Charter - Still a Mental Giant

My loving ISP continues to set new standards in sub-marginal customer service. Amazingly, as soon as I complained to a Charter supervisor about the sarcastic minimum-wager that yanked my chain, my primary e-mail account became disabled. I'm sure Charter and its employees are not responsible in any way, nor was the disabling of my account a form of retaliation.

I checked my sub-account e-mail addresses - they all worked fine. I was able to log into my master account without issue, so I changed the password for the master e-mail address. Still, no access - either through my e-mail client or through Charter's e-mail portal. So, I had to call Charter customer disservice. While talking to the "technical expert," I like to play a little game called "Which Country Did My Call Re-Route To?" So, I informed the "expert" that my e-mail was persona non gratis.

"Expert" first asked for my e-mail address, which I was happy to give. Then, I was asked for my password. Even after I refused, and explained how Charter sends regular e-mail indicating that none of their employees will ever ask for my password, "Expert" still insisted. After the hat trick of refusals, the Mensa candidate decided to reset the password (duh). Amazingly, my e-mail was again active. I inquired why the account was disabled. I received a broken-english reply of how the helpful technician had reset the password. After this endless death spiral, I gave up on the why.

Then, "Expert" asked if I needed anything else. I informed the helper that I had never received a response from Charter concerning my issue with their DNS re-direct that was hijacking my address line searches. The phone-holder asked how long I was on the phone waiting for a reply. I indicated I was told I'd receive a response in 24hrs, so staying on the line did not seem like the best use of my time. Then, once again, we entered this endless spiral of asking the same question, providing the same answer, etc. The "Expert" couldn't seem to grasp the idea of "getting back to someone." As I explained the problem, the individual consuming other people's oxygen replied "Oh, its a problem with the channels on your TV." Maybe they pipe a hallucinogen into the HVAC at Charterland - the TV channel comment remains a mystery. We came to an awkward and uncomfortable end.

I never have received a response from the geniuses at Charter. They are still redirecting the address line search site. So, I used my head (something I should have done a lot earlier) and pointed my router to a different DNS server. Problem solved.

Charter - Liar Liar Liar

The braintrust at Charter lived up to my expectations. No comment, no call, no e-mail - despite the promise of their crack technical staff that I'd receive a reply in 24hrs. I've stooped to typing "gg" on my address line before running address ine searches. It pisses me off, but I have limited choices. I'm curious what the FCC's response will be.

Charter Can Bite Me

Yeah, I haven't been here in a while. But time to be pissed off. I've always been a fan of address line searching from IE. Call me lazy, but it just seems more efficient. Tonight, I punched in some lyrics of a song on the address line, expecting Goggle to pop up and answer the "who sang the song" question.

Imagine my surprise when a Charter (my ISP) search engine popped up results, complete with a full page of "sponsored results" before the actual results. After an hour of registry searching, reloading registry entries for Google address line searching, spyware searching and virus scanning, I turned to the Internet.

Ironically, it was Charter's intercepting search engine that found the answer. Apparently, Charter has decided that they know better when it comes to my preferred search engine. So, they're set their DNS boxes to intercept the call made from the address line search (which I believe travels to a msn site before the preferred site is called). Details on the intercept can be found in Tony Bradley's article .

I tried the Opt Out button tied to Charter's intercept site. The Opt Out button puts a 2 month cookie on your machine, supposedly allowing you to return to normal address line searching. First, I purge cookies daily, so that fix sucks. Second, having to renew the Opt Out cookie every 2 months sucks. And finally, it doesn't work - I get a Microsoft site regardless of the IE preference settings.

So, I called customer service. I had to educate the tech service dude about address line searching. He couldn't comprehend why anyone would want to search from the address line. At one point, he was confusing the address line with an installed add-in search bar (which I don't use). He also questioned my use / choice of virus scanning software. I finally had to give him the URL for Charter's redirect page, and educate him about the OptOut option. The best he could offer was "sending my concern to the next level" at Charter.

Then, things went down the drain. I indicated that his solution was unacceptable. I told him Charter has no right to decide what search engine I can use from the address line of the browser. I indicated that his solution did nothing to allow me to use my machine and software the way it was designed. His response: "Well, then I'll just [drive] down to the DNS server myself. I'm in Canada...I'm sure its not too far." I demanded a supervisor, and then was placed in on-hold purgatory.

After I realized that the agent had no intent of letting me talk to a supervisor, I hung up and called back. The agent I spoke to sounded like he was in India, he quickly connected me to a supervisor (who sounded like she was in Russia or a related Eastern Bloc county), to whom I complained about an idiot in Canada.

Screw the customer service folks - I would have been surprised if they could have figured out how to spell Internet. But this whole ideal of an ISP using their DNS to intercept specific web site calls and redirecting them with no warning - big slipperly slope.

CHARTER - pay attention. You are pissing people off. There are plenty of high speed ISPs available - service is a commodity. Charter's got enough issues already - they didn't get on board with the combined TV/ISP/VoIP strategy as fast as their competitors, so know they're having to manage big debt to get infrastructure up to the competitive level. I guess they're supplementing income with their redirect to a Yahoo sponsored ad farm.

SBC - send me some rate plans. Looks like I'm coming your way.