Eddie S. Maddock, Sedona Eye Columnist
Sedona AZ (October 3, 2011) – Being aware of the pending change from NPG Cable Company to Sudden Link is one thing, however, receiving notification of an inflicted responsibility to follow “3 easy steps to get set up” was quite a different matter.
How different? Imagine your worst nightmare.
After painstakingly making contact with a Sudden Link representative, she was guided step by step through the registration process up to and including her personalized print-out of the “New User Confirmation” document dated 9/5/2011.
When the actual conversion took place on 9/21/11, anticipation of a failed endeavor was an unimagined concept. Her e-mail service was shut down. Numerous attempts to rectify this situation over the next ten days. . . yes, ten days . . . ensued.
The first attempt to contact another Sudden Link representative on the telephone was foiled after a very long wait followed by a disconnect when being transferred to “another department.” More time consuming efforts eventually resulted in speaking with someone who reviewed the information on her “New User Confirmation” and – didn’t understand why there was a problem.
Eventually she was told both her “user name” and “password” must have a number included, therefore, by making that change, it was thought all was well. However it seems “we” overlooked some small detail relating to whether or not she was “POP, SMTP, or IMAP.”
That being investigated, whatever it meant, and supposedly related adjustments made, assurance was conveyed that her e-mail program would be properly functioning.
Not so.
On Friday, she paid a visit to the cable company office and found she was not alone in her hour(s) of need. A single company employee was attempting to accommodate a growing line of angry customers who realistically had no choice in the matter. Some were shaking fists, returning cable equipment, and the phrase “Only in Sedona” was achieving newfound acclaim.
Identifying the information on the print-out of her “New User Confirmation” came close to requiring multi-tasking by the company employee.
It was discovered that neither her user name nor her password coincided with what appeared on the alleged “official” document. Having also spent an hour in a “chat room” situation prior to the cable company office visit, it became apparent, unknown changes had also been accomplished to which she wasn’t aware.
Oh, it was a splendid chat she had with a lovely lady who, at its conclusion, offered her own e-mail address, although it was obviously totally useless since the e-mail service was not up and running. However, the two concluded the chat with the amicable agreement that both needed either aspirin or a slug of vodka, or maybe both.
When the cable company employee asked “What is your favorite movie?” she wanted to know why – because the official secret question had been “What is the name of your favorite childhood friend?” Then, at a later time, the question had been changed again when she tried to get to the Sudden Link web site, to “What’s your favorite food?”
The only missing link, Sudden Link? The question, “What is your favorite cable company?”
At the conclusion of the first get-together at the cable company office, an appointment for a technician to go to her house the following Wednesday was scheduled. That was on Friday.
Saturday afternoon, 5:15 to be precise, a technician called from Lake Havasu to advise her that a visit from a local tech would not help her. The problem must be resolved within the IT division, which she was told after asking, really meant computer nerds. All was said and done with assurance that the program would be up and running post-haste.
By Monday, success remained a stranger and a few more contacts continued to diminish all hope that this was nothing more than a Mission Impossible in progress.
Tuesday warranted another visit to the cable company office. This time the comfort remedy seemingly might involve not only the aspirin and slug of vodka but, perhaps, a dose of hemlock!
Having related the communication from the gentlemen at Lake Havasu, the lonely employee (although that day there was another person dealing with the angry customers) made a phone call as she worked her computer frantically and took great exception that someone elsewhere was canceling appointments made by the cable company office.
As complications arose, “Confirmed User” took advantage of the availability of some secret devices now necessary for older TV’s, in order to be compatible with more changes forthcoming in October, unrelated to the computer cable access.
She was given a “box” with the assurance that when a local tech did, indeed, get to her house, hopefully before Friday, he would install it as well as getting her e-mail service back on track since, as yet, that had not occurred.
Surprisingly, by the time she arrived back home a computer tech had already been to her house and, fortunately, she was at home on his return call.
He told her frankly that he didn’t think he could help her – because the problem was that neither of them had a clue what was being used as her password and user name!
