Suddenlink Complaint
Submitted by: Anonymous | Post a complaint | Back to Complaints Forum
TECHNICAL ISSUES
On May 2, 2019, after a thunderstorm, my internet stopped working. I contacted Suddenlink Support to report the problem and the customer service representative (CSR) stated that she would make an appointment for a site technician (subscriber equipment) to come to my house, for which they would charge $60, but that if I would sign up for an additional service at $6.95 per month they would waive the $60 technician fee. She said, “I’m booked up until next Wednesday, would you like to schedule an appointment?”
I explained to the CSR that I had experienced similar problems at least ten times at my present residence, that as a former network programmer, network administrator, and IT manager, I was qualified to install a cable modem and that the problem was at the drop. I told her that a site technician would only come out to find that he couldn’t resolve the problem and that he would then put in an order for a line crew which would take another week. I had been through that once before. The site technician came out a week after my service call, said the problem was on the pole, so he would have to schedule a line crew. A week later, another site technician showed up, said the problem was on the pole and that he would have to schedule another crew. Suddenlink said they scheduled the second site technician by mistake, but I’m not sure. I don’t know if they charged me for the second unnecessary visit by a site technician. A week later the line crew fixed the problem, but I never saw them. So here Suddenlink is again saying, “We might get to you in a couple of weeks, but you will have to pay $60 or $6.95 a month for a service you don’t need. I gave in and told her to go ahead and sign me up for the $6.95 per month.
I then took my cable modem to the Suddenlink office and exchanged it for a new one. I climbed on top of my house and hooked it up directly to the drop. It had the same problem. I called support back and told her that I knew what they were doing and that I had exchanged the modem and connected it directly to the drop, and it wouldn’t connect. I told her that I had eliminated any possibility of a subscriber side issue and that I wanted her to schedule a line crew with a bucket truck. She said she would, but she didn’t. Five days after my internet had gone down, a site technician showed up. He put a meter on the drop, said there was no signal, and that he would have to get a line crew out to fix it.
PERSONAL IMPACT
I have been paying $114.93 per month for internet service through Suddenlink for about five years. The service is unreliable, and I can expect several days without service after a hard rain. I am a pro se plaintiff in two lawsuits, a defamation action for damages of $1 million, and a debt collection for $35,000. The defendants started badmouthing me because they didn’t want to pay what they owed. They have more money than sense. I am opposed by a defense team of six lawyers, and their position is without merit, so their strategy is to inundate me with paperwork until I succumb to exhaustion and give up. I have barely been able to keep up. The last thing I needed was for my cable modem go down for two or three weeks. Sure, I can tether my cell phone, but the signal is extremely weak at my location, so my connection is very slow and intermittent. I am reading ten cases a day, searching for precedents, and trying to file motions over an unreliable connection.
I lost a summary judgment the day my internet connection went down. I didn’t lose it because the connection went down, but because one of the opposing counsel had falsified a record of another court and misstated facts, laws, and holdings of courts in his special exceptions pleading. The Order on Summary Judgment was signed that day, which means that I only have ten days to file a Motion for Sanctions and a Motion for New Trial. If that’s not enough, I have another suit in which the opposition has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, and I have to file a response and my Motion for Summary Judgment in the same case. The two lawsuits are at critical stages with six utterly dishonest attorneys, and a Judge who can’t quit ogling a young female on the defense team. The interruption of internet service couldn’t have come at a worse time. I need to be agile, but my slow unreliable internet connection through my cell phone has me moving like I’m tromping through waist deep mud. Suddenlink’s outage may end up costing me a lot.
When I climbed down from my roof after testing the drop with a new modem, just as I stepped from the roof onto my ladder, it slid out from under me, and I fell about eight feet tail bone first onto the concrete. It hurt. I am upset with them because the only reason I climbed on the roof was that they chose to gouge me rather than provide a reasonable level of service. It certainly added to the already high mental anguish.;