I am back! I have Internet access at home again!!!

Sorry for the long absense… I’m back online – This post describes all the bloody details of dealing with Time Warner Cable’s customer service. It’s a rant. You can skip it if you like. But, this is the second time the process was this rocky and I suspect it won’t be the last time… The only good thing we can say is that they are VERY good at appologizing, they offer credit for down time readily and when you get their support reps to your house with the needed equipment, the service is good and the people are polite and compent.

It took Time Warner Cable let’s see….

1 appointment? Nope! That appointment was canceled by them when my wife was checking the mail with out her cell phone and calling TWC back within 5 minutes of the original call counted for nothing. – They are supposed to call 3 times.

2. appointments? Nope! A very angry call from me to a support rep had gotten them to schedule another visit the same day as the first – or at least that’s what I was told.  This person never showed up and the person I spoke to did not record that I’d even called because she thought it was all taken care of. 

3. appointments? Nope! A nice competent worker showed up at the end of the day when he didn’t have enough supplies to correct the problem.  The problem?   The last time they had been to my place to bury the cable line (they didn’t want to have it running through the air because ladders were difficult on my side hill) they most likely knicked the line.  That experience involved many appointments and no records that I’d called and left complaints.

4. appointments? Nope!  Though scheduled for the next day, it seems my job was never given to the contractor.  I got a full months credit out of that call to their support department.

5. appointments? Nope!   The late in the day scheduling – and we SHOULD have been first thing in the morning after all this – meant that thuderstorms had rolled in…  I can’t blame the guy for not wanting to go up the pole with lightning around…

6. appointments?  Almost…  A local contractor came out and re-ran the line.  I like that they are using local small business contractors.

7. appointments?  Maybe…. They have to schedule at least one more visit because the person that ran the line could not bury it.  At least I have the Internet back…  until a squirrel chews through the line tomorrow… 😉

As annoying as it was for me – not having reliable cable internet since July 1, it has been triply so for Denise as for EVERY day except for the 1th and 6th  appointment, she was obligated to constantly be on guard from 8am-8pm for a call from Time Warner knowing that any the 5th ring, could mean another blown appointment.  Additionally, the contractors are not obligated to call… So, she was expected to remain home all day long.  A nice half a month there…

Anyway, I’ll clean up the stuff I’ve been building up for posts and hopefully get something tech related out tomorrow (God willing and the Squirrels don’t arise…).  I’m pretty sure the first thing will be another context menu tool for use in IE.  Then a Xampp tip, another IE tool and by that time I should have some neat Delphi stuff ready for anyone who uses 1and1.com and wants to use their URL for dynamic DNS serving…  Hmmm I should probably make a post of the manual way to do DynDNS through road runner first…. 

Anyway, all that is coming…