Cablevision

Optimum wifi is useless. I turn it off if I need to get on the internet outside my home.
They brag about their million hotspots. They’re all impotent. Get it up, Optimum!

Simply ridiculous! Terrible service… This company acts like they’re doing you a favor
for taking your money. The channel line-​up is absolute crap and their claim to fast
connectivity to the web is utter bullshit! Don’t use these guys… Verizon are a bunch
of A-​holes but at least their internet service is fast! Hope this helps…

I wouldn’t give any stars if I cld. The worst and most corrupt company there is. They charge us out of the ass and I have had to pass on work bc I had to sit at my apartment and wait for repairmen to come to say my cable is working then I continue to have a different problem the next week. They do nothing but take from our wallets. I lost $ 600 today bc I cldnt go to work today and then some how on their end that repairmen had been canceled. Now they want me to hang out at home longer so a different appointment can be made. I hate you cable vision. I hope you eventually get investigated and they see how you rob us all.

Like most, if not all native New Yorkers, I was raised believing that Time Warner Cable was the Devil. Then I moved to Long Island and had to deal with… Cablevision [shudder].
Five reasons why the Dolan family’s Beelzebub is worthy of a one star rating:
1. The endless sales calls. They never end. Even after I put my number on the no-​call list, they still call. It never ends.
2. I signed up just for cable; they went ahead and signed me up for cable, phone, and cable. Why? Per the customer service lady, post-​apology (who sounded so sad, as if she was just forced to watch Sophie’s Choice): «That’s what everyone wants, right?»
3. Equipment failure. I think I had maybe three or so loss of service events in a year, outside of Superstorm Sandy. They said it was my equipment. Nope. It was their box thingy outside the house. Every. Single. Time.
4. Canceling service was more trying than it should have been. What began as a cancellation call turned into a harrowing sales pitch-​refusal session. Had to hang up and try again. And again. Maybe I just should have yelled «CANCEL MY SERVICE AND JUST LET ME LIVE» while chucking the box into the front window of the nearest service center.
5. The customer service staffers are atrocious. They are neither trained in service techniques, phone etiquette, nor complaint mediation. All they know is how to talk about that Triple Play «deal.»
So, my fellow NY’ers, heed my warning: Don’t curse Time Warner while waiting on hold for the 18^th minute so you can get them to unfreeze your screen/​cancel Showtime/​bitch about the internet, lest some day you’ll be cursed to deal with Cablevision and you’ll be dying to dial 358‑0900 once again.

CABLEVISION– Being on a fixed income I called Cablevision about my recent notification that my bill was going up $ 20 more next month. I called 3 times and got nowhere. I wrote to Mr. Dolan the zillionnaire who made his fortune off people like me over the last 30 years thinking certainly someone at Corporate would help me. I got a nice phone call and was told that while corporate could not dictate a price to the billing dept. (like I believe the president of the company can’t do that) so I waited and just got a call from billing. They said they understand my situation and in light of my 30 years with them they are ending my promotion at the end of the month and my bill will be going up $ 50. So now I understand why if you put Cablevision Sucks into google you see no less than 7 sites on the front page devoted to that subject.

Optimum cable = bait and switch. (It’s Optimum in our neighborhood.) After not having cable for months, signed up for Optimum’s ‘Triple Play’ deal (phone, internet, cable + Showtime) for $ 85 in Feb. Never used the landline phone, so they pulled us off Triple Play without notifying us, started charging over $ 100 each month. I autopay — finally realized what was happening this month. I called Optimum, and they said they couldn’t restore the deal — best they could do was phone, internet, cable, Showtime for $ 130/​mo. Will likely cancel cable this month. Doesn’t work well anyway.
Honest disclosure: Internet works fine.

