Nearly 200 people turned out for a packed public meeting in Lexington, Ky. to complain about Charter Communications and its Spectrum cable television service.

“Welcome, Spectrum, to the lion’s den,” said Mayor Jim Gray, introducing company representatives. The complaints began right away.

“The biggest slap in the face is that no matter what we pay,” one woman said, “no matter what we set up for autopay, every single month – no purchases, no changes on our end, our bill is never consistent and always growing.”

Prices and poor customer service were the top complaints at a meeting that filled a large room at a local senior center, organized by Lexington city officials.

The problems began after Charter Communications bought Time Warner Cable. As customers’ Time Warner Cable promotions expired, prices skyrocketed. Charter representatives are trained to convert customers to Spectrum-branded packages, which many customers argue costs more.

“There’s always going to be some pains when you change from one company to the next,” Mike Pedelty, a Charter spokesperson, told WKYT’s Garrett Wymer. “There’s different ways Time Warner Cable did things than the way Charter does things. We understand that, we appreciate that. We try to do our best to communicate to our customers, we try to make sure that we let them know their options.”

Customers do not necessarily like those options.

“Spectrum has increased my bill twice while I’m still on the package,” complained customer Loney Burns. When she tried to cut back on her package to save money, Burns was told, “if you want to take them off, we will increase your bill.”

City employee Roger Damon pointed out that most Time Warner Cable customers avoided paying the regular prices Charter uses as a benchmark to claim Spectrum’s packages and pricing costs less. By negotiating with Time Warner Cable, customers could easily obtain a new promotional offer when an old one ran out. After Charter took over, the company stopped giving back-to-back promotions. As a result, a growing number of customers are forced into regular priced Spectrum packages, exactly as Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge intended.

“It’s not a very competitive business, and that’s one of the reasons that we have these challenges with customer service today,” Gray told the crowd. “We have had very, very poor technical service, very poor customer service and price increases with no notice. No one should have to scrub their monthly bills for hidden fees.”

The city’s only recourse is to fine Charter or revoke its franchise. But with the cable industry being largely deregulated, local officials have little bite to deliver after a bark. Fines can be appealed in court and there are no significant examples in recent history where a community revoked a cable franchise and found another company willing to enter another operator’s traditional service area.

WKYT-TV in Lexington covered last week’s public meeting on Charter Communications’ service in Kentucky. (1:21)

Lexington, Ky. officials are mad as hell about some of the sales and customer service tactics heaped on the local citizenry courtesy of Charter Communications, better loathed as “Spectrum.”

In a letter released yesterday, Lexington’s chief administrative officer Sally Hamilton told the cable company her office mail is running hot and a lot of it is from local residents furious about Charter’s business practices and pricing.

The city now wants Charter officials to turn over company records detailing customer complaints and attend a public hearing to discuss the cable company’s performance since taking over for Time Warner Cable.

Lexington officials are also unhappy that Charter recently laid off 56 customer service employees in its local office.

“The city is left wondering what abuse will be heaped upon it next by Charter-Spectrum,” the letter said. “Because of the public urgency regarding Charter’s actions regarding its Spectrum service, we insist on a swift response to this letter,” Hamilton added.

The Herald-Leader obtained copies of earlier correspondence between the city and the cable company detailing its response to accusations of “shoddy customer service.”

Local residents are unhappy that Charter has dramatically raised rates, shows an unwillingness to negotiate over its pricing, and has removed a number of channels from Spectrum’s basic cable lineup.

The cable company has also been accused of aggressive sales techniques, including using door-to-door agents to browbeat mentally and developmentally impaired people into signing up for cable service, even though they are legally not able to sign contracts. The city is demanding to know how many times that has happened.

Charter is also accused of preventing customers from talking to supervisors, lowering advertised broadband speeds, and no longer accepting returned cable equipment through the mail.

Charter’s June 5 letter assured the city that “quality customer service is of the utmost importance to Charter,” and claimed the company was in the process of spending $3.1 million on local improvements, including 860 new outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots, and low-cost internet access for the poor.

Eleanor Lloyd of Chili, N.Y., was stunned when she was told there was a $5 fee to talk to a Charter/Spectrum customer service representative over the phone.

