ender7074:Kent left mainly due to the actions of some of his underlings, specifically lying about subscriber numbers. The stock was great and the employees and customers were generally happy. The stock was going to drop. Kent is/was an idiot.
said by ender7074: Once Vogel took over, that all went away. Stock tanked, partially due to the scandals but also for very poor business choices made by Vogel and his team of clowns. Kent was long gone before that. Yes, Vogel was worse than Kent, but not much.
said by ender7074: Also, you do know that Kent is a very successful businessman in other industries right? If he was the problem, how could the other companies be doing so well? So is Carl Vogel, what's your point?
said by ender7074: Also, who cares how much revenue you collect if you cant pay your bills? Well, gee lets see.. how about the companies that will be lining up to buy pieces of Charter when they come out of Chapter 11? Anyone who follows Charter knows your an ex-employee who was let go when they starting taking out the first round of trash. Your opinions show you still only worthy of tech support. 1 Billion dollars is a lot of cash. If it wasn't for the fact Charter was the victim of a few criminal insiders almost 10 years ago, they'd probably be doing a lot better. Either way, Chapter 11 is a GOOD thing for Charter. You'll see in about 2 years time. | |
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| | | | | Re: Jerry Kent So you were an employee in the corporate building when all this was going on I assume? You seem to think you know everything here. | |
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Reviews:
·AT&T Southeast
| Many, many things Having previously worked at Charter for over 3 years (and having family members there longer than that) I can safely say that Charter is completely jacked up from the ground up in the corporate building. The revolving door for high level executives and the golden parachute that went along with their incompetence caused most of the problem. I could go on for hours about specifics but it all traces back to incompetent executives that were only there to get their free paycheck after they were fired. | |
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Reviews:
 ·Charter
2 edits | Maybe more people would pay for service if it was cheaper? Lets see, in many areas covered by Charter, AT&T offers 6 Mbps for $35 (with phone service, which runs about $6 for a dial tone). Can't afford $35? Well, they have $25, and even $15 service plans available. $15 for broadband!
Charter on the other hand, charges $55 as their LOWEST priced broadband offer. Not only that, it's a shared connection. You can "SAVE" by getting a bundle. One where they charge $40 minimum for just having a dial tone. GREAT SAVINGS, RIGHT? $95 for Charter, Under $25 for AT&T.
Charter also charges a lease for the cable modem, while AT&T has been giving out free modems for years. So many people have been paying the lease for years and years on their modem. They have spent more on the modem "lease" than what it would have cost them to just go out and BUY several cable modems. This was $5 a month, now it's just $3.
Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking at what each company offers will not pick Charter.
Charter makes money in the areas where AT&T doesn't offer coverage. I live right outside of St. Louis, and neither DSL or U-verse is available here. So I have to suck it up and pay for Charter.
$55 cable internet, plus $20 for Vonage (500 minutes). That's the cheapest I can get service.
That same $75 would have got me a FASTER speed with AT&T (6 Mbps), and unlimited calling.
As soon as AT&T brings service here (DSL or U-verse), I will drop Charter, start saving money, get faster speeds, and probably have a more reliable connection. Right now I deal with stupid router and modem power cycles because I fail to get a DHCP address assigned to me every now and then.
If Charter offered better service for less, more people would sign up for it.
Are they hoping to grab one person per street at the $55 price? Why not lower it to $35 and grab TWO people? Happier people, and they get more money per street.
Anyone with AT&T available will grab the 6 Mbps for $35 and pass on Charter's 5 Mbps plan for $55.
What the heck kind of business plan is it to offer LESS and charge MORE?
This company is going bankrupt, with such an iron-clad business as that? REALLY????
