Time Warner Cable's office on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester, N.Y.

Don’t say we never gave you anything.

Another widespread Time Warner Cable broadband and phone outage struck Rochester, N.Y., this morning, leaving many customers with lagging or no service for several hours.

Customers are entitled to service credits, but Time Warner Cable only provides them when you ask.  We’ve made it easy to collect with our easy, breezy instant service credit request menu.  The online e-mail form usually takes the shortest amount of time.  A credit for $3.16 for our Road Runner Turbo account was posted within an hour of our request.

If your area experiences an Internet outage and you can point us to your company’s methods of requesting service credits, we’ll be happy to extend this service to other areas and companies.  Just use our contact form, linked above.

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers can request one day of credit for both phone and Internet service (assuming you have both services, of course).  Make sure you request -both- credits if you are entitled.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request a service credit for the phone and Internet outage that occurred in Rochester today, Wednesday Dec. 1st.  Please credit my account.

Methods to Obtain Credit:

1. Use Time Warner Cable’s Online Chat system, select Billing Inquiry, and type to a customer service representative.
2. Call (585) 756-5000 or toll free 1-800-756-7956 and speak with a customer service representative.
3. Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.

Time Warner Cable's office on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester, N.Y.

A second major outage is impacting thousands of Time Warner Cable customers in the Rochester metropolitan area, this time taking down cable television service.

It’s the second major outage for the cable operator in the last three weeks.

The outage began at around 2:15pm this afternoon and is affecting several parts of the area.

Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Lara Pritchard says there is an interruption in video service and engineers are working to restore service as quickly as possible.

At this time, no other information is available, and Time Warner Cable’s phone lines are jammed with callers.

Affected cable television customers are now entitled to a day’s credit for lost video service — but only if you ask.

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers can request one day of credit for cable TV service.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request one day service credit for the cable-TV outage that occurred in Rochester today, Wednesday Oct. 19th.  Please credit my account.

Methods to Obtain Credit:

1. Use Time Warner Cable’s Online Chat system, select Billing Inquiry, and type to a customer service representative.
2. Call (585) 756-5000 or toll free 1-800-756-7956 and speak with a customer service representative.
3. Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.

[Update: The credit request section above was modified.  Customers can request credit for cable television service, not Internet and phone.]

Time Warner Cable's offices on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester, N.Y.

Bad marks to Time Warner Cable, who left large areas of metropolitan Rochester, N.Y., with barely/non-functional Internet service and non-working “digital phone” service for 10 hours yesterday.

No explanation for the outage has been given, which resulted in inaccessible websites and traffic bouncing back and forth between equipment in western New York.  “Digital phone” customers were unable to reach… anyone. Customer service lines were jammed as the outage began just after 12 noon.

The disruption extended from Monroe County into both Wayne and Ontario counties, where residents in Newark and Canandaigua also reported service problems.

Time Warner Cable’s automated customer service attendant was the Helen Keller of cable outages:

“I’m not seeing an Internet outage in your area,” came her reply — even after a local employee recorded a message telling callers there were problems with phone and Internet service across the Rochester region.

While some websites still worked, many more were unreachable.  Some customers reported slow, but working service in the early evening.  Full service restoration to the area would not happen until 10pm.

Time Warner Cable’s social media representatives took several complaints from local residents about the extended outage, without reminding them they are qualified to receive service credits for the interruption.

Here at Stop the Cap!, we will remind you, and in fact encourage you to request a full day of credit for the phone and Internet service you did not have from the cable company yesterday.  Of course, we represent your interests and they represent theirs, which is why credits come only to those who ask.

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers can request one day of credit for both phone and Internet service (assuming you have both services, of course).  Make sure you request -both- credits if you are entitled.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request one day service credit for the phone and Internet outage that occurred in Rochester yesterday, Wednesday Oct. 6th.  We were without service for most of the day.  Please credit my account.

Methods to Obtain Credit:

1. Use Time Warner Cable’s Online Chat system, select Billing Inquiry, and type to a customer service representative.
2. Call (585) 756-5000 or toll free 1-800-756-7956 and speak with a customer service representative.
3. Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.

[Update: 2:47pm ET:  A day’s credit was provided just three hours after submitting the request using the e-mail method, so this was as painless as can be.]