from the murder-costs-extra dept
Final August, cable large Constitution Communications (Spectrum) was slapped with a $7 billion lawsuit after one of many firm’s cable technicians murdered an 83-year-old buyer after hours. The lawsuit (pdf) claims that Constitution had eradicated a extra rigorous screening course of once they merged with Time Warner Cable, letting the worker and his historical past slip by way of the cracks.
By September, that tally had been dramatically reduced to $1.1 billion by a jury. This week the cable monopoly managed to strike a settlement with the family for $262 million, all of which can be lined by insurance coverage. Nonetheless, the courts discovered that Constitution was chargeable for gross negligence, and had cast paperwork to try to pressure the household out of the courtroom system and into binding arbitration:
“Constitution Spectrum attorneys used a cast doc to attempt to pressure the lawsuit right into a closed-door arbitration the place the outcomes would have been secret and damages for the homicide would have been restricted to the quantity of Ms. Thomas’s ultimate invoice,” the legislation agency mentioned.
Again within the early aughts, once I wrote solely concerning the broadband sector, you couldn’t go per week and not using a story a couple of cable broadband technician falling asleep on the job, blowing up homes, occasionally murdering people or getting arrested for torturing and spray painting kittens.
The issue was a number of fold: one, these firms’ executives had been so fixated on progress for progress’s sake and pleasing Wall Avenue, they routinely did not scale their funding into customer support. Additionally they actually adored utilizing a collection of low-quality, low-cost subcontractors each for the associated fee financial savings, and since the layered proxy relationships usually provided lowered legal responsibility for fuck ups.
US cable broadband customer support has improved some within the years since, however not by a lot, as there stays little incentive to meaningfully enhance due to market failure and federal regulators that usually lack the braveness to face as much as monopolies with any consistency.
The cable sector nonetheless has a number of the lowest customer support rankings in any business in America, a real feat in a rustic the place banks, insurance coverage firms, oil firms, pharmaceutical firms, and airways exist.
Filed Beneath: broadband, cable, cable technician, customer service, high speed internet, installation horror stories, murder, telecom
Firms: charter, charter communications
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