MAILBAG:

It is now Tuesday and still no check for overpayment to Time Warner Telephone.

I stopped my telephone service Nov. 20 but paid the “month in advance” for December. Countless telephone calls to Time Warner have produced nothing nor any call backs from them to check the status.

On Jan. 4, I was contacted by a Time Warner telephone representative who said the “Check’s in the mail.” I pushed him for a telephone number just in case the “mail” never delivered. His number was given but when I tried it was the wrong number and calls to Time Warner did not produce the mysterious representative or his mystery telephone number.

Last week, I attempted to contact Time Warner again to “start over” but am still waiting for them to call back. I tried the telephone number on the Time Warner bill but due to “sunspots” and “heavy call volume” the response was “Please call back later.” Time and time again this was the same story!

When Time Warner took over they made the decision to totally gut the current Comcast technology and “reinvent the wheel” using different equipment. This resulted in their inability to support the customer base in both telephone and high speed Internet. That meant having customers change their telephone and Internet devices just to accommodate Time Warner’s change of philosophy.

What that meant to customers was telephones that weren’t working and Internet connections that slowed down. The biggest downside was the total lack of technically trained repair technicians in the field forcing Time Warner to contract out their repairs. Once you understand the process you can identify the problem areas and the reasons for such sloppy work. In the computer industry I spent 35 years facing these type of decisions and preparing customers for “technology migrations.”

Some went smoothly and others were disasters. You don’t gut a technology overnight but design a transitional migration and triple the technical and customer service support.

Bottom line is customers are sick and tired of “sunspot” excuses and lack of customer service because Time Warner made a bad technology decision.

Still looking for that check, and waiting for Time Warner to sell off either division.

LLOYD MCDANIEL

Costa Mesa