Topic: What the hell is going on here?

[hbiss]

New one on me. Full disclosure, this is a single family house where the landlord had his elderly mother living downstairs and a tenant on the second floor. Elderly mother either passes away or goes into a nursing home so he rents to my wife's aunt.

Auntie Maria calls Cablevision (or Optimum, Altice or whatever they call themselves this month) to have phone, internet and TV installed. Apparently the old lady who previously lived there had none of that so the installer wires the place, runs a new drop, sets up WiFi and router and cable box and leaves with everything working.

That night the lady who lives upstairs comes down and asks if Auntie Maria had the cable company here because hers was no longer working. Now, she has Verizon FiOS. So Auntie Maria suggests that there must be some mistake. Maybe the installer cut some of your cables by mistake.

So the lady upstairs calls Verizon and a tech shows up to repair her service. Now Auntie Maria has no service!

Auntie Maria calls Cablevision (in Bangladesh apparently) and is told that there was no mistake- only one account is allowed per address. WHAT? If that were true 90% of my customers wouldn't be able to get service. I have two Optimum accounts here in my house. Forget about this situation where one account was Cablevision and the other Verizon.

First thought was that she is in the middle of some pissing match between companies but neither Verizon or Cablevision will create two accounts for that address. And, what gives one companies techs the right to disconnect the other? Never heard of such thing. If I were there that installer wouldn't have made it to his truck.

When Auntie Maria asked to speak to a supervisor she was told none was available. Probably all out washing down the elephants or water buffalo.

-Hal

[MacGyver]

  I don't even know what to say to that.  I can't imagine a cable jockey disconnecting a Verizon line or vice versa.  I thought commiting communication interruptous was a felony at the federal level.

Occams Razor:  The most likely answer is almost always somebody screwed up.  -Gregory House.

[EV607797]

I cannot imagine that Verizon would knowingly allow a competitor to touch their facilities, let alone physically disconnect them.  I'll never forget the lashing I once got from a Verizon tech when I pulled over once to close one of their open pedestals.  Note that it had been open for six months prior.

I've only encountered service restrictions where a property was re-zoned from commercial to residential and the phone company hadn't updated their records.  It was one of those warehouse to loft conversion deals. They wouldn't allow residential service to be ordered at a commercial address.

Anyway, it sounds to me like there's a communication breakdown between Bangladesh and Uzbeck City.  I think a quick call to the town or county utility commission should clarify this situation quickly.

[hbiss]

Anyway, it sounds to me like there's a communication breakdown between Bangladesh and Uzbeck City.

Ya think?

I remember maybe 6 months ago when the elderly people across the street asked me to see why their cable service went off. I go over there and call Cablevision from my cell, give them the ESN off the label on their cable box and was told they will run a test. The test said nothing was wrong.

Realizing this is going nowhere, I call back again to get another Bangladeshi and this time was told that the customer owed money. How much? $64 and change. Now I know that the cable bill around here is easily twice that so I can't see were that number came from. I tell the customer and he says that there was a service tech here last week because the box crapped out. I see now, they charged the old guy $64 because their equipment failed. Yeah, OK. But that amount can't be past due because he has them debit his credit card. Still, I get his credit card, call Cablevision back and pay the $64 fully expecting the service to be restored which the Bangladeshi said should only take a few minutes. Those few minutes turned into never.

So I call again and insist that they send over a tech. He'll be here between 8AM and 11AM Friday of next week.

Meanwhile next day I notice a Cablevision bucket truck out by the pole and my neighbor talking to him. Seems his cable was out too and there is a problem with the tap on the pole, which just happens to supply both houses. A few days later the tap is replaced and both customers have service again.

So, what does that tell you about the competence of Cablevision customer service? 

-Hal

[CMDL_GUY]

I've had problems with Comcast refusing to have 2 accounts at the same address but never a problem with a competitor in the same location!

[EV607797]

Let me tell you a story about when I called Es Comcastico requesting that they enable rotary dialing on my EMTA.  "Jane" suggested that I get newer equipment after I spent 20 minutes explaining what rotary dial was.  We're doomed.