A retired teacher's $1,126 cable bill for porn and gangsta rap she said she never ordered will be dropped.Cablevision will give Claudia Lee, 62, full credit and an apology for all of the pay-per-view programs billed to the Warburton Avenue resident.
"We are continuing our internal investigation into this matter, but there will be no charge back to Ms. Lee," Cablevision spokesman Bill Powers said yesterday.
Lee said she was unclear what the company means.
"He said reimbursement. He didn't say how much, he didn't say how soon," Lee said. "I don't trust them. They've got to show me some documentation, something in writing."
The Journal News' coverage last week of Lee's cable trouble prompted others to step forward with similar complaints.
This wasn't an easy battle. The charges came not long after Mrs. Lee switched to the company's service bundle, which included local phone service. When she had refused to pay the disputed bill, they threatened to cut off her phone service. She was forced to pay $779 to keep the phone on. If she hadn't gone to the media, the company would have extorted every cent of the bogus bill from her.
How is this for arrogance? The company hasn't even admitted to any mistake.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Cablevision said it was continuing its investigation, but it said that "As a courtesy to a long-standing customer, we have credited the account in full for all disputed pay-per-view orders and apologized to Ms. Lee for her negative customer experience."
This story does not surprise me about Cablevision. From their customer service on, they are a miserable, arrogant company whose directors, the Scrooges Dolans, are about as popular as root canal. The company owns a number of New York institutions, such as Madison Square garden, the Knicks basketball team, and Radio City Music Hall. This past Christmas, when the musicians at Radio City threatened to strike, the Rockettes danced to recorded music. In 2002, when their dispute with the Yankees deprived customers of Yankee broadcasts that season, we switched to satellite and never looked back.
You forgot The Wiz, a consumer electronics chain that CVC promptly mismanaged straight into bankruptcy.
Posted by: KipEsquire | May 04, 2006 at 09:45 AM
In Las Vegas we have Cox Cable. One night I was dozing on the bed and my son wouldn't go to sleep so I was letting him play with the T.V. remote. I didn't think about the fact that you use to remote to order pay-per-view. Next thing that I hear is the unmistakable sounds of people having sex. My 16 month old son had ordered porn! My husband thought that this was hilarious until we got the bill. Apparently he had managed to order two movies at $14.95 a piece. I called the cable company and explained the situation to them. Since I hadn't been paying attention I was willing to pay for one but since they had changed the ordering procedure taking away the need to put in a 4 digit code, I felt that they should take one off the bill. And do you know they didn't believe me? :) They were rather rude about it too. Needless to say, our son is no longer allowed to play with the remote control and we had the technician come out and help us with the parental controls. Something I didn't think that I would be needing for about 12 years.
Posted by: Siobhan | May 04, 2006 at 12:58 PM
Consider Cablevision's perspective. A guy orders porn while his wife is away on a business trip and she opens the bill the next month and sees "Pump Her in the Dumper," he's confronted, claims ignorance and says it must be a mistake and that he'll call the cable company to complain.
How many times do you think that's repeated? Hundreds of times a year? Soon that adds up to real money.
Posted by: Dave | May 04, 2006 at 09:22 PM
Come back, Phil. We miss you!
Posted by: Portia | May 10, 2006 at 05:20 PM