Charter

Charter Unethical Promotions and horrible HD picture quality Internet, Nationwide

12th of Jun, 2011 by User827607

My complain is 5 fold...so please bear with me. First off, Charter is the only cable provider for our rural township (have contract with the twp so no others can come in) But charter only runs cable where they can make the most profit, so leaving out a good chunk of the town. The cable coming down my street ends at my next door neighbors house, charter never ran it any further, they told us flat out cause their expenses did not justify bringing it to one last house.
So finally about a decade of having dial up internet we finally surrender and PAY them to run the line to our house. We paid $1200. It took them over a month to finally run the line and all they had to do is extend it to one more pole, very simple and I have no idea why or how it could cost $1200. But yet they are getting millions by the Gov't/taxpayers to extend the lines in rural communities, but yet are not doing it and then if they do charging the customers full price for it anyway!
We ordered basic cable with HD/DVR and regular basic broadband internet. Were told our bill would run about $100 a month after taxes, fees, ect.(no contract price, dont want one!) And that the $60 COD they collected during installation would go towards our first bill. (so expecting about a $40 bill for the first month)
Then the tech installing says he does not have time to wire all our rooms, and sends out a 2nd tech a few days later but said we will have to pay for that installation (even though it was not our fault) 2nd tech comes out and waives the intall fee after we confront Charter on that. 2nd....We turn the cable TV on (with HD box) and the quality of the HD is horrible, and the quality of the standard definition channels look like I am watching TV from 1980 (on my state of the art HD plasma) and the HD does not even look HD at all but is just a tad better then the standard Definition channels. How come I can watch HD programming (through netflix) through charters internet connection and the picture is fine, but yet the cable TV with a HD receiver does not have that quality?!?!?(yes its plugged in with a HDMI cord) Does not make any sense to me and I am paying extra for HD and the HD receiver, but for nothing!!!
We had a satellite before this with the same tv, and the HD was WAY better and had way more HD channels (should have kept the satellite for TV!) I dont know why Charter can even charge for "HD" when its not HD at all!!!!! 3rd....Closed captions, Charter when you call have no idea how to turn them on for our box and say there is no way to turn it on, there is nothing in any menu's or directions, their online directions are not for our box (and their cable wont let your TV put on captions) So my husband could not even fully enjoy TV after we got the cable and obviously if we knew that, we would not have paid $1200 to get the cable. 4th....You cant hide adult on demand or adult channels/descriptions/titles. I have 3 little ones, and when scrolling through the guide or on demand, they can see all these channels, titles and descriptions! And believe me the descriptions and titles are extremely graphic. You can block them from actually watching the shows, requiring a password, but it does not hide the channels or titles and descriptions from the on demand or info guide, and you cant remove these channels from showing up on the guide!!! Most of these channels are located right next to the music channels which my kids use all the time. The parental controls have where you can hide adult, but it does not work and definitely not for on demand! There is very little to choose from watching on demand, their commercials state thousands of choices, but when you search the menu there are only 20 or so things to choose from. Their guide and menu's look like they are from 1980 and very hard to navigate. 5th....The tech that installed the service said all the premium channels were free for 30 days, and to cancel at 30 days if we did not want to keep them. But we got our first bill before the 30 days were up, and we were charged for them all!!! I contacted charter, and they said the tech was wrong and there is no free 30 days and that we had to pay the charge. They finally said they'd take it off the bill (after much argument since I NEVER ordered them in the first place!!!) but its still on the bill 2 weeks later. Our neighbor had the same thing happen when he signed up, and they told him the free 30 days, only credits if you keep the premium channels for 6 months. We told them we only wanted basic cable from the get go anyway, then they add all these channels on their own during install, then charge you full price for them and tell you they cant remove the charge!!! We only had the service for a few days and our bill was still $170+ for the first month (just basic tv and plain internet) We were expecting around a $40 bill after our COD was applied and for what we originally ordered. I am ready to turn off the cable and go back to directv and count my $1200 for installation as a loss, I am extremely disappointed that we paid $1200 for them to install the cable and this is how we are treated and the HD and choice of channels is so horrible, no captions, cant hide adult programming, shady billing practices, ect.
I wish I would have read everyone elses reviews before I paid $1200 for their service!!!

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