I have never written a negative review of any business or service in my life. That changes today. Optimum is, bar none, the worst company I have ever interacted with. I'll lay out some points as to why that is.
The short version is that I have wasted 4 hours of my life waiting around, cancelled my personal plans, spoke with multiple customer service reps, was treated poorly for no reason, was lied to, and I still don't have internet. The longer version is below.
7/11/21: I call Optimum to get internet set up at my new apartment in NY. The customer service representative is, and I am not exaggerating even a tiny bit (I wish I was), the worst customer service rep I have ever dealt with. He was rude, sighed loudly whenever I asked a question, was disappointed that I wasn't just "looking for information on the website" and when at the end when I said "thanks for your help, have a nice day" he just said "bye" and hung up. But hey, sometimes people are just having a bad day, and I got scheduled to have a service technician come between 2 and 5 pm on 7/13 (the day I'm writing this).
7/12/21: Because I am a normal adult who has a job, and works 9-5, I realize that of course I can't just leave my brand new job for 3 hours to wait for someone to come and set up my internet. So, being reasonable, I call back Optimum and wait to talk to a representative. Their robo-menu does not understand anything I say, but at least the hold time wasn't very long, so there's that I suppose. Anyways when I talk to someone, I tell him my situation and NICELY ask for the technician to call me before he shows up, so I can then leave work to meet them at my apartment and let them in. The customer service rep says "yup that should be good" and takes my phone number. Yay. So now, I'm expecting a call between 2-5 pm on 7/13 from the technician letting me know that he's coming over.
7/13/21: I step into the bathroom at my workplace (which has poor service), and when I come out I see I have a voicemail. The voicemail is from customer service, NOT from my technician, and says that the technician went to my apartment and has already left because I wasn't there ... okay. I received no call from the technician, either before arriving or when he arrived.
I immediately call them back, go through the robo-menu, and wait a few minutes before I get someone. He says: "oh okay, I'll try and contact the technician, someone will call you in a bit." Someone calls me 15 minutes later, around 4 pm, and he says "Alright I put in an order for the technician to go back to your place, he'll be there between now and 8 pm, as that's when our techs stop working." The guy I'm speaking with says the technician will "probably be there within 30 minutes, and could be going over now." At this point I just want to get it done, so I ask my boss if I can leave early to meet the technician just in case.
I head home, and skip getting groceries for my unstocked kitchen, since I want to be sure I get there in time. Then 5 pm rolls around, and I've heard nothing; I call my friends to cancel plans, since I don't want to miss the technician. Then 6 pm rolls around, then 7 pm. I'm no mathematician, but that sure seems like more than 30 minutes.
Anyways, I want to be sure the technician is still coming, so I call AGAIN. I get through to someone after a few minutes, and tell him what's going on. He says he'll check it out, and then puts me on hold for ~20 minutes. At this point it's nearly 7:30. He comes back and says, "I contacted your technician, and told him to go to your place as soon as he can, he'll be there soon." I check to make sure the guy will, in fact, still be coming tonight, and the customer service rep says "Yes, sure." Well okay then.
At 7:55, no one has shown up, so I call again. I tell the rep I speak with what's going on, and he looks up my file. He says, "No one will be coming tonight, the technician realized he had some broken equipment so he asked to reschedule." Asked who???? No one contacted me! Anyways, since the technicians work after 5 pm (apparently) I ask if I can reschedule for tomorrow or Thursday after 5 pm, since I need internet ASAP. And APPARENTLY the only time they can do after 5 PM is this weekend, when I'll be driving back to my home state to get the rest of my items for my new apartment ... so I schedule for 2-5 pm on Thursday. The rep claims that the technician will call me an hour before he shows up, and that I can stay at work until I get that call ... but somehow I doubt that.
As I said before, I have wasted 4 hours of my life waiting around, cancelled plans, spoke with multiple customer service reps, was lied to, and I still don't have internet. read more