Spectrum was reported to the Deceptive Design Tip Line over the difficulty of cancelling or downgrading its services and over its refund policy. According to the report, signing up or upgrading goes through quickly with no wait times, whereas cancelling or downgrading involves very long holds — the reporter describes waiting at least an hour on hold twice and an hour and a half once before giving up. The report also describes the refund method as borderline thievery, stating that no prorated refund is given when terminating or downgrading mid-month, so a customer who cancels mid-month loses the money for that month. The reporter says that in their case, being one day into a plan month, the company refused a refund and argued the full $175 was owed, and that contacting supervisors did not help.
Spectrum: Difficult to cancel or downgrade and poor refund policy
“To sign up for their services or to upgrade, one follows the prompts they provide. When we sign on or upgrade, we get right through, easy peasy, no wait times. Nice reps, etc. We’ve also needed to cancel before and downgrade our plans again following the prompts to get the correct rep/dept. The difference is night and day! We’ve waiting at least an hour on hold twice and an hour and a half once and that time finally hung up because we ran out of patience. They make it extremely difficult to get through to cancel or downgrade AND their refund method is borderline thievery. Instead of a prorated refund if terminating or downgrading anytime during a month, no prorated refund is given. If you cancel mid month, one loses all monies. In our case one time we finally grew so fed up with their tactics that we decided to cancel. Unaware that we were ONE day into our plan month they refused to refund us for the month that we were canceling/losing! They argued that we were one day into the month so we owed the full $175.00! We called back and spoke with supervisors and didn’t get anywhere.”