After trying all variations, which had been accumulating in different combinations over the past seven days, it was as if a magical wand opened up the word “connecting” whereby 27 e-mails revealed themselves.
While the tech commenced to attach the box to the TV, he encountered more problems. He commented, “I knew there was going to be a problem with these if people wanted to use a VCR to record.”
He had previously shown aggravation that the cable company lady said he would connect the box. Maintaining his cool, he said he would be working until at least 9:00 PM because he had three other service calls to complete, and it was already 6:00 PM.
However, because the box was slow to program, she sent him on his way based on his promise to return the following day . . . which never happened.
At the time he departed, the e-mail service was still a go, but only until he drove away and then it was “User Name & Password Need Verification.”
Computer was put to rest for the next two days until she could muster up the courage to place another phone call on Friday, before 6:00 AM, in order to avoid another two-hour wait to speak to a real live person.
After reviewing the entire sordid episode, the settings seemed to finally be correctly and configured and the system was working. This call, too, was finalized with the potential need for aspirin, vodka, hemlock, and, by now the final curtain: Hot Tub With Lid Closed!
Shortly after the conclusion of the phone call, yet another problem surfaced. Fortunately a second call at that early hour was successful. It seemed the POP and SMTP needed to be redefined. That being done, at least for the time being, accomplished the return of the e-mail system.
Perhaps Chapter Two will commence when all the clueless folks out there discover what’s about to happen on October 25, 2011 when the new slate of cable TV channels is activated – and all channels will need to be reconfigured and realigned. Better stock up on whatever it will take to sustain you through another insufferable ordeal.
Oh, yea, are we having fun yet? Maybe “a blast” would be a better term.
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Suddenly Linkless.
Eddie~reading about your experience brought back SO MANY bad memories of my experience while transitioning from NPG to Sudden Link. Finally, I gave up and went back to esedona and Dish Network. Have had no problems since I switched and became (to use Warren’s quote) “suddenly linkless”.
Eddie — I am very sorry to hear about the issues you have had with service. If you need any additional assistance, please feel free to contact me directly via email at tina@suddenlink.com. Thank you!
Well, since Tina (What ever Her status in the Company) has offered Her email, I thought that I would send Her the following list of problems I’ve had. These are the problems only in One month. I left out July & August. I had also turned these in to our local office, but who knows where that went (circular file?)
SuddenLink Cable TV problems in September 2011:
9-06-11 – 53 & 54 Frozen, and 7-9-11 Black. Problem over 24 hours.
9-07-11 – Called, spoke to Nick, He said it was rebroadcast or owners?
9-09-11 – Little after 12 noon – All stations fuzzy 12:37pm called, spoke to Amber. She checked and said that 40% of the area it Out in Sedona. She transferred Me to Shannon in Lake Havasu who handles area. Shannon Wouldn’t believe Me that 40% was out, and said it was My connection, and wouldn’t believe My neighbors were out too (Box & Analog). All She would do is make a Repair order for Me. Later Shannon called back and said it was the Area…DUH.
9-14-11 – 4:45pm – Cable Out for 15 minutes.
9-16-11 – 9:15am – 53 & 54 Jumping pixels.
9-17-11 – 10:30 to 11:50 – 51-53-57-58-59-60 Out
9-20-11 – All day – 95 – No movie/Black
9-21-11 – All day – 95 – No movie/Black….. 8pm – 59 – Frozen for 50 minutes – then jumping/freezing/pixels
9-22-11 – All day – 95 – No movie/Black
9-23-11 – 11:55am – Frozen channels 2-3-5-6-8-10-11-12-15-27-29-6. 95-No movie sound 50 minutes. 59-Frozen. 67-‘No Signal’ for 50 minutes. 12:25pm Called – 6 times would ring twice then busy signal on phone. 7th try I got through to Christine, who first asked Me to unplug then replug My TV. I told Her No Way, so She checked and said there is an Outage in the area. Back in a couple of hours.
