Charter Internet, Cable; Terrible Service

Charter Cable Internet Service, dishonesty, bait & switch, poor customer service, unreliable internet, and even sexual orientation insulting staff

Charter Cable Internet is by far and away the worst internet provider in the USA, if you do not believe me, just check this out:
PC World; The Best and Worst ISPs

What is scary about this above post from PC World is my experience with Charter Cable Internet has gotten MUCH worse since this came out!

Anyway, here is a list of their corporate misbehavior:

1. Unreliable Internet Service; while admittedly Charter Internet can run as download speeds of 16 mbps or higher, often it drops to .5 to 1.5 (or worse)


2. Dishonest Customer Service; when calling in I will often get a different answer each time I call in and then when a service tech comes out they will often state something different altogether.
   Although in all fairness the field techs for Charter usually seem to be telling the straight story, are polite and try hard to rectify the situation. The field service techs are definitely the one bright spot in this otherwise miserable company and often what they say is rarely followed up on by those in charge to fix the situation once and for all.


3. Promising service calls or return customer service calls; Charter has made these promises only to fail, such as service call on 2/18/2011 or a call back from a corporate customer service specialist by "Umatter2Charter". Similar incidents have happened many times over the years I have been with Charter.


4. Condescending automated answers when calling Charter for service problems; Yes I know to unplug my modem and refresh.


5. Bait & Switch; I have been called to "upgrade" my plan and have been promised one thing, but in reality I do not get the plan I agreed to via a sales call and then when I call back they deny ever making the call; COME ON CHARTER HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM!!


6. Lying about down line router issues; I have even had Charter lie about issues with down line router issues when my pings said otherwise, when I called them on this they would make condescending replies


7. Inappropriate remarks from customer service; all the problems aside, this is probably the most insulting; and after this insult all I asked for was an apology from the customer service representative, but Charter chose to sweep this one under the rug.
   This incident occurred during one of my regular service interruptions (and after the usual difficulty reaching someone), I reached man who proceeded to insult me and accuse me of basically be "gay" including comments such as I sound like a "girlie man" (BTW, I am straight).
   
   Charter should be ashamed, not because they hired such a troll, but because they swept this under the rug and acted like it did not happen, an apology from this person was all I asked for, nothing more; is that so difficult Charter?

IN SUMMARY;
If you have Charter Internet, I doubt their service is going to improve (not that it cannot, but since they continue to lie, I have serious doubts unless the light goes off in the heads" of board of directors and they hire someone with some morals to take charge).
If you are thinking of getting Charter Internet; DO NOT!
If you have Charter Internet and have not experienced any real problems, all I can say is people DO win the lottery.

In my opinion Charter is one of the more dishonest, poorly run companies in the USA, although when compared to Google's dishonesty, I guess Charter can still claim "higher ground"
See: Google Lies, Dishonesty, Plagiarism; Adsense, Adwords

US Cellular Poor Customer Service, Cell Phone Industry

 

Updated 6-1-11

The Cell Phone Industry is a strange industry in terms of what they “get away with” and this is not just my opinion, but one I have heard expressed by Leo Laporte (“The Tech Guy”).
Reference: Leo Laporte Tech Guys Labs

Customer service is often poor (as with Cable TV/Internet companies such as Charter), charges for services rendered are often of poor value (especially for the use of “apps”), and even though the technology for phones such as the iPhone or Blackberry is impressive, simple uses of the cell phone for simply making and retaining a voice phone call is really no better than it was a decade ago with many providers (these are still phones after all).

In my part of the world (the Pacific Northwest), US Cellular really takes the cake as far as poor quality, dishonesty and terrible customer service, and again this is not just my opinion, but that of many friends, business associates, and consumer web sites (see below for references).
This is also frustrating as I use my cell phone for my business, American Aquarium Products. My business link:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/

What is especially sad/disgusting is that US Cellular has run ads about their so-called great customer service comparing the training their reps receive to that of an airplane pilot.
Well as a pilot I am insulted as this (US Cellular Customer service) would more compare to a pilot with VFR only flight ability that takes off into IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) and then losses control of the aircraft and crashes.

I have had nothing but dropped calls during my business trips or even while in local areas, as well all of these dropped calls happened within their so-called coverage map areas (usually major interstates, etc, major cities, etc.).
Worse yet my phones have lost all ability to send or receive calls until I move to a totally different area of towers (even within US Cellular covered areas).

Sadly when I call customer service I got the run-around and even lies such as claiming they have no control of the phone in areas outside of US Cellular coverage areas.

This is a bold faced lie on two points;

(1) I was within the US Cellular area when it happened the last time and a tech person who stated they would call me back (on my wife’s phone) never kept his promise, which is typical.

(2) In areas outside US Cellular, they claim that “they only provide for no roaming charges, not coverage guarantees”.
If this is true (which maybe in fine print it may well be so), STOP showing coverage maps that imply your phone will work in these areas, this is blatant deception.
Funny part of this I am now on Verizon and these problems no longer exist in the exact same areas where US Cellular was roaming on Verizon towers (not that their coverage is perfect either though).

