Charter Digital Communications

I have recently ordered Charter Cable in February 2013. I cannot get any satellite services due to trees in my neighborhood. Charter has a monopoly on the 91 730 area, as Verizon, ATT, Fios and Time Warner cannot offer digital cable in this zip code. I’ve talked to other peers in the area and they are also displeased with the Charter service. This feels unconstitutional for these corporations to be able to each serve a selective area, so they all can make profit. They don’t offer any choice and each of them charge double the price of a satellite dish. Prices for a basic package for more than one TV exceed $ 125 per month. This is an unethical business practice and deserves an investigation.
Since I started I received 2 Scientific Atlantic cable boxes that shut down daily, in between Television and Recorded shows. Each box takes 20 to 30 minutes to start. The cable boxes were tiling (which is making box shape characters). They sent me these boxes KNOWING they didn’t work properly. They brought me a product that did not work.
In April I had made a choice to change the boxes, since I had time to stay home for a technician to come to the house (since I work during their technician hours, it took me a month to have the day off) with these cable boxes, that obviously had technical issues. The technician that came to the house stated, that they are not allowed to give the old model Scientific Atlantic boxes to new customers. He tested the boxes and they didn’t work properly. My bet, is they sent these boxes to another Family, which deserves an investigation. Selling products that do not work, I would imagine is illegal.
Now, back to the phone call; before the technician came. When I called, I specifically asked not to bring anymore Scientific Atlantic boxes. They advertised a new box that records up to 4 shows. BBB if you call you will here this advertisement. I asked to bring the new model Motorola boxes in with the new order, and the Charter representative gave approval.
The new boxes I received, and installed recorded two shows (not the advertised, 4 shows). And I received Sisco boxes (made by Scientific Atlantic). These new cable boxes had the same technical issues.
I called Charter, the next day. I received a Representative, that was challenging to understand due to loud music playing and people very loud in the background. I asked him If he could turn off the music, so I could here him. He apologized by saying his co worker is having a birthday and the request was denied. I asked to speak to a manager, but he said there was none available. He would have someone call me the next day. I called billing and they said there was nothing they could do, but only offer a 20 dollar discount (at this point I was on the phone for 57 minutes). They also said they would have a manager call in the morning.
A manager called at 7 am, and left a message on my answering machine, saying «I can give you, a 40 dollar discount, that’s all I can do, bye.» It was very rude and there were was no call back number. I called Charter in the morning on my way to work at 745 am. I was on hold for 30 minutes, I asked for a manager, again they said there is no manager available and they would call me back, It’s two days later and I haven’t received a call back. At this point I asked for a full refund from since I started services in February and installation fees.
I would prefer to be able to talk to a trained manager, which doesn’t appear to exist at Charter. I would also like their to be another digital company available in the area. This a monopoly and not fair to exploit them with awful outsourced service and double prices. They take advantage of people in the area and deserve to be shut down or give consumers an option. They are misleading consumers about products they don’t have and managers that don’t exist. They are deceitful and operate with greed.
Thank you,
Daniel Egge