Cablevision

I simply can’t stand it anymore: probably the worst account management website I’ve ever tried to use. I just spent 45 minutes trying to add my wife’s iPad Pro for automatic Optimum Online WiFi login and — despite my 25 years of IT experience — all my efforts were thwarted by this productivity blackhole they call a website. It seems Cablevision is now charging $ 9.99 a month for «renting» a Arris modem which one can purchase on eBay for as little $ 65.00. I made several phone calls to Cablevision this week to try and make some changes to my account and was flabbergasted by the lack of knowledge of the sales people I spoke with. One guy I spoke with actually sounded hostile to me… so I decided to visit one of their stores to get the information I needed… the lady was very nice, but even more clueless than the people I spoke with on the phone. I’ve been a Cablevision customer for 15 years but I simply can’t stand it any more. I’m going to take a look at Verizon FIOS. Only gave them a 2^nd star because everyone deserves a break although this company has never given me a break.

I am amazed at the fact this company is still in business and they can get away with the prices they charged. A lot of it has to do with the fact that there are people that are not internet savvy. Presently you can pay Verizon Fios $ 29 per month and can have internet and if you buy Apple TV you can get pretty much any channel you want; NBC ABC CBS. With an iPhone you can download any of their apps and stream them to your TV. I prefer it this way so I watch what I want rather than sitting there waiting what they will show me next.
Cablevision puts this bulky box in your living room that they value at $ 282.00 (comical really/​
stone age stuff) for the first year as a welcome mat they charge you 99.99 for TV Wifi and telephone, in today’s age that is highway robbery and after the year is up you can wind up paying 180 per month.
As people become more and more savvy with internet, the customers will disappear.
I am off Cablevison/​Optimum online and I am happy.

TV service is fair. Internet is poor (frequent performance issues). Customer service, although improved in recent years, still is poor. Fees are high and usually go up each year. Typical oligopoly and all that is implied. If I could get rid of them, I would.

The internet and phone service is great and reliable. But they are constantly raising prices, even when you’ve signed up for their triple play. And they add channels that are of no use to me, including those in various languages that I don’t speak. Fortunately, they no longer have a monopoly on the business, so you can always switch, or threaten to.

We contacted Cablevision after not receiving service for days following getting our electric. Trying to contact them was quiet the ordeal. First of all, their phone number for our area was constantly busy. There was no notice from cablevision as to why. As a business owner myself, when the storm hit and we lost power, we found a way to communicate to our customers that we had no power and stayed in communication with them throughout. No effort like this came from cablevision. Mind you we did not consider trying to reach them until over a week after the storm had passed. We understood the extreme circumstances we were all in. But after awhile, you would think some effort would have been put forth.
After we had power restored at our business (which cablevision has our phone, internet and television service for), we used our home service to go online to look for any alternate phone numbers to reach cablevision ANYWHERE. After logging in our account, we saw a note sent the day before we logged in, apologizing for the outage and a toll free number to reach them. We were excited and called immediately. The excitement waned immediately.
After waiting over a half hour for anyone to come to the phone, I spoke to a less than enthused employee at cablevision who, after I told her that all 3 services (phone, internet, television) were not working, chose to focus on the television, asking me to follow a procedure I, as a customer had done several times already. After trying to explain to her that I had done this already, I attempted to cooperate with here and I did the procedure with no success. She then told me that services were out in our area but that technicians were in our area working on the problem. I advised her I drove the whole neighborhood and there were no reps anywhere to be found. I asked her if she had any idea when someone might be working on our area, she claimed not to know and seemed less than caring about. At this point I got angry. I advised her that compassion is very little to ask and that she was not showing any empathy towards our situation. I also advised her that we would let people know what was happening and that while it might not affect her job now, it
would when less people subscribed to Cablevision.
She didn’t care and showed it by her lack of enthusiasm or effort to try to research the situation. I hung up very angry and beginning to look for other options.
It is my experience that a good way to solve these issues is to send a letter to the company customer relations department. This is what I did. Below is a copy of the letter which states:
«We started an account with you based upon what we thought was a reliable service. We have patiently waited for our services to be restored to our business. Unfortunately:
1) no cablevision trucks have been cited in our area
2) little or no communication has been forthcoming from you
3) your phone number 364‑8400 is constantly busy.
Lack of communication is totally unfair to us. Our phone, internet and television services are all with you. As a business, we are having problems with OUR customers due to your lack of communication.
At this time we are considering getting another service. Our business is not the only ones considering this. All the businesses on our block are experiencing the same issues with you.
We have full power and no service. This is our last ditch effort to begin communication with you. It is our hope that you will find this email important enough to reach out to us and let us know what is going on. A busy phone or no communication does not inspire confidence.»
After sending this letter, the customer relations department emailed me to state that service was on in our area and that calling them would be the way to get our service turned on. Since we had such trouble trying to call them previously, I sent an email with my phone number and asked if they could call me (anytime of night or day) asap so that I could go down to our business (3 minutes away) and go thru the procedure with them. I kept my phone near my bed for the rest of the night waiting. Thank goodness I wasn’t holding my breath… NO CALL (surprise, surprise). I went to my computer the next morning to see an email reply from them stating the following:
«Due to the limitations of Email Support, you will need to contact us by phone or chat to look into this further. «
Did I ask for Email support? Frustrated but needing to get service back for my customers, I called them and the technician determined that THEY HAD TO SEND SOMEONE OUT TO US TO WORK ON THE PROBLEM!
We have finally received our service but the whole incident sequence has left a bad taste in my mouth. At this time we are actively looking for a replacement for Cablevision. They have already lost most of our home service to Directv. It looks as if our business may go that way too…

This has to be one of the least customer friendly companies in the entire world! There prices are among the highest in the country and there service reps have little to no ability to resolve any issues. I have just switched to Fios after many years and I pay ALOT less for more channels!

In march of 2010 i wanted to cancel the phone service one of the triple play services. I was forwarded to the cancellation department where the rep told me instead of cancelling my phone they will give me a discounted promotional rate of $ 139/​month. During the conversation the rep never told me that the offer will end or the date it will expire. He made me believe that as long as i have the triple play package $ 139 would be my permanent price. When i looked at my invoice today cablevision increased my price without me knowing, and in the month of march they charged my account instead of $ 139 regular price, they charged $ 256. And added additional $ 15 per month afterwards. When i called the cablevision company they told me that the rep is not obligated to tell me the terms and conditions of the promotion and since im doing autopay they are not responsible to notify me of any increases in my price of service but rather i have to login to my e-​account to look for changes myself. This is a ridicules claim for a company such as cablevision. They should be ashamed of their practices.

We had them for many years. Reliable. If you have issues/​questions, they help in a friendly manner. Efficient. Good experience.