Service great, was so excited to have a seamless process to get new service, then it all suddenly went to shit. After being promised that I would be reimbursed for breaking contract with DISH Network, I am now being given the runaround. I’m out 300 bucks for breaking contract with DISH and because they say I didn’t send them the «correct» bill, they aren’t reimbursing! I sent countless documents, spend hours on the phone with DISH and Optimum, paid to send two different faxes to two separate numbers on two separate occasions (none of which were received) and have sent two emails to two separate numbers over a three month period. I have even been accused of being a crook. «How do WE know that this letter was addressed to YOU?» The letter in question being a tri-​fold type letter from DISH informing me that my credit card would be charged for the early termination fee (I sent a copy of the front with my name and address on it and a copy of the back to them with the letter stating). After three months, about 4 hours of my life taken to do the tasking and still no result, I am ready to call Eyewitness News — SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!
Pissed off in Joisy

How to get off Cablevision’s advertising calls, from:
:
«To register for Cablevision Do Not Call, call 1−888−425−2088. You will be prompted to enter your telephone number and will receive a recorded confirmation. Please allow up to 30 days for Do Not Call to take effect.»

631−393−3105 is a cablevision/​optimum online sales call.
Call the number back and press:
1 (for English)
2 (to put your name on the DO NOT CALL list)
1 (to confirm you do not want to be contacted)
[enter your 10 digit number]
1 (to confirm that the number was correct)
If you listen to all their jibba jabba, this call takes 5 minutes. If you just press the above prompts, it takes 30 seconds or less.

Awful, terrible, horrid, and generally infuriating. At nearly every turn, Optimum by Cablevision finds a way to make every interaction with the various facets of their service as unfriendly and angering as possible.
The installation was not too bad, except for the fact that the installer cut the exposed cable instead of connecting it to the box and using other cables to attach its various component. This wasn’t a big deal, but he didn’t even ask for my permission before doing it.
The cable box interacts on a geological scale. When changing channels expect it take between 5 to 20 seconds per channel.
The internet is not bad; I have no real complaints.
The Optimum Wifi, available free as long as you pay for their service was infuriating to setup. Because I could not connect to the network to attach it to my account, I had to do so with my smartphone. To make a long story short, the Optimum site developers have apparently never used a modern-​day cell phone or are sadists with bosses who never check their work.
The phone representatives are generally nice, but may forget to mention things which result in headaches. I was going away for the winter, asked to be put on the seasonal package so that my bill would be reduced while away. This process took a mere 40 minutes during which I had to speak to three different representatives before one finally knew how to complete my request. What none of them told me was that by going onto the seasonal package, my current rate would be void upon my return, resulting in an increase of $ 40 towards my bill. Thanks so much, Mr. Optimum Representative. The problem was eventually resolved but not until after waiting on hold, which brings us to the wait times.
The wait times are HORRID! It is not uncommon to have to wait an hour if you need to speak with somebody other than a sales person. The «your call is very important to us message,» becomes increasingly mocking after 15 minutes.
In short, this monopoly needs to be ended as soon as possible.

Terrible internet serive and poor customer service as well. Internet is never up to speed as they claim and I’ve seen my internet drop down to 17KBS at time. KBS! Not even MBS!
Even worse, they are a hassle to deal with via phone. They got my address incorrect the first few months so I never received my bill. I had to call multiple times for a technician to investigate the drops in speed.
I am moving out this weekend and would like to disconnect my service but customer service was quite rude in handling the situation. I will never be a Optimum customer again. Horrid speeds and just overall bad experience with the service.

This company doesn’t even deserve 1 star. For the past 2 months, I have been receiving multiple phone calls each day from an «Unknown» number. I finally got YouMail for my iphone and was able to see who was calling me. It showed up as Csc Holdings at (631) 393‑3105. After I Googled the information, it turns out that it was Cablevision/​Optimum online. Just in the past week, they called me 16+ times, sometimes calling as late as 10:00pm! A couple of months ago, I was shopping around for internet service providers, and must have entered my phone number in at some point. I am not a Cablevision or Optimum customer. This is harassment, folks.
Once I found out who was calling me, I called the number back and the rude customer service lady told me that I would need to use their automated service to take myself off of the Do Not Call list. She also said «We apologize for the harassment.» That is exactly what it was. On top of that, the automated message said it will take up to 30 days to take me off the calling list!
I am so happy that I am not actually a Cablevision customer.