“So I said, ‘I’d like to talk to a representative.’ ‘Well that’ll cost you, just to let you know we charge $5 to talk to a representative’ and I just was — ‘what?'” Lloyd, who is 86, said at her kitchen table speaking with News10NBC in Rochester, N.Y. on Wednesday.

Lloyd had a billing question for the cable company that took over for Time Warner Cable in western New York this spring. But Charter’s automated call attendant informed her that the cable company now charges to speak to a live person about billing issues.

That news stirred WHEC-TV to do a significant story about the issue on last evening’s 6pm local news. It fits a narrative that greedy cable companies are out for as many bucks as they can successfully remove from their customers’ wallets.

The station reported Lloyd could have her billing questions resolved online for free, which is a problem for her because she does not own a computer. But at least Charter only charges the $5 fee once a month, so future calls during that month will be answered for free.

Lloyd (Image: WHEC)

Unfortunately, the station’s report about this issue isn’t precise enough to be completely accurate.

Charter/Spectrum does charge a $5 fee, but only if a customer chooses not to use Charter’s automated pay-by-phone system to make a payment on their account. The same automated attendant that directs callers to the proper department when they call the cable operator is also fully capable of taking a payment over the phone. The confusion is apparently over whether that fee also applies to customers with billing questions, and we can tell readers it does not.

Charter, which introduced the bill payment fee back in October 2016 has never imposed a fee for a customer calling in to discuss a billing problem or concern. The $5 fee is disclosed in the company’s terms and conditions and it only applies if a customer refuses to use the automated attendant to make a payment on their account. If a subscriber specifically requests a live operator take their payment information, the fee applies. Agents may also be able to waive it on a case-by-case basis, something an automated call attendant isn’t capable of doing.

Therefore, if you have a billing issue, it is actually very easy to avoid the $5 fee:

• If you are calling to discuss your bill, request credit, or ask a question about the bill, there is no fee.
• If you want to make a payment on your account online, there is no charge for that service.
• If you want to make a payment by phone, the automated attendant is capable of taking your payment details over the phone and complete a payment request at no charge.
• If you want to make a payment by phone and don’t want to use the automated call attendant, a $5 fee will generally apply. Ask if they will waive it if you have problems with the automated attendant.

WHEC-TV in Rochester reports a local customer was asked to pay a $5 fee to make payment arrangements over the phone with Charter Communications. (2:39)

Charter Communications this afternoon submitted its annual update to the New York Public Service Commission, a condition of its approved merger with Time Warner Cable.

The cable company argues the merger has already delivered substantial pro-consumer benefits, including faster internet speeds, a low-income broadband program, no loss of New York jobs, and more upgrades to come.

Some highlights for customers in New York State:

All-Digital Conversion

• The handful of Charter legacy cable systems in New York have already been converted to all-digital service.
• Former Time Warner Cable systems in New York City, Syracuse, and the Hudson Valley are now all-digital.
• Albany will be converted to all-digital service in late 2017.
• Rochester and Buffalo will be converted to all-digital service in early 2018.

Broadband Speed Upgrades

• As of March 14, 2017 all Charter customers in New York can subscribe to at least 100Mbps service. ($105/mo, $199 setup fee)
• Charter has been actively rebuilding its Chatham system in Columbia and Rensselaer counties to provide broadband service. Project completion dates: In Rensselaer County, Berlin and Petersburgh expected to be done by the end of the third quarter 2017. In Columbia County, construction is scheduled to begin in May 2017, with a target completion date set for the end of first quarter 2018.