Summary:
September 2011 – Many other Freezes – Black screen – ‘No Signal’ for several minutes. Service reps. Refuse to believe it is an area problem. Always want to send repairman first. Cable Service & a Rep. Service is Awful.
Thank you Eddie and Bettye. I’m not nuts like Sudden Link would like me to believe. I’m sick of hearing the ads that say “I am different. I am high tech. I am Sudden Link.” when in truth they are low tech, not different and Stinx Link at best.
My complaints are the same as yours.
How can this be? They spend a fortune on useless TV ads convincing us that we are on Easy street and nothing could be further from the truth. Take that money and apply it to your service sector.
I’m calling Direct TV and Dish network tomorrow. There is no reason for this kind of changeover in this day and age. Something is fishy and stinks on Easy Street, SuddenLink. Join me, public. Send a message that we don’t deserve 1990 service in 2010’s.
Hi Tina:
Taking you up on your offer for direct contact, I will relate the following:
My e-mail service was down from September 21st until the morning of Friday, September 30th. After Bruce the local technician was at my home the afternoon of September 27th, IncrediMail was functioning at the time he left my house; but shortly thereafter I received a notice that both password and user name were in need of verification.
It wasn’t until Friday morning, September 30th, prior to 6:00 AM, that I was able to comfortably reach someone on the phone without having to wait on the line for a lengthy time. That was the lady who again activated my e-mail service which subsequently conked out shortly after our phone call ended.
A second phone call required the revisions to my POP and SMTP settings (again.) That being done, so far the system remains a go.
Now then, since your mandatory conversion boxes apply to one of my TV’s, it was confirmed by the local office that the tech would install it. He did so when he was here on the 27th but the job still hasn’t been completed. He was supposed to have returned on Wednesday, September 28th. I stayed home the entire day for the purpose of accommodating his own time schedule. He did not show up.
My SuddenLink bill arrived. It didn’t reflect credit for the previous down days I had initially reported which were short of the total days and that didn’t surprise me because I was quite certain the billing had been processed prior to the notification. I made my third trip to the cable company and spoke with my now dear friend, Jody, who checked my account and informed me I’d been charged a service fee of $42.41. I then explained to her that your “box” had disabled my reception from going through the TV. It’s routed through my VCR which means that if a timed recording is in progress I cannot watch anything except the Channel 3 setting on the TV.
Bruce told me his concerns about the boxes with using a VCR. However, he has not been back to correct this and quite frankly I’m astounded that I would be charged for installing a box which admittedly is complicated and it is mandated by your firm if I want to use my older model TV in conjunction with my VCR.
Now then, sweet Jody who, in my opinion is the only ray of sunshine and deserves Sainthood, credited my account for the service charge and most likely only the initial down days which I had reported on the 27th. She has rescheduled a tech to come to my house tomorrow, Friday October 7th, but the time frame is open so I must remain at home the entire day.
It’s been my endeavor to maintain some sort of sense of humor throughout this ordeal, but realistically it is not of my own making, the same as for the lineup of people at the cable company office all three times I went there.
Comments posted under my article reflect similar experiences with the very seemingly convoluted changeover and, in particular, I agree with Ron relating to the numerous SuddenLink commercials that just don’t add up to the factual confusion and remiss service which has realistically been displayed.
Although all of the techs with whom I spoke were apologetic and attempted to be helpful, the lack of communication within your own personnel and application of your system is unbelievable, especially considering your extensive and ongoing advertising.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Sincerely,
Eddie Maddock
I stood in line at the IGA to get the SuddenLink “box” along with several people that were aggravated.
First, no water was offered while the elderly and others stood in the blazing sun (the SL man said he couldn’t “order a cloudy day” when a lady complained about needing to stand in the sun). Customer service wasn’t his strong suit.
SL should have invested in renting a “tent” or canvas cover, bottled water, and a few folding chairs. (Wait time exceeded 20 minutes in my case and I was in a “short” line.)
SL did offer CHAPSTICK when they handed you the box. A bit late considering standing in the sun occurred PRIOR to receiving the lip protection?