I want to review this in 2 parts: getting the service in the door gave me heartburn, migraines, and overall malaise. Worst customer service in the universe. The rudeness and attitude is really unbelievable. It was so bad that I tried to set up my service appointment online to not talk to them ever again, but, of course, you will never get a real confirmation that way. (They won’t even locate your name in the system, not even with the internet confirmation number.) The person who set up my appointment put some kind of crazy message on my records and I was told that I had to pay the technician at the install with CASH. (Ridiculous…) You can circumvent this by paying at a Cablevision store. So for all the headaches, I give them negative 500 stars.
At the actual install, after I bickered with the technician about having paid in advance, everything else was fine. No problems with cable, internet, phone, or dvr. So for the actual services, I bring them up from negative 500 stars to 2.
By the way, AFTER you are a customer, they are nicer… i guess…

Sorry my fellow reviewers; can’t jump the bandwagon with you guys this time. I actually had no problems with my Cablevision experience thus far.
Moved to Brooklyn last March after spending a year and a half in Boston. I’d had Comcast there (no problems with them either, surprisingly) and a techhie friend advised me to go with Cablevision because he said their internet service was great and that Fios was crap.
Made the appt; my boyfriend happened to be off that day so I didn’t have to take off work myself. The guy was about an hour or so late, and apparently the last tenant didnt have any cable so he had to break through the wall to get some wires going, but by the time I got home everything was cleaned up and everything worked perfectly. Only had about 2 or 3 freezes the entire year, never lasting more than 2 hours. Had 2 internet outages, both easily fixed by simply unplugging the modem for 10 seconds. Any time I called customer service (during prime time hours) I never had to wait long and my problem was easily resolved.
I would have continued to use their service, only we’re moving to Manhattan and Cablevision doesn’t service that borough, so I’m going to have to choose the lesser of two evils between RCN and Time Warner, if I’m even given a choice. I’ve never had a bad experience with a cable service provider, and really hope I won’t have to start now.
(Hopefully I wont have to eat my words, as I’ll be returning Cablevision’s equipment today, so let’s hope I don’t encounter any crazy billing discrepancies).

To celebrate the new year and reward ourselves, my fiancé and I bought a new TV and figured we’d get cable after being «cable free» for a year. In planning to have a Superbowl party, we figured what better time. I arranged to have the guys come in and install last Friday, Feb 4. I did it on a Friday because I figured: 1) I can go into work a bit late if I have to, as they told me they would be at my house between 8am — 11am and 2) in case anything goes wrong, at least we’d have Saturday to proceed instead of doing everything on the morning of Superbowl Sunday.
Fast forward to that Friday morning — I ended up calling their customer service at 10:30am after hearing NOTHING from them, not even a confirmation call. They told me to call back at 10:45am, to which I got a call at 11am from a representative saying that the technician is on his way, but won’t be there for another 45 minutes, is this ok? I didn’t argue, I simply said, fine. I called my company and told them that I would not be in, but that i’d work from home. I live in Brooklyn and it would be a pointless commute. It’s a good thing that I did call because not until 1:30pm do I get a call from the actual technician to tell me that he’s 5 minutes away. He arrives, he’s courteous, he takes a look around, disappears into the basement and around the back yard. At 3pm he comes into my living room and tells me that due to Cablevision’s new policy as of Jan 2011, he will not be able to complete installation because of ground issues. He said that he could surpass it, with his supervisor’s permission and guess what — his supervisor was not picking up his phone.
To make a long story short, I lost a day of work, with no cable, a serious headache and, no Superbowl party. It’s not the cable, or lack there of, that i’m upset about — it’s that there was NO apology for wasting my time, wasting my DAY when I don’t have a day to waste — NO effort at redeeming themselves by at least offering to come back at anytime suitable to my schedule — NOTHING. Customer service? What customer service? There is none. Further, they have no doubt been busy this whole season and have probably encountered multiple houses with «grounding» issues. Grounding, meaning, that there’s snow/​ice on the roof or on the work area, which is unsafe for the technician. I understand safety procedures, but the snow/​ice hasn’t magically appeared? If you can take my money that quickly, you can certainly come prepared and equipped with the proper tools to get the job done. The utter incompetence and arrogance of this company is flabbergasting! Hopefully their cable isn’t a reflection of this, however, I wouldn’t be surprised…