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»xenomorph.net/ | |
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|  BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
1 edit | Re: Maybe more people would pay for service if it was cheaper? said by Xenomorph:Anyone with AT&T available will grab the 6 Mbps for $35 and pass on Charter's 5 Mbps plan for $55. I have both available in my area and for the record the 6 Mbps is tier is $43 if you bundle it with phone service. $48 if you want naked DSL for people like me who don't need at&t phone service. Charter's 5 meg tier is $44 if you have cable $55 if you don't. If those are the 2 choices, sure I'm going with at&t. Until at&t can offer somewhere near the 20 Mbps I'm currently enjoying as of today, forget about it. | |
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| | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: Maybe more people would pay for service if it was cheaper? That may be true in Tennessee but here and in other non-Bellsouth areas 6016/768 is $35. | |
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| | | BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Re: Maybe more people would pay for service if it was cheaper? said by RadioDoc:That may be true in Tennessee but here and in other non-Bellsouth areas 6016/768 is $35. good for you, but there are A LOT of former bellsotuh states that are SUPPOSED to be at&t customers now but get treated liek 2nd class citizens. Hell they've been offically merged for 2 years. When does the uniform pricing kick in? Heck you've still got to use the bellsouth.com website to do anything. The guys running at&t aren't much brighter than the Charter people. | |
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| | | | Reviews:
·SureWest Internet
·AT&T Yahoo
·Comcast
| Re: Maybe more people would pay for service if it was cheaper? said by BF69:said by RadioDoc:That may be true in Tennessee but here and in other non-Bellsouth areas 6016/768 is $35. good for you, but there are A LOT of former bellsotuh states that are SUPPOSED to be at&t customers now but get treated liek 2nd class citizens. Hell they've been offically merged for 2 years. When does the uniform pricing kick in? Heck you've still got to use the bellsouth.com website to do anything. The guys running at&t aren't much brighter than the Charter people. Bellsouth is actually babybell
Parent company ATT
Bellsouth is a subsidy of ATT has always been
It just isn't official
If you look at history, the united state had only one phone company before the split up of many babybell such as qwest,sbc,pacbell,bellsouth
originally a&tt. This split up was due to deregulation to compete and cost us the consumer more. Competition raises price for all of us. In the beginning it was very cheap the greedy politician stepped in and find way to milk the consumer using deregulation by calling it a monopoly
You only have to look at how cheap gas was before deregulation, the splitting up of one company into many small one so the middleman can gouge the price up as high as possible | |
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| | | | | BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Re: Maybe more people would pay for service if it was cheaper? said by jadebangle:said by BF69:said by RadioDoc:That may be true in Tennessee but here and in other non-Bellsouth areas 6016/768 is $35. good for you, but there are A LOT of former bellsotuh states that are SUPPOSED to be at&t customers now but get treated liek 2nd class citizens. Hell they've been offically merged for 2 years. When does the uniform pricing kick in? Heck you've still got to use the bellsouth.com website to do anything. The guys running at&t aren't much brighter than the Charter people. Bellsouth is actually babybell Parent company ATT Bellsouth is a subsidy of ATT has always been It just isn't official If you look at history, the united state had only one phone company before the split up of many babybell such as qwest,sbc,pacbell,bellsouth originally a&tt. This split up was due to deregulation to compete and cost us the consumer more. Competition raises price for all of us. In the beginning it was very cheap the greedy politician stepped in and find way to milk the consumer using deregulation by calling it a monopoly You only have to look at how cheap gas was before deregulation, the splitting up of one company into many small one so the middleman can gouge the price up as high as possible Dude I don't need the history lesson I was 13 when the government broke up at&t.
Anyways bellsouth was supposed to be merged into at&t not be a subsidiary. | |
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| | | | ski93
join:2005-02-14
Northwood, NH Reviews:
·Metrocast Commun..
| ATT is shit in my eyes...prior to my present employer we were ATT Broadband..They ran our company straight into ground at a record pace..Shit customer service and shit tech suuport...shit product..They took the former Mediaone New England properties and ran them into the ground..They sell to Comcast and I know their are a lot of Comcast haters, but boy i'll tell you what...It's a far better product than those ass clowns could have ever dreamed of. Then ATT go's out of the broadband business for a short period of time and then reamerges as a compeditor in the twited (twisted) copper pair industry (DSL), and just like the first time when they ran the broadband cable properties are now doing exactly what they did before..running the product into the ground...instead of fiber to the curb or even to the end of town, they are doing this DSL amping...good god...how fucking cheap and shortshighted do these guys have to be..All for the almighty dollar. ATT can drop dead of many fatal dieases in my eyes...Just my two cents...good day sirs | |
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| | | | dont forget that the landline itself will cost your $35+ after taxes if you want to use the phone. | |
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| Reviews:
·Charter
1 edit | I just read more of the article linked.
Did anyone notice?
March 2000: 7 million subscribers.
July 2003: Four Charter executives are indicted on federal charges of defrauding shareholders by inflating revenue and subscriber counts. Included were allegations that Charter failed to disconnect customers whose accounts were past due and that it delayed disconnections requested by customers. The four later plead guilty to various charges.
September 2004: 6 million subscribers.
February 2009: 5.1 million subscribers.
Surprise, surprise. The "growing too quickly" article actually says that Charter has been doing NOTHING but hemorrhaging customers.
Again, this is a company who has been long-hated for poor customer service, the "I'll be there between 12 Noon and 6PM" all-day service installations (my install didn't happen until 7:30PM. Thanks for making me miss a whole day, Charter), and the "charge more, give less" service packages.
AT&T didn't make me wait for any highschool dropout contractor to stumble into my home to install my Internet connection like Charter did. They just sent me a free modem and turned on my service.
Heck, even after I purchased my own Cable modem, Charter continued to charge me to use their modem (which I never got). It took THREE billing cycles to clear that up.
$55 for broadband, $40 for phone service? Do they not realize many people have a choice, and that *every* other choice is cheaper?