SL is saving thousands of dollars by forcing paying clients to retrieve units from sites rather than send workers or absorb mail costs.
A gentleman came back after receiving his box to tell SL that it didn’t work. I have no idea if the problem was with the box, or with the man’s installation, but if SL was delivering and installing the man’s issue would be moot.
Personally I have no problem with the concept of saving money by offering easy pick up sites, but my problem with the SL action was that its informational pieces were unclear about customer options. (A point contested by the SL rep on site. Hands down that man doesn’t have a customer service bone in his body.)
I, too, thought it was either pick it up at the IGA (or other sites) or miss out.
The SL rep said it was “very clear that customers had other options” via its ads, mailers and online. He often pointed out that customers 1) would have been mailed the box free if requested online, or 2) people could have picked boxes up at the Sedona office. (THOSE two informational options were NOT on the SL post card mailer. Was that a deliberate “oversight” to encourage customer pick-up from sites or merely a poorly written post card notification? I know which one ticks my box.)
Customers standing in line were required to fill out a paper form that was much too large (a full sheet of computer paper for a tiny bit of info – what a waste!) and also asked to present the mailed post card (SL reps said it was to “enter you into a drawing”). Customer service AND management are not SL strong points.
Two elderly gentlemen became quite “voice-y” with the SL fellow about the poorly written and mailed post card. One fellow said “show me where it says that I can get this mailed to me” and “show me where it says that my wife and I could have gone to the office and picked it up without standing out here”. A woman was overheard to say “give it to me anyway because I stood in line for nothing and I don’t trust what you are telling me.”
But what aggravated young and old in line? The fact that newer models of TV DIDN’T NEED THE BOX. Only older models.
Many of us stood in line only to reach the SL trailer to learn we wasted our time. An important piece of info that may have been addressed with a line item on the post card like this: TV models older than 5 years do not require this box. Stay home. Stay cool. We will mail you chapstick as a thank you for putting up with our lousy service.
A VOC friend spent HOURS this week on Mac tech support with email issues. I do not know if it’s a SL problem. But our TV has had “frozen” channels off and on for the past two weeks. Aggravating! And my SPAM is out of control forcing me to surf the email spam box several times a day or miss important mail.
SL is spending a bundle with ads convincing us that we’re better off. Best if they walked the talk. :-)
Karen Foster who is the manager of the Customer Service at the Sedona SL office might be the one to contact to resolve any unsolved issues. In the past, while still with NGA Cable, she was able to arrange for someone to be here at a designated time and smooth out many of the wrinkles…
Tina, SuddenLink technician “Bruce” was here (10:15 AM Oct. 07) and explained TV box operation. All is well and along with Jody he is a new found friend. Whew!
Eddie,
I am so glad to hear that! Thank you for reaching out to me and giving us an opportunity to resolve the issues you were experiencing. If you have any further concerns, feel free to contact me anytime.
Have a fabulous weekend!
Tina
keep up the good work! followed tweet, agree suddendeath is lousy, want no more to do with the company, check’n esedona 2day
Tina, or SL, My phone stopped working around August the 20th, I have had tecks out to try and fix it every week, today is October 11th and it still does not work. I have given up.
I never thought I would find such an everyday topic so fun.
Enjoyed this and appreciate eSedona. When calling eSedona, a knowledgeable American that speaks English answers the phone.
Worth every cent.
Hi David, please feel free to reach out to Tina or myself, and we’ll be happy to work with manangement in your area to resolve. Tina’s email is: tina@suddenlink.com, and my email is: ashley@suddenlink.com.
Thanks!
-Ashley
Attention E-Pals using AOL:
As of yesterday, e-mails I’ve sent to AOL users have been returned. I’ve been advised by Tina with SuddenLink the following:
“We had determined that AOL has not yet ‘whitelisted’ our new outbound mail servers. We are working with them at this time to resolve. I’ll let you know once AOL has released the hold on our mail servers. I’ll contact you as soon as I find out it has been resolved. So sorry for the inconvenience. ~Tina”
So, if you don’t hear from me for a while, that’s the reason!