Cable Expansion

Since the last build-out update was filed on February 17, 2017, Charter has completed build-out to an additional 5,039 passings and has now completed build-out to a total of 15,164 passings across 56 counties and approximately 1,018 municipalities. Major areas of completed passings include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Albany County for approximately 1,330 passings, including the Village of Menands, Towns of Colonie, Cohoes, Bethlehem, Voorheesville, Selkirk, and New Scotland, and the City of Albany.
• Broome County for approximately 151 passings, including areas such as the Barker, Binghamton, Conklin, Endicott, Lisle, Marathon, Vestal, and Whitney Point.
• Cortland County for approximately 154 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Cincinnatus, Cortland, Cortlandville, Homer, Virgil, and Truxton.
• Erie County for approximately 2,029 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Amherst, Boston, Clarence, Colden, East Concord, Depew, Grand Island, Holland, Orchard Park, Derby, Lancaster, Eden, Springville, Williamsville, West Seneca, and the City of Buffalo.
• Genesee County for approximately 157 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Batavia, Elba, and Alexander.
• Kings County for approximately 390 passings in Brooklyn.
• Livingston County for approximately 196 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Honeoye Falls and Dansville.
• Monroe County for approximately 1,797 passings, including areas such as the City of Rochester, Town of Perinton, Greece, Penfield, North Chili, Webster, Pittsford, Ontario, Spencerport, and Gates.
• New York County for approximately 575 passings in the City of New York.
• Niagara County for approximately 297 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Cambria, Lockport, Lewiston, Niagara Falls, Newfane, North Tonawanda, Sanborn, Pendleton, Youngstown, and Wilson.
• Oneida County for approximately 221 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Utica, Rome, Clinton, Camden, Cassville, and Marcy.
• Onondaga County for approximately 787 passings, including areas such as the City of Syracuse, Village of Camillus, and Towns of Cicero, Baldwinsville, Liverpool, Chittenago, Clay, Homer, Manlius, and Marcellus.
• Ontario County for approximately 442 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Clifton Springs, Canandaigua, Phelps, and Victor.
• Orange County for approximately 429 passings, including areas such as the Towns of New Windsor, Middletown, Salisbury Mills, Montgomery, Goshen and Woodbourne.
• Oswego County for approximately 146 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Pulaski, Fulton, Parish, Albion, Altmar, Camden, and Central Square.
• Rensselaer County for approximately 376 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Castleton on Hudson, Cropseyville, Brunswick, Hoosick Falls, Nassau, Johnsonville, Sand Lake, East Greenbush, and Wyantskill, the City of Rensselaer, and the City of Troy.
• Saratoga County for approximately 1,854 passings, including the Towns of Milton, Stillwater, Clifton Park, Ballston Lake, Ballston Spa, Halfmoon, Round Lake, Mechanicville, Malta, Waterford, and Wilton, and the City of Saratoga Springs.
• Schenectady County for approximately 218 passings, including areas such as the Village of Delanson, Towns of Esperance, Niskayuna, Duanesburg, Glenville, and Rotterdam, and Burnt Hills, and the City of Schenectady.
• Schoharie County for approximately 106 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Middleburgh, Cobleskill, Jefferson, and Schoharie.
• St. Lawrence County for approximately 171 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Canton, Massena, Potsdam, and Gouverneur.
• Sullivan County for approximately 639 passings, including the Towns of Fallsburg, Liberty, Monticello, Victor, Thompson, Loch Sheldrake, Swan Lake, Bethel, and White Lake, and the Villages of Woodridge and Wurtsboro.
• Tompkins County for approximately 303 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Ithaca, Slaterville Springs, Groton, and Newfield, and the City of Ithaca.
• Ulster County for approximately 537 passings, including the Towns of Accord, Hurly, Rochester, Ulster, Kerhonkson, New Paltz, Greenfield Park, Woodstock, and Saugerties, and the City of Kingston.
• Warren County for approximately 107 passings, including areas such as the Towns of Lake George, Warrensburg, Queensbury, and Glens Falls.
• Wayne County for approximately 192 passings, including the Towns of Palmyra, Ontario, Macedon, Walworth, Newark, Sodus, and Williamson.

Ed. Note: Nothing precludes Charter from including new housing developments and similar projects in these numbers where it would have provided service regardless of the Order from the PSC.

The Availability of Time Warner Cable’s Unrestricted $14.99 Everyday Low Price Internet Tier

Charter has continued to offer new subscribers in TWC’s New York territory the TWC standalone Everyday Low Price $14.99 broadband service, at speeds no less than those being offered at the time of the merger order, and will continue to offer this to new subscribers for up to two years after close (until May 17, 2018). Any customer is qualified to subscribe to this service, which provides around 2Mbps of internet speed.

Ed. Note: This service is not advertised or mentioned in any way on Charter/TWC’s marketing website and many Stop the Cap! readers in New York have told us Charter sales representatives have repeatedly told them the service is not available, so this claim is in dispute.

