Charter Sucks (the final chapter)

Today is a day in my household where there is much rejoicing, at least by Papa Bear. My blog and all my cyber-doings come to you now from a new internet provider, namely AT&T. Charter, that previously monopolistic monster that stalked my neighborhood knowing I and other residents had no other choice for bandwidth, has been fired as of yesterday.

If you need to be brought up to speed with my ongoing battle with Charter, click here or here. Either place will take you to some online bitching from yours truly along with commentary from other poor souls, some of whom claimed to have been subjected to Charter's similarly shoddy service and others who claimed to have worked for the company itself.

I stopped counting the phone calls I made to this company's technical support team. I just remember I spoke with people in five different countries, America, Canada, India and the Phillipines. Well . . . that's only four but I probably spoke with a Bangladeshi once the Indian center was experiencing its highest call volume. I'm only guessing.

At different times I received callbacks from follow-up reps, people at the local dispatch office and an executive officer in the technology department. Because I am an effective bitcher I was receiving credits upon credits on my Charter bill to the point that I've now been told I will receive a check in the mail for the outstanding balance. I fully believe I could have continued calling each month to complain about them not having buried a cable in my neighborhood that was causing me to not receive the full bandwidth I subscribed to and they would have continued giving me free internet.

But guess what?

I don't care.

I don't want their shitty internet service that functions only when the Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars. I want a true always-on connection. I don't mind paying for it. I just want it to work.

Can anyone tell me how I can go about getting the notes that are in my customer profile at Charter? The last few people I spoke with at that company were most anxious to shut me up and get me off their phone. I barely had to ask for a week's worth of credit before being granted an entire month's worth of one. And when I was cancelling my service over the phone, the representative brought up my account after asking for my phone number and I just heard this long "Oooohh . . . " like she couldn't believe whatever she saw on the screen.

I used to work in a call center so I know the info screen on a customer's account is a hotbed for customer service rep gossip and heads-ups. I don't know if it says PER SO-AND-SO AT HQ GIVE HIM A CREDIT or something as simple as THIS GUY'S AN ASSHOLE but I'd love to find out. I still think part of the reason i squeezed as much out of them as I did was because I filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, but I may only be flattering myself. In any case, I only wanted them to deliver what they promised. They never did.

For the record, I have had little difficulty signing up with AT&T so far. There was some confusion on their part as to when they were coming to my house to perform various tasks but after two visits I now have a working phone and innerwebs. They have promised me some cashback awards that will arrive over the next six weeks time and their asses better deliver.

The tech who came out to the house to hook up my DSL couldn't have been more polite. He even went to the trouble of setting up my router to work with my laptop and installed some file management software on my computer. He also spoke at length about his most recent love interest, but I offered him a bottled Coke the moment he showed up so he might have thought I wanted to be his friend. I don't care.

He only drank about half the Coke before he left it sitting on the floor next to the hole he drilled in my baseboard. I finished the drink before recycling the bottle. Yeah, I drank after him. So what? He was good people.

P..S. Now Vonage is screwing me over royally but I'll have to address that later.