Sayonara Charter

If you've been a long-time reader of this blog, first of all - God love ya.

Second, you may remember my exasperation over Charter Communications' cable (and customer) service and my thwarted attempts to replace it with DirecTV. Believe it or not, the story has a happy ending - we've finally been able to dump Charter for good, replacing it with AT&T U-verse, which I'm happy to report is awesome and less expensive to boot.

But, in the course of finally bidding Charter goodbye, a final goof-up made it crystal clear that they do indeed have their heads stuck where the sun don't shine.

When dear hubby called to cancel, he told them we'd drop all the cable boxes and remotes off at their offices - my office is close to theirs. The next day, we get a message from Charter wanting to schedule a pick-up time for someone to come out and pick up the equipment. Before we even had a chance to call them back and reiterate that we'd drop the stuff off, I arrive home from running errands to find another Charter message, this time from the guy they'd sent to pick up the equipment, who wondered why we weren't home when he was scheduled to pick up. (Insert hysterical laughter at their sheer idiocy here.)

And that, my friends, is why Charter Communications sucks - because they've yet to master a key component of their name. Ah, the irony.

DIRECTV, The Sad Finale

So after four hours of two...count 'em...two DIRECTV techs trying very hard to figure out a way to install the service in my house, they finally had to give up. No kidding. Wanna guess why?

Dear old Charter Communications, that's why.

Apparently Charter has a new way of keeping customers - they wire the house for cable so ineptly that any attempt to switch providers would require drilling through steel I-beams and running cables up the front of the house to the second floor. A lovely improvement on our home's curb appeal, no doubt.

Several calls and two Charter tech visits later (because Charter was as pathetic as ever), we got service restored to our home. Through Charter. Sigh.

Somewhere, in a plush executive office, a fat cat Charter executive is counting his cash and laughing at me for daring to try to escape his clutches. Customers can be so silly sometimes.

The DIRECTV Saga, Part II

So about 8 p.m. tonight, the DIRECTV contractor call center contacts me to reschedule my installation - and the earliest they can reschedule is Aug. 15.

Really? You sure about that?

After a quick but very firm synopsis of yesterday's debacle, and a vow to cancel my order if I didn't have someone at my home at 8 a.m. Monday morning to install, lo and behold, they changed their minds about that whole Aug. 15 thing. They put me on hold and contact the backup tech they use specifically for "special situations like this," then confirm with me that the tech will in fact be here tomorrow morning "as close to 8 a.m. as possible." Uh-huh.

First, where was that "special situations" backup tech on Saturday when they had a truck break down and told me they didn't have a backup? Second, I'll believe it when I see the DIRECTV truck pull up in my driveway.

The saga continues...

DIRECTV, You're Killing Me

So I decided to switch cable TV service from Charter Communications to DIRECTV. Why? Besides being just stupid expensive, Charter has really bad customer service - almost as bad as Ameren, Missouri's electricity provider.

Side note: Yes, that's right, St. Louis is proud to be the headquarters location of two of the worst customer service companies in America. Is it that whole "Show Me" concept gone bad...or just a coincidence?

Anyway, my DIRECTV installation was set for Saturday, Aug. 11 from 8 a.m.-noon. No problem. The princesses have an inability to sleep past 6 a.m., so 8 a.m. is like mid-morning to us. Here's how the day unfolds:

• We're ready and waiting at 8 a.m. - and at 9 a.m. - and at 10 a.m. (are you seeing a pattern here?)
• 11 a.m. - I get a call from the local DIRECTV contractor asking if I had heard from the technician. Nope, nothin'.
• 11:45 a.m. - another call from the contractor saying that the technician's truck is broken down somewhere, and they're working to get a replacement out ASAP.
• 12:30 p.m. - contractor's assistant calls asking me if it's okay to reschedule me for a 1-6 p.m. installation time slot. I say fine, but as soon as possible would be great. She says I should hear from the technician soon with an ETA.
• 3:30 p.m. - give up on hearing from the technician and call the contractor to see what's up. They sound surprised I haven't heard from the tech (yeah, right) and promise to track him down ASAP.
• 3:45 p.m. - the tech team leader calls to tell me he's frantically calling the tech trying to find him, but he's not responding - promises that either he or the tech will call me back ASAP. He's very apologetic - good to know he was paying attention during that part of his training.
• 4 p.m. - tech team leader calls again to say he's left messages on the tech's voicemail and has emailed the tech supervisors, who theoretically have Blackberries in the field and usually respond quickly. Again, very apologetic - I'm beginning to think this guy deals with drama like this all the time.
• 4:55 p.m. - the contractor's assistant calls to say that they have no one available to do my installation today and can they reschedule for Monday? I say no, since hubby and I both work on Mondays - it'll have to be Tuesday, but it better be 8 a.m. Tuesday. She apologizes - I don't buy it.
• 5:05 p.m. - After digesting all this (I'm a step back and plan my next move kind of gal), I call DIRECTV to let them know how incompetent their contractors are and to express incredulity that there are no available techs in the St. Louis area. DIRECTV, like any responsible corporation, apologizes and then passes the buck back to the techs, transferring me back to the local tech office. I go through the whole incompetent/incredulity spiel again - they apologize and vow to call the supervisor immediately to try to fix the situation. I get a name and number to call in case I haven't heard from anyone in ten minutes.
• 5:10 p.m. - the contractor's assistant calls again, a smidge snippy that the situation she thought was resolved has reared its ugly head again. She says that all their techs are working in North County (for those unfamiliar with the 'Lou, we've got sectors - West County, South County, North County, - that I swear sometimes rivals Berlin's segmentation after World War II) until 9 p.m., all the scheduled customers of the broken-down truck tech had to be rescheduled, and there was absolutely nothing she could do. I explain (in a slightly snippier voice than she had) that since I have two small children who have played in every room in the house multiple times and would literally melt if I took them outside (98 degrees, and it ain't a dry heat, people), I need the Disney Channel pronto. She apologizes again (big whoop) and swears she'll have a tech here at 8 a.m. Monday morning (thank you, Standing Partnership, for work-from-home privileges). She also promises to pass along my comment that having no backup for a broken down tech truck is a really stupid way to run a business.

Will the DIRECTV technician show up Monday morning? Will I resort to crashing a friend's house Sunday after church for a change of scenery to avoid an all out Princess War? Will I end up telling DIRECTV where to stick their satellite dish? Stay tuned...