Eddie
I am a Suddenlink subscriber. Since I have phone, internet and TV through them I am considered a VIP customer. As if that means anything special.
Suddenlink bought the Sedona cable system from NPG cable. That system was terrible, it seemed to me to have issues with the architecture, unable to meet even the slightest increase in demand. Many times, with NPG, I would experience what seemed like brown outs. Brown outs, in the electrical grid, occur when the electrical output cannot meet the demands of the system so the power utility will limit service to certain areas, on a rotating basis, until demand drops. My experience with NPG was similar, there would be times when I would be working on my computer and without warning no internet, just to have it come up an hour or so later. If I called tech support during these times the company would be unaware of any issues.
It was a poor system with poor service. Because of NPG poor system and service I subscribed to CenturyLink (Qwest) and had adequate service for six years. Never had to call CenturyLink (Qwest) once.
Suddenlink bought the NPG system and advertised that much money was invested in new equipment. However putting better equipment in a system that cannot handle present demands may not solve the problem…and it appears it hasn’t.
Because CenturyLink cannot provide internet service above 1.5 megs and Suddenlink says their basic system can provide 15 megs and their sales pitch of new equipment I switched back to Suddenlink (NPG). Not the best of ideas.
First of all when I switched in the spring I had intermittent service…similar to NPG. The entire internet would go down. Suddenlink sent a tech to the house, the equipment in the house checked fine. So they decided to check the signal to the house. It appears that there is a problem from the box to my home. We were told that they had no idea when that could be fixed but the adjustments that were made should handle our service.
It did. However Suddenlink cannot deliver 15 megs of service during peak hours (7pm to 10pm). We have Netflix streaming and when we try to watch a movie during peak hours we are treated to so much buffering that a one hour and forty five minute movie will take two and a half hours or longer to get through.
I contacted Suddenlink to inform them of their peak demand problem and they want me to check my equipment;
-even though their tech diagnosed a problem from their box to my home,
-even though I tell them the buffering only happens at peak demands the rest of the day there is no buffering,
-even though I tell them that the download speed on the Netflix screen shows at best between one and two megs
-even though my own speed tests of the system during the peaks times show speeds below 1.5 megs
…Suddenlink wants to come in and check my system.
On Thursday evening we came home around 6:30, the entire system was down…phone, internet and TV. I called Suddenlink from my cell phone and after going through their maze of choices in the call-in system I was finally told that the Sedona system is experiencing problems. The system was back up around 7:15 pm.
This morning when I got up at 6am phone and internet was down though TV service was up. I rebooted everything I own in connection with the TV (even flushed the toilet twice to make sure there was no unnecessary crap any place in the house). Called Suddenlink positive I would be treated to their assumption that it would be my equipment. Went through their tedious recording, including putting in my phone number and ‘in order to maintain account security’ my pin. I was thanked for being a VIP customer, so they recognized who was calling then I get a rep on the phone who wants to verify the account again, and have me give all the information I already gave.
They would not move off of this, even demanding I give my PIN once more, the same PIN that was used to thank me for being a VIP customer and enabled me to get to the Emerald City to speak to someone. I refused.
If you live in the Sedona area, especially in the Village of Oak Creek do not switch to Suddenlink. They cannot provide steady service and regardless of what problems they find in their system they always assume it is the customer’s equipment that is at fault.
Facebook in Sedona, AZ Ken Dauth posted 11:39am Sep 2
Has anyone else out there had a problem recovering from the shock of a recent increase in your monthly SuddenLink bill? Well – adding insult to injury, if you attempted to speak to anyone on the phone for some sort of explanation, did you succeed? If so, you must have been special.
But – it gets better – go to their website and you will find this:
Suddenlink(R) Cable TV – TV, Internet & Phone $59.99/Mo
So, is our reward for being loyal customers for the past six years the dubious honor of making up the financial difference to attract new customers? OR – drop our service and then pick it up again in order to get a fair shake? Based on my new rate $90 per month represents picking up the financial adjustment for just ONE new customer. Go figure!