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So, I live in an interesting place for tv service. Virginia Beach, Virginia. You would think, since we have nearly a half million people here, that it would be easy to get decent cable service. If not decent, at least you'd think we'd have choices right? Wrong.
In the early 1980's, when cable tv was first coming around to this area, Cox Communications made a sweetheart deal with the Virginia Beach City Council. In exchange for agreeing to give Cox exclusive cable tv rights to the city, Cox gave the sitting council an undisclosed amount of shares in stock for the company. As a result of this deal, Charter Cable, Time-Warner, Comcast, and a long line of fly by night cable providers have had their asses handed to them in court when they tried to move in on Cox and get a share of the market here. Why it's legal for Cox to continue to have the hold they do here is beyond me, but it hurts the consumer to have no choices.
As a result, my family has been a Cox subscriber off and on for the better part of 30 years. You'd think that would mean something, but as I am sure from the horror stories I hear about Comcast as well, customer service died years ago. The only time we were able to make any switch was around 2001, when DirecTV first became available here. The problem with them, was we got stuck in a 2 year contract, and had problems every time it rained heavy, it was breezy, or it snowed. On the 2 year anniversary of our DirecTV conversion, we promptly canceled and crawled back reluctantly to Cox Communications.
In the past 8 years with Cox, it has been one pain in the ass after another. When we bought a HD tv a few years back, we upgraded to the HD DVR box with Cox, and went ahead and bundled in our internet and phone line with them. For the past month, the service has been a total joke. Every channel pixilates, the audio comes in and out at random, we have picture freezes, and half the time our premium channels say temporarily off air.
When it first started, we called and let them know we'd like it fixed. Instead, they insisted on resetting the box. As you know if you've had to do it, this almost never solves any problem big or small. So when it didn't work, they insisted on resetting it again, then again, then again, until I finally asked them to send out a technician to see what the hell the problem was.
They set up a date and a two hour window for the tech to come out. He never showed. I called, and they said the work order was canceled. I don't know why or how, since I am the only person in this house with the ability or knowledge to do that, and I didn't do it. So they rescheduled. Wouldn't you know, it happened again. Sadly, this didn't shock me one bit. So I finally told them I was canceling everything if they didn't come that day and fix it. Then *poof* technician at my door within the hour.
He checked everything inside and outside of the house, and told me the problem was a weak signal at the outside junction box, and that he would put in a work order for the maintenance team to repair it. I didn't hold my breath. They never showed, as I suspected they wouldn't, and I called again. Same thing - tech showed up, told me the same thing, and amazingly no work crew ever came back to fix it.
This time when I called and raised hell, they told me that no work order was ever put in. Then I pulled out my ace in the hole and informed them that my sister is the regional manager at their office, and I had proof based on my sister looking up my account, that they were blatantly lying to me, and that several work orders had been put in, but that this are has a bad rep for being a pain to do trouble work in, so the lazy crews kept canceling out the work orders instead of doing them. Low and behold, the lady had a different story now and assured me that a crew was being dispatched immediately to fix the problem.
So the crew shows up a few days ago and gets to work. After about 3 hours, they tell me they finished, everything is perfect now, and they left. So as I sit watching tv that night, the picture freezes, the sound goes out, and the blue screen saying temporarily off air appears. I couldn't do anything but laugh. I picked up the phone to call them, and I had no dial tone. So not only did they not fix the tv, but they also managed to screw up the phone.
I was finally done, and decided I was going with Fios. So I call up Verizon, and apparently the neighborhood I live in is on the old GTE network that Verizon bought about 10 years ago, and it isn't Fios ready yet, and they don't know when it will be.
I called my buddy who is an engineer for Verizon, and he looked up some things for me. Apparently in the entire city of Virginia Beach, there are only 84 houses that are not able to get Fios. Mine is one of them, naturally. So I call the sales department, and they offer to give me 225 channels of DirecTV, 2 HD DVR boxes, all premium channels, residential phone service with everything I need, and high speed internet. For $91.90 a month. I was paying $224 per month with Cox for way less.
So I give the go ahead, and Verizon sends me an email saying my phone has been activated. I pick it up, no dial tone. So I call them up and they send a tech out. I currently still have Cox until my cycle runs up in a few weeks, so I still have internet and tv until Verizon does their thing, but they said they cannot install the internet or connect my phone service until next Wednesday.
