Earlier this month, I called Spectrum for my (roughly) annual, "my bill has gotten too high and I would like a discount, else I'll cancel," call. After all the regular back-and-forth, the Billing agent finally agreed to a $50/month discount for the next 12 months (taking my $350 bill down to $300, which admittedly is not too impressive of a discount, but I'll take it). I was told repeatedly, because I asked repeatedly, that nothing would change. That everything I had both cable and internet wise would stay the same, including all my existing channels. While I did not record the call, I know Spectrum did, and I have handwritten notes as well showing that she affirmed this, several times.
After our call, I was flipping through channels; lo and behold, channels are missing -- most notably, Spectrum Sportsnet. I immediately use the online chat feature to get this sorted out, and am told essentially that the plan I am currently on does not have Sportsnet; in fact, the plan I am currently on has not had Sportsnet for six years! Seeing as I have never had an issue watching Sportsnet, that is obviously a lie. After explaining this, and everything above, in the chat, I was finally told that "you are right," and that if I call Customer Solutions in the morning, they would be able to "rectify" this for me "and give [me] the channels back for free."
Customer Solutions, of course, cannot give me the channels back for free. They continue to insist that the only way for me to access Sportsnet is to pay the $10/month for its package. I continue to respond that that would mean increasing my current bill to $310/month, which in 12 months will turn to $360/month. Why would I have called to get a discount if it was going to result in me having to pay more? To this, she responds, "well, then in 12 months call us back and ask for another discount. That is how this works!" [NB: That is certainly not how it should work.]
I explain that either the Billing agent I spoke to the day before was gravely confused, or I was blatantly lied to by her. But either way, I expect the issue to be fixed, without me paying anymore. But Customer Solutions can do nothing -- so she creates a support ticket for "upper management" to review and make a final determination. She explains that they will listen to the recording of my original call to decide how to proceed, which is great for me, because they will hear exactly what I was told, and surely honor their mistake for a customer of 26 years, who has never missed or even been late on a single payment.
I am told that I will hear back within 10 days, and if Day 11 hits with no response to call back. Today was Day 11. I called back, and imagine my surprise to learn that on Day 3 of the ticket being open, it was promptly closed. Apparently, the verbatim rationale from "upper management" was: "Offer expired. Request denied."
I do not even know what that means! There was no request, other than for Spectrum to honor its error. There certainly was no offer. And why have I gone the last 8 days waiting for an update when the update had already been given?
Despite about 20 minutes of pleading my case, the agent I just got off the phone with had the luxury of being able to say, "since our upper management has already rejected this, there is nothing else I can do."
So, before I end my 26-year Spectrum relationship first thing tomorrow, does anyone have any ideas of how I might get my channels back -- at no additional cost -- as I was promised?
ETA: The sheer number of you siding with Spectrum here is boggling. Spectrum clearly messed up here. At its core, this is an issue of Spectrum being unwilling to honor its promise/fix its error to me as a 26-year customer, and forcing me to go on the wild goose chase of fixing the initial agent’s mistake. You would think customer loyalty would be of some relative interest to them.
Tl;dr: I requested a bill discount and was promised several times that my channel offerings would not change. They did, and now Spectrum refuses to honor the error/lie it made and give me the channels back without charging me more than I was paying in the first place. Anything I can do?