Existing customers with the Everyday Low Price tier at the time of closing will be allowed to retain this product for a minimum of three years, which the Commission has set to “run concurrently with the two-year period in which Charter must continue to offer the service to new customers.” New subscribers will be able to retain the product until at least May 17, 2019.

$14.99 Low Income Broadband Service “Spectrum Internet Assist”

First available in the Plattsburgh area in November, 2016, Spectrum Internet Assist has now expanded to former Time Warner Cable territories in New York.

For $14.99 a month, qualified customers get 30/4Mbps broadband service. Wi-Fi service is available for an extra $5 a month. Customers must qualify for at least one of these low-income benefit programs:

• The National School Lunch Program (NSLP); free or reduced cost lunch
• The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the NSLP
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI) ( ≥ age 65 only)

(Programs that do not qualify include: Social Security Disability (SSD), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and Social Security Retirement and Survivor Benefits are different from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and do NOT meet eligibility requirements.)

Improved Customer Service

Charter is required to invest a minimum of $50 million in service improvement programs for the specific benefit of New York operations.

A former Time Warner Cable call center.

Much of this money was apparently spent on a new national Spanish language call center based outside of New York.

A large proportion of the rest of Charter’s investment was spent on changing signs on Time Warner Cable stores and rebranding them as Spectrum, deploying new self-service apps and services Charter would have released on its own regardless of this requirement to reduce expensive customer service contacts, and moving towards customer self-install kits instead of sending out a cable technician to cut Charter’s own costs.

Charter has already spent money on rebranding its service trucks and buying more of them to not send to your house if they can avoid it.

Charter also reported it will spend a portion of that mandatory investment on opening a new Charter Cable Store in Washington Heights, in a “culturally diverse neighborhood in the northern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan.” Almost all the staff will be bi-lingual.

And to deal with the long lines at Charter’s cable stores, an upgraded queuing system will be bought to allow customers to check-in to “a virtual line.”

Next year, it will spend money on a new on-screen cable guide.

Reducing Customer Complaints

Now more than ever, dissatisfied former Time Warner Cable customers can have a major impact on Charter’s ability to achieve a real reduction in the number of complaints filed by New Yorkers with the PSC. Charter is required to show a 17.5% reduction in complaints over 2014 numbers and a 35% reduction by 2020.

All Charter can report for now is that “the company is making major investments in various customer service initiatives which may have a positive impact on these complaint rates in the future.”

If you are unhappy with your service, filing a PSC complaint may get much greater attention than ever before because it threatens Charter’s ability to meet the terms of its agreement with the state, and could get the company fined.

Data Caps

While former FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler managed to get up to a seven-year commitment from Charter not to impose data caps on residential customers, Charter has deleted that reference in its annual update to New York regulators, perhaps with the assumption current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai can be relied on to eventually eliminate that pro-consumer benefit of the transaction.

For New Yorkers, Charter will only guarantee it will not introduce data caps on its broadband service for the next three years, ending May 17, 2019. In other states, should the FCC eliminate the data cap ban included in Charter’s merger agreement, the company can apply data caps immediately.

Who you voted for in the last presidential election could make all the difference between having data caps and not having data caps in 2020.

The last remaining parts of the country formerly served by Time Warner Cable are rebranding as Charter/Spectrum today, with the introduction of new service plans in upstate New York, western Massachusetts, Maine, and parts of the Carolinas.

“Redefining what a cable company can be,” as Charter Communications promotes to its customers, is a tall order for a cable company that is often loathed by its customers. Our readers have reached out to us all day to suggest, at least so far, Spectrum is the same old cable company, just with a new name.

“If I switch away from my Time Warner Cable plan to adopt a Spectrum plan, my bill will increase $40 a month,” complained Rochester, N.Y. resident June Patterson. “Even the customer service person I talked to said it would be crazy for me to switch plans.”

A customer in Albany, N.Y., reported their bill would increase by $30 a month. Another in Silver Creek, N.Y., claimed a $40 rate rise by switching to a Charter/Spectrum plan.

