[Vision2020] For Our Time-Warner Cable Subscribers

[Tom Hansen]

>From the Daily Breeze (Los Angeles, California) at:

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_9492719?source=rss_viewed

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L.A. sues Time Warner Cable over shoddy service
By Robert Jablon The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Time Warner Cable Inc. was accused Thursday of lying to Los 
Angeles subscribers and providing shoddy customer service in a lawsuit 
that seeks potentially tens of millions of dollars in fines against the 
city's main provider of cable television. 

"The company has broken multiple laws, and harmed countless Los Angeles 
consumers," City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said in a statement. 

The 25-page court filing accuses Time Warner Cable and its parent, Time 
Warner Inc., of fraudulent acts and business practices. It asks the 
Superior Court to permanently bar the company from engaging in "unlawful, 
unfair and fraudulent business acts and practices and deceptive 
advertising." 

The city also seeks $5,000 in penalties for each violation, which city 
prosecutors contend may number in the thousands. 

The city conservatively estimates the potential fines "in the tens of 
millions" of dollars, city attorney spokesman Nick Velasquez said. 

The suit covers the period from August 2006 to the spring of 2007, after 
Time Warner acquired about a 95 percent share of the city's cable 
television and cable Internet service. The company and Comcast Corp. 
purchased bankrupt Adelphia Communications in 2006. Time Warner then 
swapped cable systems with Comcast. The deals added 480,000 subscribers to 
the 120,000 Time Warner already had and made it the dominant provider in 
Southern California. 

But the takeover also prompted a slew of complaints from customers who 
claimed they got bad service or were billed for services they did not 
receive. 

Time Warner Cable disagrees that it "misled customers in any way," 
spokesman Alex Dudley said from New York. The company had startup service 
problems, but they have eased, he added. 

"Our initial customer services issues are well-documented and we have 
worked incredibly hard to turn those around," he said. "We're now at the 
point where we receive fewer customer service calls per month with our 
nearly 2 million subscribers than we did before the transaction." 

The suit contends Time Warner created ads and brochures guaranteeing that 
customer prices would not be increased but instead removed some channels, 
such as Animal Planet and Turner Classic Movies, from its basic 
subscription package, effectively forcing subscribers to pay more if they 
wanted to receive the same channels. 

The company also billed subscribers for service "that was so intermittent 
and inferior in quality that it was not much better than no service at 
all," the suit claimed. 

In addition, Time Warner violated city standards by keeping consumers 
waiting hours for telephone help and even then some representatives 
were "unknowledgeable and rude," the suit contended. 

Time Warner also violated the city's 24-hour limit for repairing reported 
problems, according to the suit, which claims technicians "consistently" 
arrived late or failed to show at all.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college 
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


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