Charter has been crapping down peoples' throats and calling it "good service" for too long. I hope they go bankrupt, get bought out by a bigger, better company, and everyone that ran Charter gets replaced.
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»xenomorph.net/ | |
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| | | How much cheaper would it need to be?
With all the little fees they add, POTS is $60 AT LEAST.
10 megs cable+voip is far and away cheaper then 6 megs dsl+POTS. | |
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|  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | said by Xenomorph:Lets see, in many areas covered by Charter, AT&T offers 6 Mbps for $35 (with phone service, which runs about $6 for a dial tone). Can't afford $35? Well, they have $25, and even $15 service plans available. $15 for broadband! You forgot to add in all crap/unfees T adds on to the phone bill. its NOT $35 "out the door"
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
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| | | Hi
I have to agree with you. I went to school to learn about computers. well more like studying computer networking and learn about differecne in cable and dsl. I have att dsl for 8 yrs love it from after switching dail up to dsl plus size i don't have to share any connection like cable. I have charter cable. Sales people they have plain sucks kind of like microsoft lol. My cousin has cable and cable internet. Few time he got jealous at me when there cable and cable internet went out for a couple of hours and here i am on the web surfing on my dsl connection. They had a person come out last year trying to sale me stuff he knew little about computers i can tell you. Not sure what i said but i made him piss off and he left lol. If my modem fails to work i go go and buy a new one or something wrong iwth my line and att find out its my modem i think they replace it for free. | |
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Reviews:
·Charter
| The old standby. Another thing about Charter, I'm not sure if they are ever anyone's first choice now.
Can't get DSL where you life? "Awww, guess I have to get Charter."
Can't get U-verse? "Awww, guess I have to get Charter."
Can't put a satellite dish up where you are at? "Awww, guess I have to get Charter."
That is one good thing - Charter is available almost everywhere. But it's still bad that Charter isn't the first choice. People only get Charter when nothing else is available. Again, a business like that can't survive.
What does Charter offer that other companies don't? What, maybe some "on-demand" stuff with cable TV? Is that it? For most people, I bet that isn't even worth what they charge for the service.
"Charter: Offer Less, Charge More." (TM)
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»xenomorph.net/ | |
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| Reviews:
·AT&T Southeast
1 edit | Re: The old standby. Even having been through the hell that was being a Charter employee, I can honestly say that I would definitely take Charter internet over AT&T. I have AT&T DSL now and its is crap. Yes, they do offer a 6 meg tier but I'm lucky if I get 3 meg. I've called into what could loosely be described as support and they tell me tough crap. It's within their margin of "acceptable" speeds. I had Charter internet for years, free while I worked there and paid for it after that, and never got less than the speed I was supposed to. Usually I got more. Yes, it's a little more expensive but when you figure I'm paying 35-40 bucks for 3 meg (out of 6), it's not like AT&T is exactly a bargain... | |
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| | Reviews:
·SureWest Internet
·AT&T Yahoo
·Comcast
| Re: The old standby. said by ender7074:Even having been through the hell that was being a Charter employee, I can honestly say that I would definitely take Charter internet over AT&T. I have AT&T DSL now and its is crap. Yes, they do offer a 6 meg tier but I'm lucky if I get 3 meg. I've called into what could loosely be described as support and they tell me tough crap. It's within their margin of "acceptable" speeds. I had Charter internet for years, free while I worked there and paid for it after that, and never got less than the speed I was supposed to. Usually I got more. Yes, it's a little more expensive but when you figure I'm paying 35-40 bucks for 3 meg (out of 6), it's not like AT&T is exactly a bargain... If att was free like charter then it would be all good 
Nothing beat free
I wouldn't mind having an extra isp to serve me for life
Since we are paying yes I agree we expect it to be competitive like 5/5 or 10/10 15/15 30mbit/30mbit
True broadband are symmetric
Faked are asymmetric aka 3/512k or 3000kbps,512kbps | |
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CSU
join:2002-10-21
Lagrange, GA
1 edit | Like Nobody Saw This Coming... Dumb F*ckers!
I hate this company but it's the only option I have if I want high speed Internet.
I just hope the bankruptcy process doesn't interrupt service. | |
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Reviews:
·MSN
·Brand X Internet
·DSL EXTREME
2 edits | Two words why Charter tanked: PAUL ALLEN! Paul Allen is a one trick pony. He did well at Microsoft, but every other company he's touched has been run into the ground!
He ruined the Trailblazers, trashed The Sporting News (both magazine and radio network), and ruined the radio stations he owns in Portland, OR.
OOPS! Forgot about Tech TV.
