Optimum — Local services in Bridgeport

Incompetent to the ends degree. On Thursday (2/25/21) I was instructed by an optimum technician to unhook my Altice cable-box in order to take it to the store and replace it. The next morning, Friday 2/26/21, at 8:40 AM, I stood 6th in-line outside the store. When it was my turn to get in, I was rudely ambushed between the door and the narrow entryway by a female employee trying to take my temperature. In addition to startling me, she was literally in my face. On my way to my floor marked position in the indoor line, I couldn’t help but wonder, why didn’t she step outside in order to take her customer’s temp in a professional and safe manner? Lazy, incompetent or maybe it was too cold for the employee to step outside where her customers were waiting, by then, for at least 45 minutes, many of whom were carrying boxes as well.

To make matters worst, the same young female employee, now dancing and singing along, Billie Jean, approached me and asked what do I intend to do with the box? Replace it, I replied. We don’t have these here, she answered. I was told to do so by one of your techs, and I added, so what should I do now? Leave?... that’s an option, she replied with a strange giggle. I firmly asked, can I schedule an appointment here? While still singing along Billie Jean, she shook her head affirmatively. That prompted the person behind me to loudly wonder if she was working here?

Offended, I guess, she rudely asked that person to move back another 6 feet and physically moved the person in front of me another 6 feet while mumbling something about social distancing. Then, she stood next to me, and looked at me with an angry childish look. I told her, 6 feet is the rule, keep in mind people are waiting outside in the cold... but it’s your store, your rules.... Yes it is, she replied very angrily. Then she continued to look at me with this childish gaze. I told her all is good here, and asked her to please move away from my side. She did.

At window 7, around 9:35/45, the female customer service employee was terrific. Immediately she expressed her apology for me carrying that box to the store. She added that they will try harder to inform technicians that these type of boxes are not in stock. She scheduled an appointment and again apologized for coming down when I didn’t have to. All is good, and all is forgiving, I said to myself.

But, not so fast, on my way out, the dancing immature female employee looked straight at me and turned around, again, in a childish attitude as if to avoid saying have a good day or something.... immature, unprofessional and just plain awful for business.

Some suggestions : no need to ambush customers by the narrow doorway, take temps outside in a professional and safe manner; 2, the store has two doors, form two lines, one for payments ( by the payment machine) and one for boxes and other issues; 3, the immature dancing employee or others, should get a cart and a hand held scanner in order to scan boxes and take them off customers hands and put them on the cart; 4, be considerate to customers who are waiting in the cold, try to help speed the process not have a childish fit and prolong their waiting time; 5, if an employee wants to sing, dance and maybe flirt with the security guard, do it on their own time....

One last note, the call with the tech, from beginning to end, including, running a diagnostic test, took about 15-20 minutes.... aside from the wrong return instruction, the total time of the...

I switched over to optimum because the sales rep I spoke to was very convincing. I'd pay about the same as I was for frontier but I'd have the advantage of hotspots. I switched over on Sunday 4/05/20, in the thick of covid. The guy came to my house to set me up with no gloves, no mask, nothing. Said the company doesn't provide. Needless to say, he got me hooked up ready to go. I paid COD about $50. the tech had me pick a user ID as well, told me therewill be a residual fee of like 17.50, can't remember why but whatever. So he leaves and we're up and running. Next day I figure let me set up my account online with the user ID. I go to optimum.net and put go to the links to try to set up a password but it kept asking me for a key code or something...I can't remember, following the links it kept saying I need to speak to a rep. Either call or chat. The chat feature wasn't working (of course) so I had to call. I was on hold for 3 hours before hanging up. Next day, same issue, on hold for 2 hours but got a human. She told me she nor any rep can help me at up a password. Told me the steps, I'm telling her I already did those steps, but she keeps almost yelling at me, that she couldn't help me. She had a real attitude, in fact. I was in shock. This was day 4 of being a new customer mind you. Also on this day, their service was down in most of the area! Everyone in my community group was reporting outages bc of a high wind storm that day. I looked at my table and saw I still had my frontier equipment. Due to covid, I figured no tech had come to disconnect me yet probably. Sure enough I plug it all back in and service is clean as a whistle. I call frontier and they pick up in as little as 2mins. I ask them to cancel my cancellation request, which they did in minutes. I waited until Sunday to call optimum to cancel. The girl was as rude as the last one I spoke to. Just reassured my decision. Told me I had 30 days to return equipment, I asked if any locations were open locally bc of covid. She said she didn't know I'd have to call them! What good are these phone reps who seem to have no information? So no local stores were open. My 30 days came and went. Finally 5/26/20 I decide to check in to see if the store was open yet, they were, I go. The guard stops me at the door, says they're not accepting returns. Go online and ship a label. Nearest drop off otherwise was bronx, new york! Im in Bridgeport, CT! I said fine I'll mail it but who do I talk to about my bill bc they have charged me almost another 50.00 for equipment that I couldn't return! After a few back and forths, the poor guard just admitted, "look they don't really care. Just return it as quickly as possible and argue the bill later." At least he was honest. How horrible they send him out to do their dirty work. So I sent back the equipment. They won't get another dime from me. I already paid 50.00 for 7 days of service of which 2 days they were down anyway due to wind, as far as I'm concerned they owe me! Since, I've had zero problems with frontier and nothing but pleasant conversation with their reps. Don't waste your time, money or effort with this classless company. They are horrible and I hear nothing but horror stories from friends and families. I should have asked first.

9/1/20 additional note: they actually did wind up refunding me every dime I paid them. For that I thought I should come back and...

The Optimum Cable/ Cablevision offers a new Altice One box which transmit 4k to ULTRA HD TVs and has an internet router internally connected. The new system does not provide the option to extended the internet thru your house like some router do with their extension devices. I mean if you have a bigger house and only has one tv box, your internet it won't go further than the room where your box is actually connected, also the telephone is connected to the box near your TV, so if i don't have a tv on your office, you will not be able to have your telephone there either. Also they told me they cannot turn off the router part of the tv box, so I could not keep my current modem connected with my own router, which btw is a EERO router (which transmits the same internet speed to every device without the loosing speed as the new Altice One box offers). For an example your Video surveillance cameras will stop working because they don't have any options to extend your internet elsewhere except if you have a TV near by. They charge extra money for the new Altice One Box but they failure to resolve this issue. The customer service assistant told me that the Altice One box is not for my household and I am not going to receive 4K transmission if I don't except the new Router/Cable box, she was a bit curt, instead she ask me if I want to cancel my service as an answer to resolve my issue. Basically if you have only one TV in your house, chances are that you will lack internet through your home. Too bad we wait so long for the ALTICE ONE BOX, is a failure...