An Open Letter to Time Warner Cable

Dear Time Warner Cable,
I have been a loyal customer for three years. Before that, I grew up in a home that had TWC. I reveled in the glory of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. But during all these years of on-time payments and loyal patronage, you seem to have forgotten that it's not a good idea to annoy your customers to the brink of insanity. I always thought that was common sense.

If I were to go into detail about all the reasons that your company makes me want to throw my television at your metaphorical head, we'd be here quite a while. So let's just hit the major points and end with the incident that brings us to this point.

First, who the heck does your marketing? And why do you continue to pay them? Sometimes I have to wonder if the people developing your commercials are going for the small-town kitschy feel, but accidentally end up making commercials that are so fake, so cheap looking and so lacking of any creativity whatsoever, they make me wonder what I did to deserve such drivel. Seriously, tell them to stop trying to be cute, clever or funny and just tell us about your services. It's not that hard. And stop trying to make up catchy jingles that are really just ripoffs of that free credit report guy.

Speaking of your service, how about not making it crappy? Why is it that I can be one room away from my wireless router, but trying to check my email is like an Olympic event in patience? You call your internet service Roadrunner, and yet if the cartoon Roadrunner of Looney Tunes fame had been as ingratiatingly slow as your internet, the coyote would have eaten the bird in the first two seconds of the first cartoon.

Also, why do you insist on reconfiguring or updating or whatever the heck you do in the middle of the evening when everyone is watching TV? I know you obviously don't care that much about the convenience and happiness of your customers, but making it impossible to watch TV just shows horrible business sense.

Now, let's talk about your billing. Whenever I wanted to pay my bill online (and save your blasted company money on paper bills), I had to click through 14 pages just to log in and see my account. When I go to a website and indicate that I want to pay my bill by clicking on a "pay bill" button, it would make life a lot easier if doing so actually resulted in my being able to (...wait for it...) pay my bill. Don't make me continuously click button after button just so I can pay it. Did you not understand me the first time I clicked to indicate I wanted to pay? Let me get it over with and hand over my money for your horrible cable and internet service.

Now we come to the big finish. I moved this weekend and had to disconnect service. That meant I had to return the DVR, cable modem and the 3,405 wires that come with these. Since I was moving to Greensboro from Raleigh, I thought to myself: "Hey, I'll make life easier and just return this stuff in Greensboro. SURELY a company that provides internet service will be able to use said internet to connect all their customer information!"

But no. You don't. I waited in line for 20 minutes just to find out that Greensboro doesn't have access to my account information. I have to drive back to Raleigh to return everything.

Let's just pause and let the sheer stupidity of this sink in.

Now let's recap: A company that provides internet service doesn't have the capacity to allow their customers to return their equipment outside the original city it came from. You'd think that sometime in the last 10 years during the internet boom, a company would have found a way to display all sorts of information from all over the world in one place. Oh wait--that's the whole point of the internet. The internet that you provide.

You know what, I could go on and on about why your company drives me nuts. I could write 1,000 words laced with sarcasm on why I want satellite instead of cable. But I'll abstain.

Yours sincerely,
Tiffany

PS You might be wondering, "Hey Tiffany, stop complaining and get cable from another company!" Oh, if wishing made it so. Time Warner is the only local provider.