Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable-NEO Charging late fees on bills with no due dates , Internet

Like most people, I dont like paying late fees.  I can understand being billed a late fee when one is late with a payment but I dont like being billed a late fee when the company in question will not put an actual calendar DUE DATE on their bill!  I am sorry, but Due Upon Receipt is not an acceptable due date IF you are charging late fees on past due bills along with payments that are due for the present billing period.  This creates a vicious cycle of generating revenue in an unethical and evasive way.  Good for large, monopolizing, impersonal companies but bad for their consumers.

I had some unexpected, critical expenses a couple of months ago and my cable bill, which consequently keeps increasing every few months (from just over $100/ month to over $140/ in 6 months with no change in services) had to paid be late.  The statement for the next service period included charges for the late payment plus the current service period charges.  The statements due date box stated Due Upon Receipt.  Well, okay but I find that very open ended.  Its not an actual calendar date that would hold up in any court.  So I pay the bill which included the late payment, the current service period payment plus $7.00 for the payment that was overdue. Fine.  I get the next bill and again, the due date box states Due Upon Receipt and there is another charge for $7.00-late!  Excuse me?  WHEN was my last bill due?!   And you want another late fee? 

A phone call to their customer service billing department regarding this issue involved a conversation with a pleasant enough CSR.  However, she could not tell me when my bills are due!!  I asked her how it is possible for a company to be non-committal about a due date on a statement and then charge late fees after you have paid it?  Am I supposed to guess when it is duethe 5^th, the 8^th, or the 10^th???  I explained that I felt it would at least be ethical to let a customer know when their current charges are due, especially when the due date can change from month to month by as much as 2 -4 days.  So here I was being charged a late fee for current charges, no due date, for service that would materialize IN THE FUTURE.  How does a late fee on service thats billed a month ahead of time make sense?!  I told her that I wanted to know my due dates in writing.  She said that she was not able to do that but suggested that I drive to my local TWC office and ask the CSR there to put something in writingwhat?!  Really?!?  I told her that while I had no problem with her service personally, I wished to speak with a supervisor or managersomeone who attends meetings, makes decisions and discusses consumer complaints with those in authority. She said that those requests are handled on a callback basis and that someone would contact me within 48 hours.   48 hours?  again.really!?!  Arent you people in the communications business?  Apparently notI never received a call back. 

So in a nutshell:  if you are late with one bill ($7.00), you will never know when your bill is due for the next billing period ($7.00).  If you pay the next billing period latewhenever that is supposed to be ($7.00) , you will never know when the next billing period is due ($7.00) and so on.until you guess correctly and pay your bill before it is due?  Thing is: the due date of Due Upon Receipt is on every subsequent bill and the customer service rep is looking at exactly the same bill you are and does not know when your bill is due either!  So if you can figure out how to pay your bill before you pay your bill then I suppose you can break their revenue generating machine.  But dont pay over the phone with a customer service repthey have figured out how to separate another $5.00 from their customers wallet by allowing one to do that-  paying for the privilege of paying ones bill! 

I do not appreciate the way this policy has been used nor do I appreciate that I have been disregarded as well as denied due dates for my bills even as a long standing, timely paying customer.  I see a principle-based disconnect from Time Warner Cable.  They DO have competition around here and I am not afraid to use them.