“I pay $92.06 now for Starter TV and Ultimate Internet in the Ithaca area,” shared another customer on DSL Reports. “After going through two operators, the second one is telling me my price will go up to $125.”

That’s a rate increase of $32.94 a month — $395.28 more a year.

Customers are encountering new plans for television service, but many areas only receive one advertised broadband speed option: 60Mbps. In fact, most areas can also buy 100Mbps service, but it’s very expensive at around $100 a month with a $200 setup fee. Customers have to call to change plans to get either speed. Some customers in former Time Warner Cable Maxx areas have better luck getting the setup fee waived than those living in areas Time Warner Cable never had a chance to upgrade.

In Idaho, The Spokesman Review’s D.F. Oliveria reports Charter/Spectrum is even worse than what Time Warner Cable offered before:

Our new internet service provider, Spectrum (Charter Communications), the company that “merged” with Time Warner’s local cable, has come under increasing fire lately. Many consumers have been calling me about poor customer service, very slow and/or inconsistent internet speeds, higher monthly prices and no printed material available to consumers regarding offerings.

“Since the merger, my bill went up $20 a month and speeds have slowed significantly,” shared ‘Nic’ in northern Idaho. “It’s ridiculous.”

WFTS in Tampa reports former Bright House customers can expect steep rate increases from Charter/Spectrum. (3:21)

In former Bright House territory in Florida, customers saw bills skyrocket by as much as $182 a month, resulting in monthly charges of an unprecedented $305 a month. Charter Communications refused to deal with the affected customers until WFTS-TV’s “Action News” consumer reporter Jackie Callaway intervened and finally got the company to admit the bills were too high by mistake:

Bright House customers Ivan and Linda Sordo say the rate hike hit without warning. The Sordo’s typical bill of $141 shot up to $305 overnight and without warning. And Lillian Rehrig’s normally $123 bill more than doubled to $305. Rehrig says calls to Spectrum got her a partial reduction but no real relief. Her next Spectrum statement came in $120 higher than her old Bright House bill.

What happened in these two cases turned out to be a billing error, an error Spectrum’s owner Charter Communications corrected after we started asking questions.

“When you started speaking with them is only when I got anyone to respond.”

It isn’t known how many other Tampa area customers were also overbilled or if Charter was working to identify and refund those who did not pursue a complaint with a local television newscast.

Charter Communications did tell WFTS-TV the majority of the one million former Bright House customers in the area now being served by Charter/Spectrum will face rate increases of $20-30 a month on average as their current package with Bright House expires. Those customers switching from a grandfathered Bright House or Time Warner Cable package will also automatically lose any promotion those packages were receiving.

In North Carolina, Time Warner Cable is gone and apparently so are some customers’ $300 rebate cards. Time Warner Cable had a long history of customer complaints about its rebate programs, but Charter Communications isn’t too interested in helping customers meet the terms of those rebates and intervene when something goes wrong.

A Steele Creek couple told WSOC-TV Time Warner rejected their rebate after they configured autopay on their Spectrum account with the help of a Charter customer service agent. Despite repeated assurances from customer service, the transition to autopay did not take effect quickly enough and they missed a payment, which canceled their rebate eligibility. Countless hours of negotiations with Charter’s customer service representatives got the couple nowhere. But the promise of bad publicity on the local evening news made the difference, and a $300 gift card was promptly mailed to them. Many other customers simply give up.

WSOC in Charlotte covers the case of the missing Time Warner Cable gift card. Customer service was no help. (1:54)

In Southern California, Spectrum is busy raising rates as well. Hannah Kuhn (76) of Simi Valley saw her bill jump $46 a month after Spectrum took over from Time Warner Cable last fall. Nobody would offer an explanation and in return for her complaints, they evidently shut the grandmother’s cable service off. Most Time Warner Cable customers are enrolled in some type of bundled service promotion. As those promotions expire, Spectrum raises rates to the regular price it intends to charge customers going forward, ending Time Warner Cable’s practice of lowering rates when customers complain.

Most customers with a popular bundled service package rate combining broadband, phone, and television could see their rates rise between $250-360 a year.

Former Time Warner Cable customers across the northeast and mid-Atlantic woke up this morning to incessant advertising like this promoting a “new day” for cable service, courtesy of Charter/Spectrum. (:60)