Road Runner Runs Off The Road Again

I decided to call up Time Warner Cable again this morning (I know, I am a glutton for punishment) to see if I could find out anything more about the Road Runner Cable Internet service I had been offered. Thing just got worse.

I got hold of a customer service representative who quickly realized she could not help me with my problem so she switched me to a supervisor. The supervisor, after checking my records, at least knew about the service that I had been offered, but again said they had no provision for actually mailing out a self-install package and that I would either have to go to a service center and pick up the package or have a technician come to my house and install it. She said she would transfer me to an internet specialist to help me decide what to do. You guessed it, after being put on hold for a few minutes I was back at the main menu.

I decided to give it one more shot and got another customer service person who, again, informed me that Time Warner Cable did not, despite what I was told on the phone, send out self-install packages. Interestingly, however, she said there was a note placed on my file on Tuesday indicating that a modem had, in fact, been sent out. She said she didn't know how it got there though, that maybe "the computer just put it there."

The end result, however, seems to be that Time Warner Cable sub-contracted with a telemarketer who, apparently, didn't know that what they were offering wasn't available (even though I was told they worked from a script provided by Time Warner Cable). Again, I was told that the only way to get a self-install kit was to go to a service center and pick one up. I said that if I was Time Warner Cable and told someone they would have one delivered I would send someone out with one. She said she would check to see if that was possible. After being put on hold again for a few minutes I was told that if someone came out to my house with a self-install kit they would have to install it. Why the customer service center couldn't just send one out via DHL or something, I do not know.

I was on the phone with this last customer service person for almost half an hour and was finally told that neither she nor anyone else at Time Warner Cable could help me out. That what I wanted, and what I was told I would get over the telephone, simply wasn't available.

And so ends the sad story of The Road Runner.