Cox Communications ripoff Cox Miscommunications Phoenix Arizona

Well there I was, a happy Scottsdale, Arizona Cox Communications customer, utilizing Cable TV, High Speed Internet and Residential Phone Services. All three services were working fairly well, considering the state of cable technology today, however there was the occasional glitch in the system such as the television station that's been in the list of favorites for month's refuses to tune in for several hours at a time, the High Speed Internet just quits for no reason, requiring a reboot of the computer and it's modem also on occasion the phone doesn't have a dial tone...

Life changes, and we are moving to a new residence in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Call Cox two weeks prior to the move so they know the new address, and inform them that we will be taking the four cable boxes to the new address so as to continue service. Cox Phone Service is not available at the new address as yet so it's back to Qwest for the time being

A call to Cox a week later during lunch at work, to confirm the address and service change, revealed that Cox had not linked our old and new addresses together, thus they didn't know that we were moving and had sent a bill in excess of $1000.00 to cover the cost of four cable boxes

A Cox Service Tech is scheduled to hook up service at the new address and everything looks good That is till we hear from the first Cox Service Tech, on the Friday before move in weekend, that the line signal strength at the new residence is very week and will require further investigation at a later date. So another Service Tech is scheduled to investigate the problem

Several days later the second Cox Service Tech, a subcontractor arrives, 3 hours late. Yes I took off work early that day, resulting in lost pay, in order to accommodate the Service Tech. The first question he asks is where's the new drop line? Since we just moved in and hadn't figured out the light switches the new drop line wasn't even a consideration yet. A couple of hours later the Sub-Contractor knocks on the door and says that the line signal strength at the street is very poor and he can't fix it. Our lines may need to be replaced since when did they become our lines? Another call to Cox is required to schedule the Big Trucks as the Sub-Contractor told us

Two days later I notice an unusual phone number on the caller ID box, but no message has been left, so I called the number back and it's Cox Communications Repair Service. Yes they, the third Cox Service Tech, were out to the property and yes they had fixed the problem, or so they claimed, but they did not leave a note saying they had been there, nor did they leave a message when they called to let us, the customer, know that the problem had been fixed. So, turn on the television to catch up on the news and what do we have, you guessed it, nothing, same thing with the High Speed Internet Service, nothing

OK, so it's back to the phone, thankfully we have Qwest and not Cox, to schedule yet another service call. My employment requires me to be at work by 4 AM, yes you read that correctly. Back the clock up and I'm going to bed around 6:30 PM, arising at 2:45 AM for my 21-mile drive to work at O-dark-thirty. Later that evening, the only time Cox had available, the fourth Cox Service Tech, this time the supervisor, arrived. He promises to get our service up and running that night. No I didn't get much sleep that night as the Cox Supervisor was in our attic at 8 PM installing a signal booster to fix the problem. The High Speed Internet is now working along with one out of four cable boxes

Home from work the next day, on the phone with Cox to see about getting the other three cable boxes working. This is a week and a half after we moved in and our service still wasn't functioning properly. Yes Cox can get a Service Tech out in a couple of days to repair things. This Service Tech, the fifth and another sub-contractor, was scheduled for 3 PM, but he showed up at 11 AM, later I found out that's because he had to take his wife to the airport that evening and had to change our scheduled appointment time. Luckily I was home sick that day so I was there at 11 AM. The Service Tech informed me that the cable boxes needed to be hit in order to function properly, so he called in a hit and said, all should be well in a half hour or so

An hour later I'm back on the phone calling the number the latest Cox sub-contractor had given me, just in case something didn't work. The woman on the other end told me that she was a sub-contractor to Cox and all she could do was order a hit or give me the number to the Cox Service Department. I declined on the hit but did take the Service Dept number

Wrong, this was not the number to the Service Department it was the main Cox phone number and I was back to the telephone menu game. Here we go again, name rank and serial number Do we have permission to access your file? Hey what's this, a Cox employee who really knows her stuff, sorry I didn't get her name as I should have called to recommend she get a promotion, or at the very least a raise. She told me that the problem is the computer on the Cox end. It hadn't been set to supply service to the cable boxes on our end. So two weeks, and five Service Techs later it turned out to be a problem on the Cox end

But the story continues. There is utility work going on in the neighborhood and our service was intermittent at best. Many times the High Speed Internet would just stop operating, and at the same time the Cable Television would cease to function. This means that the computers needed to be rebooted, the cable modem needed to be reset and the four cable TV boxes also needed to be unplugged and reattached to their power source in order to reset their internal memory

A call to Cox to ask if they are doing work in our neighborhood results in no we are not working that area. A walk out to the street, Tatum, confirms that Cox sub-contractors are doing the utility work. First I ask one of the workers what was going on, however he can't speak a word of English. Next I asked the Paradise Valley Police Officer who was watching over the proceedings and he directed me to the supervisor of the work gang, who confirmed that none of his workers speak English. While this conversation is going on a Qwest worker drives up and asks, Where is the cut line. My confidence level in Cox was not too high at that point; sub-contractors who cannot speak English, digging holes in the earth to install utility lines

And now another call to Cox to inquire about an adjustment to our bill to compensate for the poor service during the two weeks that they were not working in our area, but their sub-contractors were cutting Qwest phone lines and our High speed Internet and Cable TV service failed repeatedly. Yes we did receive compensation, $1.33 for that two-week period

Cox Communications, your friend in the digital age.

Hugh
Tempe, Arizona
U.S.A.

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