dukeMedia

I bought my first TiVo series 3/HD a couple of months ago. When I called Time Warner Cable, to order the Cablecards, the “Customer Service” drone told me that “Cablecards do not work with HD”. After a little poking around on the web, I figured out that this was simply not true. It might seem kind of obvious, but looking on the TiVo site, to make sure that a HD/Cablecard works with HD was a bit of an exercise in frustration.

Finally, I figured it out on some discussion boards (they work just fine, save VOD), and called TWC back and scheduled an appointment. Installation was a breeze.

Last week I got another Series 3/HD and called for an install. The Moxi box that I am replacing is SLOW, noisy, and runs HOT. (I don’t fault the Moxi software, the box is just completely underpowered and poorly designed).

Anyway, I had a sneaking suspicion when I made the appointment that something would go wrong. Call it “Cablecard paranoia”, but I just think TWC thinks it’s in their best interest to mess with Cablecard users.

First however, I was pleasantly surprised, when they offered me a time-window for the installation (something that has never happened to me in my Cable TV past). But it all went south from there.

My family was at home at the appointed hour, and once the window had open and closed, I called TWC. The CSR told me that the installer had been trying to contact me, except that my phone had not rung, there was no voicemail, my callerID log showed no calls, and I was within 10 feet of my front door for the entire time.

I told the CSR that I was at home, waiting for the call, and there was no problems with my phone line. I was told that the installer would be there shortly.

An hour later, I called back, and was told that the installer “could not contact me, and could not access my building”. I was not happy. After waiting another 20 minutes to talk to a supervisor, I was offered $20 as recompense for my time and told that it was “too late to request a ‘go back’”, and that my install had to be rescheduled for another day.

My question is this… does anyone else out there have similar stories? Am I just being paranoid, or does requesting a Cablecard automatically trip some kind of corporate “dirty tricks”. I know that the Telco’s did a pretty good job screwing independent DSL service providers by delivering such a low level of support that many customers just blamed the service provider and found Broadband in other ways.

What do you think?