I had an appointment last Saturday. I couldn't make it so I rescheduled for tonight. A tech came by my house last Saturday any ways and left one of those "Sorry we missed you" cards. He came later than the scheduled time so I figured he came by since he was in the neighborhood. Well I should of clued in there.

Well the Shaw guy didn't show tonight for the time I had rescheduled it for. I phoned Shaw and they told me last weeks was canceled but there was nothing for tonight. Well thats great, I guess I just imagined it and made up a time and day it was supposed to be rescheduled on? So now I have to wait another week. So did the CSR just see there was a blank slot but didn't confirm it in the computer?

I called to complain about the audio problems with Movie Central HD. The rep on the phone told me that the problem is at the source. I asked for a credit, and was offered one for ONE DAY! I said that I was not satisified with this, and was told, "this is the first time you have reported this, so how would we know?" Shaw has been aware of this problem for a long time, I was surprised by the indifferent response.

This is a 100% true story I would like to add :
It may be only cable, but now it’s the point!

I am new to Vancouver having moved recently from Toronto. I was a long time customer of Rogers spending well over $3000.00 per year for full HD service, Internet, HD-PVR rentals etc, etc. So lets say easily over 50-60K given to Rogers for services rendered in the last 20 or so years.

Moving here to Vancouver we fully expected to spend the same with Shaw communications. While we look for another house to purchase we rented a furnished condo. During this temporary stay, basic cable came with the condo. I immediately added hi speed internet and full cable services ( except HD as there are far to few HD channels at present out here and I was used to having 30+ channels), but I am sure this will happen soon out here too.

So here is the whole story and you will not believe it happened...

Appointment #1:
All was fine until we had a cable box problem 3 weeks or 4 weeks ago. I phoned Shaw, and the Shaw representative decided it was an outside problem and they would send someone out and I didn’t need to be home. This appointment was set for a week from now. I waited the week and upon returning home from work that day I found a notice on my door ( that actually said nothing as it was not filled out at all). So I phoned Shaw immediately to find out what happened? Shaw stated, they had called (turns out they phoned the wrong number) the problems still exists and the Shaw representative was in total error telling me I wasn’t required to be there.

Appointment # 2:
So, I book appointment #2. It was set up for another week later and was set up as an “all day emergency” appointment. The representative seemed genuinely worried about our situation and was trying to help out. He informed myself that although it was an all day appointment he was aware we both worked for a living and would not be home until 6pm. So the appointment was set between 6-8pm the following week. He confirmed that the call was sent out to repair with these specific instructions listed. The time comes and we change our dinner plans with friends and come home early and wait. The appointment time comes and goes again. I call up Shaw and was told the tech guy came at 3:30 pm and no one was home. But the appointment was set for 6pm I replied . He then stated… I see the instructions but I guess they didn’t read it properly.

Appointment #3:
Another ( 3rd) appointment had to be booked now and was set for three or four days later again between 6-8pm. Again we change our plans and come home early and wait. The appointment time comes and goes. I call up Shaw at 8:03 pm and was on hold forever. My only option was to leave a call back number, which I did. About an hour later I get a call back from a senior service representative ( Jimmy chen) at Shaw and I explain the situation. He reports that the service tech was late by 10 minutes but did call to no avail. I asked this senior service person what time I left the message at Shaw and he reports it was 63 minutes prior. We both do the math and the call was made from my home before the call was made by the service tech proving we were home the whole time waiting, and the tech had lied! (There was a Hockey game on that night so I can only assume at this point what made him actually lie). So, at this point I am actually talking with a senior supervisor for customer service who appears to have some empathy for our situation.

Appointment #4:
He says he will get an appointment booked ASAP and he will call back. Approximately 30 minutes later he does call and informs us that another appointment is booked for the very next day between 6-8pm. He apologises for the very bad service we have received from Shaw and knocks off the cable costs for the last three weeks. I in return politely thank him for fixing this, finally.

The next appointment comes… Its Friday night but again we forgo dinner with friends and are home at 5:50pm straight from work and ready for the 6-8pm appointment. 8pm comes and goes and nothing! What the bleep? At this point I am in absolute shock . I call up Jimmy the supervisor again, no answer ( I guess he’s off enjoying his Friday night as we should have been doing). I call up Shaw’s regular number ( for the 10-15th time in the last 4 weeks I might add) and after giving my information I was put on hold for14 minutes. The representative finally gets back on the line and says someone was out and called at 7:30 pm. WHAT THE???!!! I am to stunned for words. I ask for another call back from a supervisor and hang up. FYI: As I write this letter it is now after 11pm and I have been waiting for a call back since 8:15pm ! I just called Shaw again. I was told that they had no record of a call earlier this evening or a appointment missed. Then he actually finds a record for an email sent for a supervisor to call me earlier tonight after the missed appointment. More Proof!!! He then states that the person should have logged the call on the computer, as it was his job to do so. Shaw, that the whole problem here, no one can seem to do there job! Another night of my life totally wasted.

