The tale of the Road Runner

Poughkeepsie, NY - I never thought it would be so difficult to give acompany money for its product or service. I can confidently say that it took my girlfriend Felice and I a solid two days to set up cable service for the price we were quoted. Don’t believe me? Well, here’s a story for you:

• Monday: Felice looks up the phone numbers for Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Verizon. She gets a quote from each. Cablevision wins at $82 per month for TV and internet. We set up appointment for the next Monday.
• Tuesday: Cablevision calls Felice three times to confirm the appointment. She tells them to stop calling and take her off the list.
• Wednesday: Cablevision calls. Felice screams. They appologize and say the computer dials everyone automatically, they can’t help it.
• Saturday: The guy from Cablevision comes. He walks up to the side of the house and says, “Sorry I can’t service this. Your area is not Cablevision. Sorry.”

We called Cablevision and they insisted that our house is not in their service area. They had no explaination how we set up an appointment in the first place. We called Time Warner after that. They also said that we are not in their service area. Felice and I were at a loss.

More screaming ensued. Time Warner finally realized that they typed our address wrong in their computer. I guess we

were talking to a bunch of idiots.  Not just any idiots. as it turns out. We were talking to a company called “Buy Time Warner Cable.” Apparently they are a call center that fowards calls to the real Time Warner and get the information wrong half the time. After two more  days of yelling, we finally got an appointment for cable hook up for the price we were originally quoted. I have no idea why each Time Warner call center has different prices. Here’s my advice:

If you need to get cable service, call several times to find the cheapest price. I was quoted between $84 – $130 for the exact same cable serivce from  Time Warner Cable alone.

The best part of the whole ordeal was when the guy came to hook it up. Why was it my favorite day? Because I got to spend it with our very own eastcoastpaperboy as we painted my apartment next door.

- couchcast