Hey cable company, get your shit together.
I waited for your sub-contractor to get to my place to hook up my cable. It was my birthday… But I couldn’t go anywhere, because you’re dicks. 12-6.
I called, and complained. You told me to fuck off in a very rude manor, and called me a liar for saying the guy did not show up.
He had said he came by, knocked on the door, and left a note.
No note, No footprints in the snow from the night before, and no knock…. I didn’t budge more than 20 feet from that spot for more than 1 minute all day. Fearing such a catastrophe. – Of course YOUR tech must be right.
You say you’ll call back tomorrow with more information. ..- You don’t.
You wanted to install my cable on the afternoon of Christmas Eve as the next available date. How did you know!? I will absolutely make time on Christmas Eve away from my family for your cable guy. WHO LIKELY WOULDN’T SHOW UP.. I’m very glad I rejected your offer. Jerks.
The next available day was the 27th. Guess, what. Your cable guy fucked off again. This time I was given a window of between 8am and 6pm. Wow. Another day of work gone, Another blunder. – I call to complain again. Your customer service department blows. Hold for 45 minutes and then a “sorry there’s nothing we can do”. Well there’s nothing I can do to keep your company from being giant assholes either I suppose.
Anyone keeping track? $250 missed from 2 days of work.
I work in the IT industry. Let me pick up that cable box and do it myself. Retards.
We re-schedule for the 30th. After you are rude again. Wow, you really don’t care about customers do you?
You call me the next day, saying there was a mix up in paperwork and you’re not sorry, but you’d like to move my day ahead to the 29th. You ask if this makes up for the inconvenience… Let’s see.. Another day of work I’ll have to miss.
Finally, your installer came. He was a decent guy. You’re a fucking shady company. Be ashamed of yourselves. Do you think offering me 1 month of free theme packs justifies $375 lost during the holiday season?
Get over yourselves. You screwed me more than twice. This is unacceptable. If my house wasn’t already wired with an external box., you can bet I’d be going with the other company by now.
— Frustrated Beyond Belief
This article appears in Dec 31, 2009 – Jan 6, 2010.
Eastlink is the WORST, you just wait, this is only the beginning!!
I thought all IT guys just hooked up their own cable…and their friends for a one time fee of $50 or $100…..that’s what I thought anyway…..oh no wait, that’s what I know!! Dummy, if the box was already there all you have to do is remove the nut…or something like that! (-:
The exact same thing happened to me (twice, actually!). Most recently, my husband took the afternoon off work to get digital cable “installed” (ha, there’s absolutely nothing to installing and anyone can call in the activation number). He waited all afternoon…no knock on the door, no doorbell ringing, nadda. So he calls to see what’s up. They claim the technician WAS there (but obviously) have no proof. My husband gets the run-around (to say the least), and becomes quite angry.
The entire story is rather long and exhausting (not to mention frustrating), but I did manage to get them to “authorize” me to contact an independent contactor who books actual appointments. He was there the same day I called him. Also managed to weasel out free (basic) digital cable for a year, free DVR for 6 months, and (nearly) all the channels free for 3 months.
Super frustrating, though. And even more frustrating? Their “competition” isn’t any better.
I would have scheduled this for any other day BUT my birthday to ensure nothing ruined the plans for my day.
I had the same problem with these fucking dickwads when I lived in an apartment building. They told me they would come between 8 and 6 so I took the day off work. Now I only had a one bedroom apartment so it is not like I would not hear them knock (they also did not buzz me to get in since we have a security building). I sat there all day, not 10 feet from the door. No knock. I called them at 6 and they told me that the guy had been by and there was no one home. They said that they left a “door knocker”. I go look on my door when I am talking to her and alas, no door knocker. DUmb bitch gets pissed and says “Well someone must have stolen it”. Yes I am sure you are right I say. There must be a ton of seniors in my building just looking to get their hands on an Eastlink door knocker.
You would think if they want your business they would be a little more accommodating than “between 8am and 6pm”. You should tell them you stopped by to pay the cable bill but no one was home so you left the cheque on the doorknob…but if you didn’t get it, someone must have stolen it.
The same thing happened to me, so I wrote them a three page letter (not an e-mail) detailing my problem with them. I also requested a year’s worth of free service for the frustration. I knew I would not get a year of service for free, but I wanted more than the $20 credit they gave me the last time the fucked up. After a month, they did write me back (I specifically gave them 30 days to reply or I would send another letter) and offered me three months free service. I was happy with that.
Know what’s fun?
Order their internet and get basic cable for free!
They won’t tell you that, but just run a splitter from the modem.
Celebrating 8 years of free cable.
Fuck you Eastlink.
eastlink sucks fat cocks, matt luthor i am doing that as of tomorrow.
I know someone who does that too, ML: but they get more than basic cable 😀
I dumped EL three years ago and couldn’t be happier with aliant. They even called me over the xmas season to offer a discount on my services! And when my PVR was fucking up after they upgraded the box to record more than one thing at a time they had a tech out in two days (on a sunday) — and that was after they did a remote reboot and called on the saturday to check thing out (kind of like a “let’s try this from our end. if it doesn’t work we’ll have a tech out the next day” thing).
