Colleen Davis of Cookeville writes:

Yesterday I wrote to you in regards to Charter Communications. I wrote:

“I am writing in regards to Charter Communications. I have my cable & my Internet service thru this company. I have always paid my bill on time, I would say I'm a good customer.

“Wed. & I thought due to bad whether that it caused my Internet connection to go down. I called Charter Communications & they said they know that it is down & that they are working on the problem. It was down Thursday, I didn't have time to call, I know a few that did & they were told a hacker had got into the system. Well I get home Friday & I'm on the Internet & it goes down again. I'm really getting frustrated now. I call Friday & I asked if I could get credited for the time that it has been down. I spoke to Angie at this time & she assures me that NO I couldn't get my account credited unless my Internet was down for 24 hours. I asked to speak to her supervisor & she said no one was authorized to issue credit, & wouldn't let me talk to anyone else. What kind of service provider is this? Well Saturday rolls around & guess what, the Internet goes out again. I call & get some lady & she said yes they were experiencing problems state wide, & if I call back Monday they would give me credit. Monday comes & I call only to hear well I don't have any calls of our service being out for 4 days just one & that was Wed. She said that they were having a meeting Dec 9th at 9 am to discuss if giving credit for the one day that it was out, because of the amount of complaints. How can they say it was down only one day & how can they get away with not crediting someone for services not received? I (we) pay for 24/7 connection. The prices have gone up $40 dollars this year & I hear they are going up another $20 the first of the year. How is this legal? Is there no stopping this kind of capitalism? I am going to look into other resources because I have had it. There should be some kind of cap on this & they should have to credit an account if services are not provided. After all who wants to pay for something they didn't get. I can just see everyone lining up & paying for an empty tank of gas, yeah right. I know you are not in charge of the cable company. I am just writing to you because I don't know who else to talk to, to get something done about this. It's obvious that it is useless to talk to the cable company themselves. What can be done about this & whom do I need to talk to about this? One of many fed up Charter Communications customers. Well I called them back today & I spoke with Angie again & she still says they will not issue a credit unless the service has been down for 24 hours. Well I guess nobody cares, & everybody loves to be ripped off because out of The Herald Citizen, The Tennessean, Channel 2, 4, & 5, Fred Thompson, Bart Gordon, & a few others I had no response. The Putnam Pit did reply & say they would print it, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm glad that everyone is so happy with Charter Communications if they have it. No wonder people don't get involved anymore, because it doesn't get you anywhere when you do. I guess that is the American way, just ignore the problem & it will go away. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to do absolutely nothing & thinking nothing of this letter.

Later:

By the way I called back & spoke to Angie again & she said if the Internet hadn't been down for 24 hours they will not give credit. So for 4 days while it was on & off I paid for those days & didn't receive service. I know they will be down from time to time but at least credit the customers for what they didn't receive. --

Colleen Davis, Cookeville