Jesse, a fellow MOTR reader, left the following comment on this post. I figured that I would post it as a entry so that if anyone out there had advice for him, they could comment too.

He writes:

I signed up for the Triple Play on December 31, 2007. The date is now January, 27th, almost a month later, and Cablevision has been out 4 times to my house to set the phone up, but every time it’s a different installer and it seems like they are starting from scratch each time. I paid to have my old telephone number ported over, from AT&T, and each time a new guy comes out, it’s a comedy of errors. They get here, they check with the dispatcher and find that the number has not been ported over yet. They are now scheduled to come out for the 5th time on January 29, 08, to port over the number.

Some facts:
1. The installers are independent contractors. This is a tactic that large corporations use now to get out of paying matched social security and other benefits to real 9-5 employees. Professionalism, promptness and communication are not priorities Basically, Cablevision is looking for just a warm body. The independent contractor deals with a Cablevision dispatcher every time there is a problem. The dispatchers may or may not know anything as well and the scenario goes like this: installer calls, the dispatcher seems to go away, putting the installer on hold for long periods of time while “finding information out.” Then comes back and says the number has not been ported over, giving no reason or explanation to the installer or me, the customer. They just reschedule and say it will be corrected at the next scheduled date.

2. I make a few calls after the fourth screwup, to see if I could locate the source. I talked to a Tech person: he said that there is an internal division, called “P and L”, inside of Cablevision that deals with the porting of numbers from your old telephone company. “Gary” would not give me the telephone number of this area so I could find out what’s going on. Apparently, the communication breakdown occurs somewhere between the dispatcher and the person at P and L but I have no way of getting to a P and L person short of driving over to the Cablevision HQ and knocking on a few doors.

I don’t have a lot of faith that Cablevision is going to get it right on Tuesday. Anyone have any ideas on how I should follow up with some action:

1. report them to the TV news

2. post a video rant story on YouTube

3. show up at Cablevision with a handheld videocam and try to find P and L people

4. Sue them for time lost from work

5. Get a class-action law suit started. I guess I would have to find enough unhappy customers and get a good attorney that deals with this corporation.