So now what???
To state the obvious ( based solely on my personal experience), Shaw can and will only survive in a monopoly situation, in a competitive based business they would be wiped off the map entirely! I have endeavoured to word this letter as politely as possible given the circumstances. I will be forwarding this letter in its entirety next week via real mail to as many “Shaw” representatives as possible in the hopes they will learn. I really hope this doesn’t happen to many other Shaw customers.

In closing,
Unless a satisfactory remedy is forth coming from Shaw ASAP they now stand to lose in real monies $60,000.00 over the coming 20 years on both our cable and Internet! Can you say Satellite? (Personally I like cable better but what am I to do now)? Now just imagine this, what if Shaw keeps providing sub grade service and offends another 100 customers or another 1000 to my level of action? Can you imagine!

Dave:mad:

ouch, that is bad service. The night is probably the worst because it is at night and no one really wants to work at night. That is why I try and schedule my appointments for my days off.

A few weeks ago, I got a Shaw HDPVR. First, I had to sign up for Easy Pay by getting the form for Shaw's building. A couple days after that, I went to Shaw's building to sign up for Easy Pay. They did not have any Shaw HDPVR and would try and get one from the Soo. I was scheduled for them to call me when it is in to setup an appointment. A week went buy and nothing. On my first day off, I went to Shaw's building and they had one. I took it home. Set it up with no problems. I had no picture and the LCD screen on the box had 0 on it. I phone the number to activate the box and it was busy for the couple times that I phone. I phoned the Shaw Tech number and was able to get it activated from there with no problems.

I will be forwarding this letter in its entirety next week via real mail to as many “Shaw” representatives as possible in the hopes they will learn. I really hope this doesn’t happen to many other Shaw customers.

Take your letter down to Shaw, and insist you see a manager to get this issue resolved.

Crap Dave, that is horrible. You have more patience than I do. I would of cancelled both internet (never had any problems with internet) and cable and told them I'm switching to telus for internet and bell expressvu.

Well the tech finally came this past saturday. Told the tech the problems and he knew already about the 6208 and all its problems. So he gets on his phone to Shaw to talk to someone about replacing the 6208 with a dual tuner. Well of course nobody at Shaw can make a decision as whether they can just give us a dual tuner. No managers are working the weekend so he couldn't get a straight answer. So he swaps my 6208 for another.

I recorded a bunch of shows and got one corrupted already. I'll be recording as much as I can and fill this POS up. I'll also note the serial number so I don't get the same one back when I get my 4th one.

Why doesn't Shaw have a tech only phone number? this guy had to go through the regular phone number as the rest of us and wait. He was probably on the phone 30-40 minutes standing in our house.

Tech service is second level support. That means the first level is the CSR's. If everybody had direct access to the Tech's they'd spend all their time listening to complaints instead of actually working on the system. Not trying to be a wiseguy here, but the CSR's triage incoming calls to a degree, try and resolve simple problems before escalating the problem to Tech's. I imagine the tech leader then assigns workload relative to actual projects they may be working on.

What I meant was the tech that goes to peoples houses. They should have a direct number to Shaw support. I don't mean regular customers.

Any ways, Shaw showed up last night unnannounced. They replaced my 6208 (which had one corrupted show after only 2 days) with another 6208. So I'm on the 4th one now.

Well, I bought a 3080 pvr. got home, plugged it in, and phoned tech support to activate it. I was told to wait 30 min, for everything to download.

Waited an hour and couldnt get any channels below 50.

called tech support.......unfriendly sof spoken guy then reset the box. no luck, he then put me on hold without telling me........then all of a sudden i get put through to customer service??

I cancel call, and phone again.........lo and behold, i get the same tech. i explain situation, and i emmediately get put on hold. 2 min later, once again, i get put through to customer service.

i cancel call, and phone tech support again! SAME guy! i then say, "hi, this is my 3rd call".... CLICK! yes, he hungup on me.