And whenever they do come over to do work on my system (they installed the lobby camera on my tv, and then when they fixed my PVR and another time when the box in one of the other rooms wasn’t working) they make sure I have the best cables installed. Last time they put HD cables in, and even though I don’t subscribe to HD the picture with these new cables is AMAZING on my plasma.
Plus, I get free long distance within NS with my package and they upgraded the internet speeds to ultra without charging us for ultra. And my building gets a 10% discount on aliant services.
Aliant used to suck ass before, but they’ve really stepped up their game over the past few years.
Any dealing with EL I’ve had involved long ass wait times for techs to come fix my shit, refusal to give me a student rate when I was a student (because I didn’t disconnect over the summer I had to pay full rates — I told them ‘so, someone who disconnected service and DIDN’T pay you gets a discount, and loyal customers get fuck all?’ and they pretty much said “yup.” They DID offer the discount when I said I was going to aliant, but after getting a notice in my building about a great 1-year deal with aliant I went with them and have no intentions of ever going back to EL, and in fact, even with the hike to regular prices, Aliant is cheaper!).
Oh and with Aliant you don’t HAVE to buy your own router. Their wireless modem is pretty nifty 🙂
Folks, they’re not called WeStink for nothing. I’m not even a customer and had this experience with them a few years back: http://www.halifaxlive.com/content/view/72…
We switched to Eastlink a few years ago and we find Eastlink to be alot cheaper than Aliant. The guy came and hooked it up for us and he was on time. Excellent service.
Eastlink was a disaster for me. They over billed me and when I called them they didn’t take the amount of my bill….They added it on (twice) and overbilled me 3 times. I had to make a lot of noise to get that fixed.
I had a basic cable package which is 20 dollars a month. $20 + $20 + $20 = $60 for 3 months of cable service not $240 AHHHHH
Never had a problem with Eastlink.
PK: I absolutely agree with everything you posted. But let me offer another option: Get high speed internet and use a program called GrabIt and then download everything for free. It is alot like torrents but it doesn’t get traffic shaped…it is extremely fast to DL an entire season (start the DL and go to bed…next day you have several seasons worth of viewing pleasure). Plus as long as you don’t distribute what you have downloaded…you are not breaking the law as it is presently written.
Never had an issue with Eastlink in over 10 years of service. When I moved in August, they were here on the day of and they told me the hook up would take place between 10 and 12. There were here at 10:15; and gone by 10:45.
As an aside PK, those routers are crap… they’re barely serviceable and as well they’re easily hacked.
Eastlink did the same to me as the OP stated.. said they’d be by and didn’t come. Then rescheduled almost a week later and did the same thing. My room mate saw the van outside in the parking lot and asked them if they were coming in (but they were apparently there for someone else).
Some poor girl was so good to me on the phone. I wasn’t rude to her because I’ve been in that situation. She said she’d have someone call me to let me know if they could fit me in the next day as I’d been stood up twice.
No one called me.
At this point I went apeshit on the next CSR I got (mostly because she was a useless twat) and within the hour a manager called me and offered me 15% off my bill for a year. That’s the only reason I stayed with them. Other than that I’ve had no complaints, other than the increases in price. 4 years ago I was paying 65 dollars a month for internet/basic cable/phone and now I SHOULD be paying 115. wtf?
Switched to satellite (Shaw Direct) this past summer. Saving $30 a month, getting more channels (in HD too) and their service is much better.
@Dr.Fever: Not if you set up your wifi correctly (stop it from actively broadcasting is the easiest way to remove 80-90% of the risk) and use the right security encryption, they can still be compromised eventually just like any of the wireless security protocols but it takes specific software and more time than it’s worth honestly…especially when at least one other person in the immediate area will be broadcasting with an unsecured wifi.
You can also bait wifi internet theives into accessing an unsecured wifi network connected to a PC that has no internet connection and hosts a variety of botnet installers etc.
Years back I did a stint as an Internet CSR for a large unnamed central Canadian ISP. They like sticking their call centres in Atlantic Canada because they can hire people to work lousy hours at a shitty job for much less money than in Ontario…but I digress. Anyway, what all CSRs for *all* ISPs discover real fast is the Ten-Percent Rule: ten percent of all customers are clueless twits, ten percent of all phone reps are arrogant incompetent assholes, and ten percent of all installers are unreliable. I’ll say no more about the phone reps or the customers, except to point out that no single group is blameless in this equation.
Having said that, you do have some installers – not many, but some – who make life worse for everyone else. They install equipment where the homeowner or apartment dweller didn’t want it, they offend customers, or they fuck off on a call and lie about having shown up or having phoned ahead. Here’s the thing: *all* ISPs have these guys. They are a fact of life. And don’t expect a CSR to take your word for it that the dude never showed up – they are being monitored and if they agree with a customer on a matter like this, their job is in jeopardy. The ISP is going to defend their reputation, even if later on they do an internal investigation and fire the installer.
Personally I’ve had good experiences with both Aliant and Eastlink. Sooner or later, with one or the other, I’ll have a bad experience. Fact of life.