Los Angeles To Sue Time Warner Cable: Major Havoc And Distress

LA Times:

The Los Angeles city attorney's office plans to sue Time Warner Cable Inc. today, alleging that the company caused "major havoc and distress" when it became the No. 1 pay TV provider in Southern California two years ago.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said Wednesday that Time Warner violated state law by making false and misleading statements to subscribers. The 25-page lawsuit, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, claims the company violated its franchise agreement with the city by having subscribers spend hours on hold with customer service representatives and allowing excessive repair work delays.

"Hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents were ripped off," Delgadillo said in a statement. "Time Warner must be held accountable for its promises."

City prosecutors said the suit would be filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Time Warner Cable representatives had no immediate comment.

Read the whole story: LA Times

Comments

[WorkingClass]

Time Warner used to be the cable provider in my town. I used them for internet. They were impossible to do business with. I chose the word *impossible* carefully. They would not speak to me. No matter what, they would not speak to me. I hope they lose everything. I hope their wives have to sell their jewelry. After my experience with Time Warner, nothing is bad enough for them. Be warned. Never never ever try to do business with Time Warner.

[ObamAtomic]

Directv next!?

[bikerdude]

No, no, make it Comcast next. Their stuff is okay and the internet stuff is really fast, but I have not received a correct paper bill in 6 months. You can spend hours on the phone trying to track down someone, anyone, who can give a straight answer. My big internet problem is when I go to open my mail each day I have to go through 6 different screens before I get the inbox....This is after I sign into a page that already has me logged on. On top of that my wife signed up for their "digital telephone" stuff which really screwed up the bill and now they are switching networks and channel numbers. I think their heart is in the right place, but they are barely competent in most areas.
True story. I was building call lists for one of their contracted call centers when they first got started with internet via cable. . I received a call early in the day saying that this "super list" was coming in and they wanted to call it that night...When I received the list it had 50,000 names and addresses, but no phone numbers...

[VivaZapata]

congrats to the city of angels. time warner is gangsterism at its worst. beat the shit out of them.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company. They have nickle and dimed people for years and for what? I used to have my internet and cable service thru them. I get a letter in the mail one day that they are going to make HDNET a paid channel and that to view it we would now have to pay 70 cents extra every month. Now I don't even watch that channel but I decided enough was enough. No NFL network, crappy signal, crappy internet service and now taking away a channel and trying to extort cash. Cancelled it the same day and called Verizon. They came out in a couple of days hooked me up with FIOS and I love it. The HD channels are so much more clearer and the download speeds they provide beats cable's speed any day. I've had FIOS now for close to a year and have not had 1 outage.

[joebaggadonuts]

I just heard the FCC head this morning saying that our Broadband is competitive with that in the rest of the world. What a joke on LA, eh? Vote for another R this November and get what you deserve.

[alguien]

our broadband in the US is so NOT competitive with the rest of the world it's pathetic. kevin martin is a frakking weasel and i'm waiting for the day when congress throws the little effer under the proverbial bus.

[fillou]

Europe : high speed internet with unlimited phone and TV : 29 to 39 euros a month !
Soon I'll get fiber optic internet so I'll be able to download a 2 hour movie in less than 4 minutes for 49 euros a month ! And I'm not even talking about internet speed in Japan or Korea

[venicesurfer]

good, i have time warner, live in l.a. and i hate it. they changed all the wiring so that they can exclusively work with timewarner only. making it harder and more expensive for me to switch to another provider.

[Stretchumall]

Thought i read somewhere that they limit bandwidth on their internet service.

Anyone know more about this?

[venicesurfer]

they're running a test in a city in texas i believe that will charge for amount you use. not sure how it works and if it will actually take off. i prefer the flat fee. i have TW here in l.a. and its horrible. they completely changed all the wiring in my house making it harder and more expensive to switch to another provider. believe me, i've tried. but it will only cost me more. which in a way forces me to stay with tw.

[loki]

This is good news for the consumer. But as long as we have these Ivy Greed educated people in charge, we will continue to see this. I have a friend over in Malaysia right now attending a course given by Harvard Business School. Its 5- 10 hour days with lectures by some of the most prominent Professors from Harvard. Prof D Quinn Mills and Prof Nabil N El-Hage. I told her she could get the same education by visiting with the Mafia for a week, and not have to stay in hotels or travel !! The reason she is there is because Harvard, gives these courses for Free to everyone BUT Americans. They charge thousands for the same course here. That figures. After 4 days of courses the biggest thing she has seen is that these people only answer questions, with questions and the lectures are about bending and breaking moral and ethical rules to your advantage.
And these are the ones who train our leaders ???

[studlyguy]

I live in L.A. GOOD I was getting ready to dump T/W and go to satellite,­T/W.monopo­ly on the L.A. area is not good where is the motivation to be competitive with pricing and good customer service,L.A. believing a corporate company would do the right thing ,man do you live in lollipop land ,at least you're doing something about so I'll wait and see if they lower their cable rates or /and their is a retroactive refund of some kind.

[way2muchsense]

I don't live in LA, but I do live in upstate New York, where TWC also holds a regional monopoly, and we're having the exact same problems indicated in the LA lawsuit.

This is a company ripe for antitrust action, a la AT&T in the 1970s. Everyone should read the actual article, which says that TWC and Comcast teamed up to buy Adelphia, then did a series of franchise trades in order to form regional empires. This is, or should be, blatantly illegal. It's a shame the regulatory agencies in charge of making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen are so averse to actually REGULATING anything.

[ErnestineBass]

GOOD FOR LOS ANGELES!

Thanks to the regulation-busting greedheads in Washington, corporate monopolies are allowed to charge us full fare to board their "Back to the Stone Age" amusement ride. Enough is enough.

Free yourself from TW and Comcast.

Pull the frigging plug.

[RTIII]

Republican Motto: Government doesn't work - and we'll prove it!