When I asked why, I loved the answer............."Those retarded halfwits at Cox cut your phone line when they tried to fix your cable." I asked why they have to wait a week, instead of just splicing while they're here. His response, "No my friend, they managed to cut it on the street side of the box." Then we all had a huge laugh and I looked up at the sky waiting for the anvil. FML
In the early 1980's, when cable tv was first coming around to this area, Cox Communications made a sweetheart deal with the Virginia Beach City Council. In exchange for agreeing to give Cox exclusive cable tv rights to the city, Cox gave the sitting council an undisclosed amount of shares in stock for the company. As a result of this deal, Charter Cable, Time-Warner, Comcast, and a long line of fly by night cable providers have had their asses handed to them in court when they tried to move in on Cox and get a share of the market here. Why it's legal for Cox to continue to have the hold they do here is beyond me, but it hurts the consumer to have no choices.
As a result, my family has been a Cox subscriber off and on for the better part of 30 years. You'd think that would mean something, but as I am sure from the horror stories I hear about Comcast as well, customer service died years ago. The only time we were able to make any switch was around 2001, when DirecTV first became available here. The problem with them, was we got stuck in a 2 year contract, and had problems every time it rained heavy, it was breezy, or it snowed. On the 2 year anniversary of our DirecTV conversion, we promptly canceled and crawled back reluctantly to Cox Communications.
In the past 8 years with Cox, it has been one pain in the ass after another. When we bought a HD tv a few years back, we upgraded to the HD DVR box with Cox, and went ahead and bundled in our internet and phone line with them. For the past month, the service has been a total joke. Every channel pixilates, the audio comes in and out at random, we have picture freezes, and half the time our premium channels say temporarily off air.
When it first started, we called and let them know we'd like it fixed. Instead, they insisted on resetting the box. As you know if you've had to do it, this almost never solves any problem big or small. So when it didn't work, they insisted on resetting it again, then again, then again, until I finally asked them to send out a technician to see what the hell the problem was.
They set up a date and a two hour window for the tech to come out. He never showed. I called, and they said the work order was canceled. I don't know why or how, since I am the only person in this house with the ability or knowledge to do that, and I didn't do it. So they rescheduled. Wouldn't you know, it happened again. Sadly, this didn't shock me one bit. So I finally told them I was canceling everything if they didn't come that day and fix it. Then *poof* technician at my door within the hour.
He checked everything inside and outside of the house, and told me the problem was a weak signal at the outside junction box, and that he would put in a work order for the maintenance team to repair it. I didn't hold my breath. They never showed, as I suspected they wouldn't, and I called again. Same thing - tech showed up, told me the same thing, and amazingly no work crew ever came back to fix it.
This time when I called and raised hell, they told me that no work order was ever put in. Then I pulled out my ace in the hole and informed them that my sister is the regional manager at their office, and I had proof based on my sister looking up my account, that they were blatantly lying to me, and that several work orders had been put in, but that this are has a bad rep for being a pain to do trouble work in, so the lazy crews kept canceling out the work orders instead of doing them. Low and behold, the lady had a different story now and assured me that a crew was being dispatched immediately to fix the problem.
So the crew shows up a few days ago and gets to work. After about 3 hours, they tell me they finished, everything is perfect now, and they left. So as I sit watching tv that night, the picture freezes, the sound goes out, and the blue screen saying temporarily off air appears. I couldn't do anything but laugh. I picked up the phone to call them, and I had no dial tone. So not only did they not fix the tv, but they also managed to screw up the phone.
I was finally done, and decided I was going with Fios. So I call up Verizon, and apparently the neighborhood I live in is on the old GTE network that Verizon bought about 10 years ago, and it isn't Fios ready yet, and they don't know when it will be.
I called my buddy who is an engineer for Verizon, and he looked up some things for me. Apparently in the entire city of Virginia Beach, there are only 84 houses that are not able to get Fios. Mine is one of them, naturally. So I call the sales department, and they offer to give me 225 channels of DirecTV, 2 HD DVR boxes, all premium channels, residential phone service with everything I need, and high speed internet. For $91.90 a month. I was paying $224 per month with Cox for way less.
So I give the go ahead, and Verizon sends me an email saying my phone has been activated. I pick it up, no dial tone. So I call them up and they send a tech out. I currently still have Cox until my cycle runs up in a few weeks, so I still have internet and tv until Verizon does their thing, but they said they cannot install the internet or connect my phone service until next Wednesday.
When I asked why, I loved the answer............."Those retarded halfwits at Cox cut your phone line when they tried to fix your cable." I asked why they have to wait a week, instead of just splicing while they're here. His response, "No my friend, they managed to cut it on the street side of the box." Then we all had a huge laugh and I looked up at the sky waiting for the anvil. FML