½ the service, all the payments.
The Short and sweet pre-​story:
My laptop was stolen so before I got a new one, I’ve was using the wi-​fi (Cablevision) on my phone for a few months. Slow speeds, but I was on an Iphone for christ sakes, so slow speeds disregard.
Finally got a new laptop, speeds still slow, but I account this to the time of day in which I’ve normally home and online. This is the evenings and it was rare that I was home due to working a lot.
Now I’m home more and the service still sucks and I mean bad. I called and a technician comes out. Turns out my speeds are ½ to no where near what they should have been. I’VE BEEN PAYING FULL PRICE FOR ½ THE SERVICE FOR A YEAR.
I call to bring this up, and they offer me 1 month free ($ 49.95) + $ 9.95 credit. «This is all we can do,» says CSR.
That’s just not right. HOW CAN WE BEAT THE MONOPOLY Cablevision has on Brooklyn?!

still THE NICEST customer service reps i’ve ever encountered. too bad the company and the internet service are sacks of shit.
the reps get 5 stars.

Their commercials suck and get stuck in my head for days:
Their packages suck.
Their cable service sucks. Try pulling up the menu guide, the screen goes black and 20 seconds later the guide is shown, then it disappears.
Their customer service is friendly, helpful and available 24 hours. Sometimes when I’m especially angry I’ll call them and bitch out the company… but never the rep, b/​c the reps are always so understanding.

Expensive shit. Literally.

Basically I am so fuming right now, I can barely write this review. I told the morons at this multi-​million dollar company that I would rip them a new one, so here I am.
For the past three years, my ex-​fiancé and I have had cablevision in our apartment in Brooklyn. Horrible service, pixalated images, techs that never show — therefore resulting in several months of free service for us as we screamed and bitched and complained.
Fast foward to now, ex and I split, he finally go the cable out of his name last month, and I have had to basically redo all the drama that I had to when I first got the service, which basically entailed sitting around all Fing day, waiting for techs that are slow and speak-​a no-​a english to come to my home 5 min before their window of 2pm-​5pm closes.
I called Cablevision a few weeks ago to come to my apartment so we could sign a contract and get cable and internet. Fine, that was the easy part. I got an appointment for the following week Friday the 12^th. from 2pm to 5pm. I took off a half day of work, got home at exactly 2pm. Sat around, read the paper, did some housecleaning. I finally get a call at 4:28pm from the tech, stating that he was 20min away and would be at my apartment shortly. YAY! …well not so much.
515pm rolls around, still no tech. I call CS and tell them. They said, «we will call you back, we will call dispatch and figure out whats going on» — 10min later, no call back. So I then call again, give the entire story to the woman, — again, «we will call you back and call dispatch» — 10 more mintues — NO CALL BACK. Now Im freaking the F out because I have to go and pick up my children.
After screaming on the phone with them, being on hold on and off for an hour and demanding that they «call dispatch» while they put me on hold instead of calling me back — I finally get in touch with someone who can help. I spoke to the head of dispatch, in BK — who sends the techs out. LISTEN TO THIS: He said that the tech put into my account notes in the system that he was at my apartment at 410pm, and no one answered the door. BULLSHIT! I freaked out and said, NO FREAKING WAY! I have a call log stating that he called me at 428 saying he was down the street and that he was on his way. I even read off his phone number! Dispatch told me that there was no way they could send someone out now, that it was 7pm and the guys only work till 8pm. And that the job in my apartment was a FOUR HOUR JOB AT THE VERY LEAST! News to me! Apparently they have to rewire some box outside of the building, regardless of whether I hve had cable before, supposedly its outdated. Not to mention install four cable boxes in my apartment, plus a cable modem. No wonder the asshole didnt want to come to my house, he knew how long it would take and bailed!
He assured me that he would have someone at my place first thing today (the following Friday). Here we are, 1030am. I was promised that I had the first appointment, and I even had someone confirm it with me on Tuesday. And no one is here. I called them this morning and they are now telling me that my appt is STILL scheduled for 8 – 11, not the first appointment. (So the asshole lied to me). After not being able to get a straight answer for the past 2hrs, I told them to take their appointment and shove it up their ass. I am getting directTV tomorrow morning.
Cablevision doesnt even get a .25 of a star.