Within the past week, we've experienced 3 outages. The last outage fried my WiFi router. I work from home (I don't have an option to go into an office since my company office is in Florida and I'm in Connecticut). I reached out to customer service via the app, they placed an order for the router. I was told by customer service that the order would be ready in an hour. Mind you, I live about 20-25 minutes away from the store so this isn't just a "around the corner" type of drive for me. So, I unplugged the faulty router, and headed to the store. I walked in with the router in a bag only to be told that they have none in stock, the closest spectrum store was 2.5 hours away in Newtown. It wasn't guaranteed when stock would come in. This is what irritates me- nobody from the Spectrum store thought to call me to let me know there were no routers once the order was put through by customer service?
I advised the representative who I was speaking with, Andrew, that I work from home and these outages have taken money out of my pocket due to my inability to work during the outage.
Another customer came in with the same issue and Andrew mentioned that the routers being delivered (whenever they get delivered, he added) would be refurbished and not new. That customer was told to ask for a new, out of the box, router, and she mentioned it's the second time this year she had to replace the router.
Andrew's response was "If you need WiFi immediately, your best option is to go to Walmart and buy a router and return it within the store's return policy.... and that's if Walmart even has any routers left. It's an issue in this area [Windham, Willimantic, Scotland (where I live) and a few other towns in the area]."
So now my only option was to go buy a new router... so across the street I went to Staples and bought a new WiFi router for close to $140! I was not prepared to spend that kind of money on equipment that was supposed to be provided to me by Spectrum. When I got home and set my router up, I contacted customer service again asking for an email to send a complaint to, and I was told complaints were handled internally. I then asked where I can send the receipt for the router I just purchased only to be told that I would be offered a $10 courtesy credit but would not be reimbursed for my purchase. I did not accept the courtesy credit.
So now, aside from the credits for the outages that I asked for (all totaling about $21), I am out $140 for a router that I had to buy out of my own pocket, have nowhere to send the receipt for reimbursement and get the equipment charge for the router permanently removed from my bill.
If I had another internet service provider for my area, I would switch providers immediately.
So, Spectrum, how are you going to make this right? read more