Remember when Customer Service actually MEANT something??

I have not made it a secret how much I despise Time Warner and their services.  Unfortunately, the price is right for our bundle but here is a time where the ol' adage is true - you get what you pay for.  

I have their "bundle" of service - home phone, cable and internet for one low price.  The internet is the slowest speed they have and still be called "digital or high speed", the cable package is essentially the same 100 channels that I had before except now they are repeated three times and one of them is in hi-def and the rest of the channels just mock me with their "Upgrade now to see this" screen.

My biggest problem that I am having with them is their email.  This is quite possibly the WORST email system ever created and believe me, I've dealt with bad email service before.  I switched to TWC because they had a good reputation, big name, blah, blah, blah.  So the email issue, just keeps getting worse.  First, there is the issue that at 8:00 EVERY night, I cannot get in to my email account.  By 9 pm I'm usually okay, but what in the world is that?  I am paying for service 24 hours a day and essentially, I am not getting it.


Then there's the "sending an email" issue.  I type up and email, I hit send, all seems well and then, some time later, that email shows up in my draft file.  I don't know about you but I don't sit in front of my computer with it open to email 24 hours a day.  Most of the time I send something out - sometimes a very important something out with the expectation that it will get there.  Last week, I ended up missing something important (like a teacher conference) because I could not get to my email and because my response didn't send.  What am I supposed to do about that?


I have done the "Live Chat" thing about a dozen times with a TWC rep in the last three months and each time, my issue has not been resolved, I have not gotten a copy of our transcript and this last time I was so out and out aggravated with the guy that I cut the session short.  I had explained all of my issues and he asked what browser I used, I said Firefox, he said "Go in to IE and do it."  Now, I don't know about most of you but I do not have multiple browsers set up and I use Firefox for a reason.  Seeing this email in IE wasn't going to help me because I was not going to use it.  Tell me why it isn't working with Firefox!  Is there a known issue?  Have other customers had similar complaints?

Then he asks what security I have on the computer.  I tell him and he says "Shut it down so I can test".  Um, I'm sorry, but no.  Again, this is the security system that I use.  Does TWC have a known issue with it?  I am not going to change my security system so why do I need to shut it off for you to do a test?  


I'm telling you, I was livid.  I cannot get a customer service person to actually GIVE any customer service and I am to the point that I want to cancel my home phone (even though I love it, believe it or not), cancel the cable (TV nowadays is like the black hole of time) and just find some sort of bargain basement internet provider because basically, I'm getting crap service now, how much worse can they be?


All I want, is an answer as to why this is happening?  If you cannot answer that, then don't work in customer service.  That's all I'm sayin...