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This is just getting out of hand. The latest installment of “Cable Company Does Something Awful” comes to us from Orange County, Calif. Time Warner Cable customer Esperanza Martinez recently used Time Warner’s live chat option to address an issue with her cable box. Seems reasonable. I certainly don’t see anything that would warrant Time Warner Cable sending her a letter and addressing her as “Cunt Martinez,” but maybe that’s just me.
The letter weirdly references Martinez’s decision to cancel her service, something that actually didn’t happen. Martinez makes this clear in her email response to Time Warner Cable.
“I am a current Time Warner Cable customer, and I just received a letter today addressed to ‘Cunt’ Martinez (my last name),” she wrote in an e-mail. “It is a letter stating I requested to disconnect my service, which I never did. I have escalated the issue to Time Warner Cable’s Corporate customer service, and was told I will receive a ‘follow up’ call within 48 hours. The only information they could provide was that the name change was made on 2/12/15, which happens to be the same day I used their ‘live chat’ feature online and called in and spoke to a representative regarding an issue with my cable box. I was not upset even when they could not resolve my issue and had to send a technician out. I have no idea why a TWC employee would do this and risk losing their job. It shows what type of companies TWC and Comcast are by the people they hire to represent them.”
Well played. Any time you use a variation of the phrase “escalate the issue” in a customer service email, they’ll know you’re not playing around. Ars Technica reached out to Time Warner and received this response:
“We are truly sorry for the disgraceful treatment of Ms. Martinez and have reached out to her to apologize directly,” a company spokesperson said. “Our investigation showed that this was done by an employee at a third-party vendor. We have terminated our agreement with this vendor and are changing our processes to prevent this from happening again.”
Burned by a third-party vendor. But hey, turns out Time Warner apologized and is giving Martinez a year of free cable and Internet, so there’s that. It’s also worth noting that a potential merger between Time Warner Cable and Comcast, the world’s largest cable provider, is currently being reviewed by the Feds. We all remember the time Comcast changed a customer’s name to “Asshole” on his cable bill. Imagine the possibilities if this merger gets the green light. I predict third-party vendors hand-delivering all bills with a complimentary punch to the groin..
[via Ars Technica]
Image via Shutterstock
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Dave
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For a year of free internet, and cable. They could call me whatever they want.