Cabler Demands Note from Man in Coma
Is your name on YOUR cable account? You better make sure it is, because if your spouse it injured and in a coma, your cable company may lock you out of your account.
My family found this out the hard way, and it could happen to you. Service providers only want to deal with an “authorized user” when it comes to changes to an account. Oh, sure, they’ll accept money from ANYONE, but if you want to upgrade, downgrade or cancel a service, you better be the person listed on the bill.
Here’s the painful circumstance: a family member, Gloria, wanted to obtain a digital converter to recover channels she lost when her operator, Charter Communications Inc., moved Bravo and Turner Classic Movies from expanded basic to a digital slot. But when she called the local service number, her transaction was refused. Yes, a company whose stock was trading at 10 cents a share, as this blog was written, was refusing more money from a good, on-time paying customer. Why? Her husband is named on the account, not her. The company demanded a written letter from the authorized user, in spite of Gloria’s circumstances. You see, her husband is in a medically induced coma in intensive care after a horrific accident. This was explained to customer service, which declined to help in any way.
That’s when I got involved, because I couldn’t believe that there was no “Plan B” for the written permission rule. What about spouses of military serving in Iraq who want to change accounts and can’t reach that serviceperson? What about widows, who’ve paid the bills for years and discover their late spouse is still listed as the authorized user and has no idea where she stored the death certificate?
I asked to speak to a customer service supervisor and explained Gloria’s sad circumstances, offering copies of power bills or other documentation to prove she lives at the service address and pays the bills. No dice. No sympathy, either. I got the distinct impression I was wasting Ryan’s time, and he informed me he was not required to give me his last name.
Next call, corporate customer service escalation in St. Louis. There, Flavia got big points for her soothing empathy. We were less angry, but still unserved. She added that she gets calls like ours “all the time” but “I can’t do anything for you.”
Tracy Pitcher, vice president of customer operations for Charter said the timing of my call to Charter on this issue was “ironic,” for plans to prompt subscribers to add dual authorized users to their new accounts, and to prompt user additions during service calls with current customers, are being vetted by the legal department. The company is also designing rules to help CSRs determine when to “bend” the authorization rule. At the same time, the company is designing a series of questions to verify that the non-authorized caller is a legitimate user on an account.
Authorized user rules were created to protect the privacy of legitimate users, she noted.
“You can have a good rule but there are exceptions,” she said. However, she said it may be four to six weeks before the policy changes are vetted and applied in the field.
Hmm, that means it should hit the front lines just about the time consumers start calling in for additional converters to cope with the DTV transition, only to discover they may not be “authorized users.” Good luck, front lines!!
Had a problem dealing with your video provider? Sent me an e-mail detailing your issue, and contact information, to linda.haugsted@reedbusiness.com
Al commented:
It is for your safety and security. Until you have been a victim of identity theft you might understand.
Michael commented:
This is all part of the FCC CPNI rules requiring all Telecom providers to protect customer information, or face stiff finds. Customers need passwords or pin numbers, or someone calling in not listed as the account holder must be set up by the account holder as an "authorized user". If they are not set up as such, little or no account information can be given to them, and making changes to the account would definitely not be allowed.
Larry commented:
I work in the Cable industry also. The only reason this is being done is because operators have heard from customers when unauthorized persons call to change phone numbers, and add services that very negatively affect our customers. It is only to protect the customer, their privacy and much more. Having spoken with many customers where an angry ex spouse or neighbor has called and affected a customer's credit rating, this has been requested from our customers and it is the right thing to do. The company I work for has in place measures to make sure circumstances like above are mitigated, but it is not possible to forsee every circumstance. I would submit that the security of the above account is more important than the 2 channels she may not have while her husband is hospitalized. Even more important than an increase in profit for Charter.
Former Comcast Manager commented:
I formerly worked for Comcast and had an issue when I had to start paying for my services. I was actually trying to pay my bill with my credit card and because I didn't have my 4 digit pin code (it was never sent in the mail because I had moved), they would not accept payment. So then I had to have it sent out again and by this time, the payment was late. They wound up disconnecting my service (they charged me a reconnect fee) and charged me a late fee even though I tried several times to pay and without my PIN number, they would not allow the payment. As a previous cable manager, I had heard customer stories of things like this and had shrugged them off that no business would do that, but it was proven to me that the business does. I think management (like you had experienced with the Charter management) typically thinks that the stories customers make up are just ways to try and get out of paying money.
