Complaints to FCC about cable, satellite TV up 346 percent
September 9th, 2009, 9:02 am · 15 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
The number of complaints against cable and satellite TV service jumped 346 percent in the first three months this year compared to the same period last year, according to a report released by the Federal Communications Commission.
Cable/Sat complaints 1Q 2009 1Q 2008 % change DTV transition 170 n/a Service 344 176 95% Marketing & Advertising 381 n/a Billing & Rates 583 238 145% Programming 2,635 380 593% Total 4,113 923 346%
While that may sound high, cable and satellite TV services received the fewest number of complaints compared to other telecom services tracked by the FCC. The agency tracks inquiries and complaints about TV, cable and satellite, wireless and wireline phone services.
During the first quarter 2009, it was TV service with the most complaints, at 188,588, up a whopping 548 percent from the fourth quarter. The FCC cited the nation’s switch to digital TV broadcasts first in February and then delayed till June, which caused confusion and a lot of headache even among consumers unaffected by the change.
In the same period, cable and satellite TV had 4,113 complaints, up 96 percent.
While the FCC compared first quarter figures with the fourth quarter of 2008, I pulled up last year’s first quarter as a comparison. Last year, the FCC registered 923 complaints about cable and satellite TV during the first quarter. This year, the number jumped to 4,113 complaints.
Either there really are more things to complain about when it comes to paid TV or consumers are finally noticing the FCC has a complaint button:
The biggest complaint in 2009 was over programming issues, followed by billing and rates, advertising and then service. In 2008, biggest complaints were in this order: programming, billing and service. Blanks in the chart mean there was not a similar reason for complaint during years.
FCC complaints 4Q08 1Q09 % change Radio/TV 29,108 188,558 548% Wireline 27,160 36,427 34% Cable/Satellite 2,097 4,113 96% Wireless 12,464 16,142 30% All 70,836 245,241 246%
But the number of complaints during the first quarter this year was small compared with some other industries the FCC tracks. Cable and satellite TV collected 4,113 complaints, but wireless quadrupled that number, to 16,142.
The wireless industry got a huge number of complaints related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which handles the Do Not Call List and junk faxes. Some 11,843 consumers filed a complaint with the FCC. Billing and rates issue came in a distant second, with 3,019 complaints.
Wireline phone services had even more complaints. Many revolved around the phone bills — multiple charges, surprise charges (cramming), unknown charges (slamming). But the most complaints were related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which protects against unwanted callers and junk faxes through the Do Not Call list.
Lots more numbers are available in the FCC’s report, “Quarterly report on informal consumer inquiries and complaints.”
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Here's a list of TV/mobile companies helping consumers one tweet at a time. 
Cell phone companies and cable TV are the worst. Both will lie to get you to sign up for two years.
Here’s something to give you a laugh and the “off-shore” tier one support call center some grief. Next time you have internet issues and call them, they will insist upon knowing whether you are using Windows or Mac.
Them them UNIX. They will be speechless……
In the desert we have Time-Warner. Our monthly service charge went up and most recently lost channel 7. I only have basic therefore, you are stuck or being forced to watch infomercial. The whole cable stuff is a monopoly forcing consumers to purchase cable or some source of satellite or you can’t watch T.V.
By the way, Time-Warner has elaborate Christmas parties for their employees with unbelievable prizes. How about cutting the perks and pass on the saving to the people that keep them in business?
Cox internet service is the worst.
Their phone reps don’t even understand the terminology they use.
Blah.
Cox Communications is a rip-off.
Totally Worthless Crap charges me $65 a month for crap basic
Most of the channels are Spanish, home shopping, religious, and health
The audio is either very loud and distorted or so quiet you cant here it (and they refuse to fix it)
I think Mr Obama needs to forget about healthcare and go after the cable providers!
If i’m forced to pay this high price I want alacart!
Do what I did… Cut them off..
No more CABLE .. Regular TV is fine..
and NO payment…..
In France, we had ADSL service for $29.95 (OK, Euros, but that still works out to roughly $42) per month, which included broadband internet access, VOIP telephone free to anywhere including the U.S., and 160 channels of high-def digital TV, plus wireless access and a digital video recorder. All for $42/month. No deposit or any other charges.
Cox charges me $98 for basic internet access, and non-digital cable.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I had cable until the mid ’90′s. Congress passed a law telling them they needed to stop bundling programming packages and be more competitive. After the local cable company re-vamped their pricing, it turned out I was saving 8 cents a month on a $46.00 a month bill. I dropped them and have been with DirecTV ever since.
I also made the cable company take all the cabling away from my property.
Well I have cox basic bundle that I switched to when I moved to this location from previous full service with my Dad. I now have phone, their lowest high speed internet and local TV channels bundle for I think its $35/mo.
Usually the service is fairly good, but I have had some transient outages of phone and internet (not sure about TV as I haven’t had much time to watch it at all lately. I think it was over a week ago the last time I watched.) And when I sent them an email about it, typical of most tech support, they didn’t read it well and thought it was just telephone. Later when I called about the issue below, after getting some more back and forth on this from separate internet and phone tech support–they don’t seem to have anyone that deals with loss of signal for both which sure seems dumb–they more or less told me that.
But there was a weird issue that when I transferred my service over it transferred but when I tried to log in to check billing, it showed the old account at my Dad’s address.
And then a week or so ago when I checked email mid afternoon, after it working ok earlier, I got error messages saying that my account was inactive. I tried a few times before trying to check billing, but again, it took me to the old account.
When I called, I found out that apparently someone finally had turned off the old address, but did that rather than transferring it. The worst thing was that anyone emailing me at that time would have gotten that message and may have thought it was no longer valid and removed me from their list.
They said there was nothing they could do about the period when that message was going out. I had to set up new passwords and log in and all for each of my 3 email addresses. The first one went ok, but then it stuck so I had to close my browser and maybe even restart my computer–can’t remember. Finally did get it all working ok, but it took a couple hours of my time at a time when I was rather busy.
So usually the service is fine, but sometimes there are issues.
I will say that the tenant who was here before had Dish and they made a lot more holes and all than was necessary and violated the rules and regs by mounting the dish with a penetrating mount into the balcony railing. apparently they have a reputation for damaging stuff.
I also found a hole through the ceiling of the other bedroom which had been filled with clear silicone which looked rather dumb. Oh and not sure wehther it was Dish or the tenant, but they had made a whole in the plywood flooring and the sprinkler cap for one was missing–probably looking to route the line downstairs.
Cox lost the cable into the wall since tenant cut it off really short, but then another guy finally came out a week later and fished it out, making a very small hole (with my permission) which was smaller than I expected and he neatly puttied it after he had spliced the cable and put it back through where it was supposed to go.
So generally the service is fine, but there have been issues.
Nothing’s as bad as Time Warner.
Apparently they want to take over the World,.
And now they want to charge $2.50 per call to speak to a “real” representative!
They’d better not call me. I’ll charge them $5.00!
I went from Time Warner about five years ago to Directv. It started at $39.95 per month and has gone up to $59.95 per month. Because we have many TV’s the total bill is over $100 per month and that doesn’t include any HBO’s or pay per view. Wow, a 66% incease!!! I can’t wait until the contract expires in Nov of 2010 and I am going to do something else.
Plus, their customer service has gone from being very good to “not so good.”
I agree Cox is a rip-off. Their sales people are bunch of liar just to sign you in. Female customer service are MEAN. I am ready to cancel mine.
Not AT&T U Verse. Its the BOMB.
att.com/referrals Referral Code: PE1418985