AT&T serves San Gabriel. But I want to talk about TimeWarnerCable. A good friend has TimeWarnerCable internet service. He finds the service to his satisfaction, but recently his internet has been down so he called TimeWarnerCable customer service. The number he called is off shore. He said that the operators sound like they are from the Phillipines. Okay. I pointed out that there are lots of Phillipine people in high professions--doctors, lawyers, teachers, and international trade, business, and government. I told him that he should have received good service. And he agreed. But that's not what he got from TimeWarnerCable. He told me the reps didn't listen to him, said that they just followed a script and had only gotten that script into their heads. I asked him if he asked for their supervisors, that sometimes that can make things move along. He said no, that he actually hung up on them. Ouch!!
So I asked what did you do to get your internet back up? He said he called the customer service two more times to see if he could get a different representative. He did. Same results. The TimeWarnerCable trainees just don't listen to customer descriptions or concerns. Odd, I thought. Then he found online a brick and mortar TimeWarnerCable store where they service TimeWarnerCable customers exclusively. I thought nice! AT&T has stores, but most are phone stores. They don't provide customer support for any other services. But anyway my good friend drove over to the brick and mortar store. The representative there was very helpful and went ahead and scheduled "a courtesy service call." That's where they come out for free and fix your network or check for things that aren't working. The service was to be performed the following day at eight in the morning. And lo and behold, the TimeWarnerCable guy showed up at 8am. My friend opened the door, listened to the identifying call by the cable guy, opened the door wider and allowed him in. He didn't see the cable guy's name on his shirt. He saw the company name, "TimeWarnerCable." The cable guy was a tall, lean Mexican man. He wore a long-sleeve shirt. It covered an arm tattoo. He explained the young man knew his stuff, went to work, identified and solved the problems, he signed the electronic receipt and was out of there in 20 minutes. Thank yous went back and forth, and the TimeWarnerCable guy was gone. "Wait, what was his name?" thought my friend as the TimeWarnerCable van drove down the street. The guy didn't leave a card. He didn't identify his name. My friend is a bit older and his hearing is compromised. Upon reflection, my friend got worried. A guy came into his house, hooked some electronic gadget up to his computer to get all sorts of information, asked him to sign one of those delivery electronic handhelds and was gone. No name. No phone. No follow-up. Nothing. In fact, instead of his initial gratitude for the courtesy visit, something came over him when he realized that the guy could be from anywhere. My friend did say that the young man's office was out of City of Industry at Turnbull Canyon and Salt Lake Avenue. My friend actually wanted to record somewhere what great service the anonymous young man provided. But my friend was without a phone number, without a name, without an address, and without any paper or digital record of the guy having been to his house and completed service. I told him to drive back to the brick and mortar store and get answers there. I don't know if he got answers, but he did get information. He got the young man's name. He got the City of Industry office address, and the lovely woman at the store printed him up a paper copy of the work. All the work was described in code and shorthand, which to my friend was meaningless, so he still feels violated in that TimeWarnerCable came to his house, hooked up some USB cable, got data--how much he doesn't know--and left. I thought it was sad that a man and company representative can show up and leave with the customer feeling like he'd just done business with a ghost. My friend even questioned the lady at the store "Why do you guys provide free service?" adding that "there are no free-lunches." He explained that ". . . if you're giving me something for free, then you must be taking something from me in secret." The woman was taken aback. But I understood what he meant. In today's climate of internet surveillance, hackers, credit and debit card information being hijacked at Target, now customers open the doors to strangers who don't identify themselves and who hook cables up to computers that contain private information, ask the customer to sign an electronic tablet without explaining what he's signing, and leave. It's like hijacking your system. My friend is a bit trusting. TimeWarnerCable is not mom and pop. It never was. It's corporate America which is fascist America.