4th call was to customer service to speak to a supervisor. What, no supervisor!-------

5th call - i get a different tech support person. she was very good. she did what she could....i got channels below 50, but they kept on freezing and was all blocky with green squares, and intermittent sound. Now i am waiting for a tech guy to come out to my hous eto troubleshoot.

I have Shaw HD Digital in Calgary and at least 4 nights a week, we get major digital breakup and snow on the non-digital channels. This only happens at night and not every night. I have had a technician out 3 times in the last two months, and of course, they never come out when the problem is happening. The techs have checked the signal levels, and everything is in the green. This is so bloody frustrating! Shaw refuses to do anything about it because they have not seen any problem.

What can I do (switching to sat is not an option as the condo board in my building won't allow dishes.)

HELP!

Can you record it so they can at least see it?

Spitoon - I don't have a PVR, unfortunately.

ok, s further to my above post, the shaw tech came to visit the house. He measured the signal strength, and it was -12. He then installed a amplifier and everything looks like it should on the new pvr 3080.

Just a follow up to my reception/customer service issues above. Last night, Shaw sent out a Tier 2 tech to delv further into my issue. Apparently, the signal level in my livingroom was 6 db below that of the bedroom. Signal levels were ~ 7.9 db on channel 88 in the bedroom and 1.9 db in the livingroom. After trying fo about 20 min to diagnose the issue (As signal at the distribution node in the laundry room was fine) he removed the wall plate in the living room and discovered that there was a splitter connected to ANOTHER splitter inside the wall feeding my living room AND my office cable modem(which is on the other side of the same wall). All this while the pre-wiring was dropped for three outlets, each fed independantly from the laundry room. Apparently, the drop done to the office was on the wrong side of the room, and rather than re-run the cable, the installer just split the one line. Why he needed a SECOND splitter, I can not understand.

Anyway, he removed the redundant splitter and all seems ok. Signal level in the living room is now about 4.9db... hopefully this is enough to compensate for minor signal fluctuations... Anyway, time will tell.

Good job by the Level two tech, bad job by Shaw CS for taking 4 visits since october to get a qualified tech out here.

M.

I have had a few problems with cable and internet and have always had fast and courteous service here in Nanaimo.But am still considering other options due to the dearth of HD.

Meatbird: there should be some news regarding HD upcoming soon for your area. 1-2 months you should notice some things changing.

Thanks Guru.As I am happy with the service I get,I would like to keep Shaw.I will let it go until the Fall or early winter probably,because I don't watch near as much TV during the summer.

I've had nothing but good experiences when dealing with Shaw TSR's. Whenever I have an issue they have always been courteous and friendly.

A lot of people seem to write bad things about them, or say they aren't smart enough. The problem is that they are people too, just doing their jobs. They may not be as smart as everyone would like them to be, but that's because they are limited with what they know. The folks up in Calgary don't always keep them in the loop and that's not the tsr's fault.

Two thumbs up to Shaw's TSR's.

I wonder how much Shaw TSR'S get paid per hour? No many seem competent. Earlier my internet signal was not coming through properly. The TSR gets me to take the modem in my living room to by pass my 4 way splitter. After all the lights remained lit he blames it on my splitter, tells me it needs to be replaced. I tell him that this still cannot confirm that my PC would connect to the net properly.

He then requests that I drag my desktop PC to from my spare room to the living room so I can run it without the splitter and see. I decide to run out to the dollar store to purchase a few cupplers instead run the main cable directly to my Modem and see if it will solve the problem before purchasing another splitter.

By the time I get back home everythings running normal again the way it was originally connected :confused:

I have had a DCT6200 terminal for 10 months now. called couple of weeks ago, and was told that the $10 month credit would expire mar 11. I told them that was OK, and to cancel movie central stuff (you had to have it to get the $10 discount, as I recall). The dude said, sure, I will make a note on your account, we have a special dept that 'cleans up' accounts, they will take care of it. As of today, I still have the MC channels. So, I called up again and explained to them that those channels were to be canceled. After much time on hold, questions like 'when did you call us to cancel that?' and so forth .. the polite rep told me that they cant cancel MC due to an active work order (I am getting Shaw phone installed Mar29th). I was like WTF? The rep told me that he 'thinks' I will still get the $10 discount for this month, and to call back once the phone stuff is completed. I told him in no uncertain terms that they had BETTER NOT charge me for this month of MC if they remove the discount. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of ... we cant modify your account because of some pending future work order ... nice backend system Shaw. Just when I think I have heard it all, you amaze me.