If you've visited my other
site, you have seen my tirade against Best Buy for their terrible customer service and their lying and deal-breaking. Today, I will tell you about my experiences with Adelphia, the cable and ISP company.
Now I had Adelphia provide my digital cable and DSL line for a decent price, until November of 2003, when I received a notice that they were hiking the rates in my region. Now I had signed up for a package that said I was to have digital cable, HBO, and DSL for a set price for 1 year, and my year was not up until March of 2004. I called said company and waited on hold for about 15 minutes, after which some guy in their Pennsylvania call center tells me that my area is no longer competitive and that his company, Adelphia, should still honor our agreement. But there was nothing he could do about it, I had to call my local reps. Great, another half-hour of my life I will never get back.
I call my local center, do my obligatory 15-20 minute hold-the-line and listen-to-shite-music-and-ads until some woman lets me speak to her. After forty minutes I iron out the fact that Adelphia may have made that agreement with me for a year of set prices, but I didn't have any proof and there was no mention of it in my file-how very f-ing convenient. But behind door number two, I am told that I will have to only pay for the price of my digital cable for December and that the DSL will be free. They only ask that I consider keeping the HBO at the increased rate, which I tell them I would do because
Carnivale had three more episodes and my wife and I had to see the finale (I know, it was like crack and I was addicted). In other words, "Yeah, we broke the deal and you're screwed because you can't do anything about it, but here's a little gift-now please go away and remember to give us your money for sub-par customer service and an average product. Buh-bye."
Oh, but it does not end there friends.
I get my stupid bill from the stupid company and the adjustments to the bill are not on there. I call these a-holes again, hold for 15 minutes again, and then have to reiterate the past two conversations I have had with Adelphia, and after another hour of back-and-forth bickering, I am told that although there is no record of this second agreement, they will honor the deal and to send my check in. Again, more time I will never get back, stolen, along with my money, by Adelphia.
And you thought it was all over, didn't you?
Now it is the end of December and I have decided I don't want to pay the rate hike for the HBO and call to cancel it, which is done the minute I say I don't want it anymore. Instantly, my HBO goes blank. Wow, those Adelphia guys sure are at the top of their game when they are taking things away from their customers, aren't they?
Bastards.
So January rolls around and my statement comes and they say I owe them a ton of money, which I don't. By now, like me, you know the drill with the call center and I lose another hour of my life and the bill is settled.
I hate them. I really, really hate them very, very much.
So the mail comes and my wife shows me an ad from another cable and ISP company. And the rates are awesome and we are locked into them for a year. I call new company up and order service, then call old, dirty Adelphia up and tell them I want to cancel my service with them at midnight - so I can check my email and watch TV that night. And of course the idiots screw things up and turn off my service immediately-good day to you sir!
And the moral to this story is don't take crappy service from corporations who are underhanded and don't respect where their livelihood comes from. Use the most powerful weapon you have to fight these jerks - your money!
Oh yeah, and get a blog or soapbox and tell everyone you know or anyone who will listen to you that the lying, cheating corporation gives terrible service and that they should avoid them like the life-sucking bacteria that they are.
There, now I feel better.