Of course, Charter is his biggest flop... | |
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| KoRnGtL15Premium
join:2007-01-04
Grants Pass, OR | Re: Two words why Charter tanked: PAUL ALLEN! When you have so much money to burn. Why care? Seriously. He is always just looking to invest and build more of a empire for himself. We are all peasants to him. | |
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| | ski93
join:2005-02-14
Northwood, NH Reviews:
·Metrocast Commun..
| Re: Two words why Charter tanked: PAUL ALLEN! It's not just this clown, it's every company. They go on a shopping spree, buy up failing or ailing or bankrupt companies, spend, spend, spend and build up a decent product....Then get complacant...wasteful...shortshighted...Start cutting back to stop the bleeding, and before you know it....knock, knock...who is it...OH its chapter 11...get the hell out..then the consumer is fucked, and I mean in a bad way... | |
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2 edits | caps Part of what went wrong is them threatening caps on people. The other part is it's just to expensive. Maybe not TO expensive, but I have an option now that works.
Just switched to Verizon DSL 7.1/768 for life for $37.99 and am actually getting those speeds.
Good bye Charter after 9+ years!!
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The Firefox alternative.
»www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ | |
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 uther
join:2001-12-04
Saint Louis, MO | Why Charter has Failed: 1) Outsourced installer/on-site tech money-sinks
Charter outsources most of their installs/tech calls to contractor companies. The contractor gets paid by Charter $75 to show up. Period. Doesn't matter if they roll by, do the job, or screw it up and not get it done.
Many a time when I worked at Charter I get calls of the installers driving up to the driveway, writing description of house, (Not even getting out of the vehicle!) and then driving off. They report that the customer wasn't home and get paid. Lather rinse repeat with service calls.
Charter's policy is that they take the word of the tech/contractor over the word of the customer 100% of the time. So the customer has no power or say in the matter.
Charter needs to eliminate all the contractor companies and bring them all in-house so they become responsible for the work they do and properly manage it. This is why they're hemmoraging customers and lose a lot of business.
2) Turning tech support into sales drones with a useless script.
Yes, the people that you call for tech support are expected to sell at least 3 things a day otherwise they will be fired. They use a stupid script called "S2S" or Service to Sales. If they actually fixed things instead of trying to sell without fixing the problem, perhaps they'd retain customer loyalty. Of course, Charter considers this "normal customer churn."
Charter doesn't value their techs on how much they fix or how well they fix things. They value them based on how much they sell. Oh, forgot, call times are supposed to be maximum 8 minutes. Good luck!
3) Outsourcing customer service/billing to India/Mexico City/Phillipines.
Charter tries to save money, but causes further frustration to it's customers with the outsourcing to foreign companies where the people who answer the phones speak with such thick accents that it's completely difficult to understand. Again, "normal customer churn" when the customer cancels service according to Charter.
4) FCC Violations - No Dial Tone for longer than 24 hours.
Don't believe me? I worked there. I received countless calls of customers who get no response from a truck-roll when they have no dialtone for as much as 2 weeks straight. What if these customers get burglarized or they have a medical emergency and because Charter's phone service has NDT and they refuse to fix it they become liable to a lawsuit for damages?
There ya go.
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Someone set up us the bomb! | |
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| |  Charter
I worked in a call center in Massachusetts and yes they did expect us to at least sell some stuff Our call center was based on Day Of Serice. So whenever you had a service call or repair and someone was available in our call center to pick up you were sent directly to us no waiting. We acted as a type of escalations specialists to make sure we didn't mess up. I know I worked on the side of the customer (gotten into trouble for it too) I believed in good customer service. and manny of my co-workers did too. I found out our call center didn't focus on a sale but to make sure you got what you were paying for in services (IE. if you wanted HBO and didn't get it) I admit some reps are only out for that commision pay.Believe me the sales team I cought adding to customers account things they didn't want.
I agree getting rid of outsourced people including techs would dramaticly improve the system.
Well what I am trying to say here is that Not All of Charter is EVIL. Corporate Yes and outsourced employees Yes but those of us that worked directly for charter in the call centers and repair techs A majority was a great bunch of people. | |
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| | What went wrong at Charter? Looks like the bailout includes another 7 billion for broadband to be installed in Green Acres AKA (BFE). If the goverment is smart they'll hand that money over to companies in rural areas to connect the folks in the sticks. Otherwise it will get dumped on the little guys and time and time again those little guys go belly up too. Charter serves mostly rural areas and would love to be able to build out to areas they already serve, but want to add wideband and telephone there also. | |
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Brick
join:2006-12-03
Grover Beach, CA | Concern and Doubt Charter Cable in San Luis Obispo, CA has promised to fix my 10mbps connection that has been slowed down to an average of 1.2 mbps (or slower) on the download at peak usage periods.
Somehow, methinks they won't be able to get around to fixing anything that would involve installation of equipment at head in site.
I'm bummed.
Brick | |
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| Brick
join:2006-12-03
Grover Beach, CA | Re: Concern and Doubt Make that "head end" site...
Brick | |
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