I (& my wife) have also had rude treatment at their customer service centers.
In other instances I have had apps such as “IQ Test” added to our phone on a permanent basis without authorization and when I called about this they made claims that we did add this via MySpace or similar (I am not on MySpace).
US Cellular also stated that customers “enjoyed” this service. My answers is what service? This fee provided NOTHING but a higher bill each month. It took multiple calls to finally get this removed.

With two of our US Cellular phones both me and my wife purchased (the same model kyocera), we had issues with from day one which after a couple months both of us brought them in for repair/replacement; US Cellular had the audacity to charge us $50 claiming we broke them which could not be further from the truth (especially since these problems were prevalent from the start). Later I found that this particular model was considered a lemon and pulled from US Cellular, but did we get a refund for fees charged to repair a defective phone? Of coarse not!!

I could go on, but I think I made my point, maybe calls to your congressman to make contracts much easier to get/opt out of will stop the terrible behavior that Cell Phone companies get away with that others business could never do. I only put up with this due to the costs and hassles in changing Cell Phone companies (which many others I know can vouch for this reason for not switching).
Thankfully laws were changed that allowed portability of cell phone numbers, to which I salute the person that brought forth this law.

I think making it easier switching of providers, or breaking of monopolies, such as with the Cable industries, electric providers (Pacific Power has terrible customer service and dishonest charges), etc. can go a long ways in aiding the consumer in fighting these companies and provide the true “Conservative/Honest” side of capitalism instead of what is provided now.
See: True Conservatism

REFERENCES
* http://www.consumeraffairs.com/cell_phones/us_cellular.html

* http://www.itbusinessedge.com/topics/reader.aspx?oss=70203
*http://www.cellular-news.com/story/34723.php

*http://www.cellular-news.com/tags/us-cellular

Google Adsense Dishonesty, corruption in Adwords content

For a newer more relevant post in this subject, please see this article/blog post:
Google Dishonesty, Plagiarism, with Adsense, Adwords, & More

I have never seen good results with our Adwords content ads and as I have investigated and searched the Google network I know why, the content they (Google) placed these ads on is very poor.
I have found ads for Shell wind Chimes on blogs with nothing more than some alluding to wind in their blog. But the worst part is quality sites such as my own (I know this from VERY positive feedback) are turned down for Adsense ads.

My website has a lot of content, good PR and has been around a while. Apparently Google figures there is a better chance of clicks on these sites as frustrated readers are looking for more than someone’s life editorial, which is why my 'clicks' are high but conversions are almost nil.

This is business corruption at its worst and quite frankly if it were not for the fact that Google is the 800 lb. Gorilla where by I must be present with adwords to be noticed in searches.
I would not advertise here at all, and at that I try and keep my advertising budget to the bare minimums with Google based on Google' business practices and place more ads elsewhere where there are more business morals in place.

But then I have also had to face the fact that my Adwords search ads do have better exposure. I also should note that even where my organic listing are high such as with my Aquarium Lighting Information, UV Bulbs, or Aquarium Silicone page, the Adwords listing also tends to boost my conversion there too. Reference Links:
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/UVCReplacementLamp.html
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumSilicone.html

What bothers me too, is that with so much corruption in business (and other aspects of life, from Religion to Government), is that nobody gives a #@1# about Google's business moral, or lack there of.
In another blog I commented about the fact that Google has gone to one extreme of business management (as many business treat there employees like dirt), they tend to treat their employees as royalty to a point that they look down on anyone who questions anything about the "great and mighty Google" when I have tried to fix things from Google Adwords, to Blogger, to Google CheckOut, to the most corrupt bunch at Google; ADSENSE.

By the way I think the ideas behind many of the before mentioned Google products are good, especially Blogger and Google CheckOut, it is just how Google handles them and treats customers.

In this comment I made, someone came to the defense of Adsense claiming how many little people have made a living or at least part time revenue from Adsense.

My answer; so what!!
What about businesses such as mine that have been ripped off in the content network and also have had Adsense accounts taken from them (including pending earnings) after Adsense disabled their account when someone got bored somewhere and decided to go on a clicking frenzy?

Google has the technology to detect these fraudulent clicks computer addresses and remove them and needs not do the heavy handed disabling of a legitimate business, which of course Google Profits from.
I guarantee you if someone went crazy and started clicking a high PR pet site of Googles such as http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/, Google would NEVER disable this account (which I can bet delivers a lot of revenue to Google Adsense).

Also I have had many of my Aquarium research articles ripped off by others only to display Google Adwords and these plagiarized articles ONLY place high in Google Search, not MSN or Yahoo (go figure, huh) which spot these rip offs much better than Google.

I could go on more about the many lies as to link relevance an other aspects of Googles search engine which are all directed at maximizing profit at ALL costs, no matter how dishonest the results.
I will someday post more about this subject.

This post was found at this blog: "Aaron Swartz; sociologist in exile". His blog "Raw Thought" has some interesting reading and comments, not many I agree with but they are worth while to see other points of view.

The post I found eye opening was "The Google Life": how Google keeps employees by treating them like kids"


Copyright 2009 Carl Strohmeyer

The latest aquatic forum I joined, this one has great people!
http://www.everything-aquatic.com/