Time Warner's new Residential Services Subscriber Agreement

November 24, 2005. Newfield, New York

As of the moment of this writing my Time Warner “Roadrunner” Internet access service has been down for about two hours. Because my business, actually businesses, are Internet based, I am effectively out of business – or at least I can't tend to business – until my cable connection is back up and running.

As luck would have it, my Time Warner statement just arrived yesterday, and with it came a new “Residential Services Subscriber Agreement.” What better time than now to look it over?

First, this thing is long and difficult to read. It is set in small (8 point) type with lines closely spaced (only a point or two between lines) in a sans-serif typeface. Readership studies showed a long time ago that a sans-serif type face (like this) is much harder to read than a serif face (in which most of this article is set).

Were they purposely trying to discourage readership by their customers? Did they cleverly print the whole thing on thin, 5-1/2 by 6-inch pages, which could then be folded down to a 3x5x12-inch format to look small and insignificant?

With this format were they saying this is just an unimportant little detail, something we had to send you just as a matter of form? Don't bother reading it? It isn't worth your time?

If asked – as if you really could find someone to ask – I'm sure they would claim they produced it this way to save natural resources. Like trees. They were just looking out for the environment, etc. Uh huh.

Anyway, this thing, this “agreement,” has 11 numbered pages. By counting a sample of text I estimate there are well over 7,000 words here! Jesus! That's a novella, Time Warner! Or at least a feature length article in a serious magazine (which by definition omits any publication you can find near any grocery store checkout stand).

If I had a dollar for every Time Warner customer who actually reads this bloated document, or even gives it more than a cursory glance, I'd probably have enough to buy a gallon of gasoline.

I put “agreement” in quotation marks to signify that it is not really an agreement at all. A real agreement requires approval from all the parties involved. This is not an “arrangement between parties,” as my dictionary calls an agreement. Since I was not consulted, because I had no opportunity for input or to argue for changes, and because I was not asked whether I agreed to the contract or not, it decidedly is not an agreement.

I'm trying to decide what this should really be called. Fiat? Dictate? I like “dictate” because that is what Time Warner is doing here: They are dictating the conditions under which I can use their services. This is how it is. If I don't like it, I can opt out of their service. Never mind that they are a monopoly and I do not have any real choice if I want cable TV and a cable Internet connection.

Back in the old days there used to be commissions controlled by ordinary citizens to oversee monopolies. But these days everything has become politicized and all control has been removed from unwashed citizens who might demand accountability. That just would not be acceptable these days because stuff like that inevitably has a negative effect on profits.

So here we have a 7,000-plus word, hard-to-read, densely written document inaccurately referred to as an “agreement” laying out the conditions for my cable TV and Internet service.

My TV and Internet connection are still on the fritz – read “not being provided” – so I might as well spend this time taking a further look at this so-called agreement. What is Time-Warner telling me I have to do? For that matter, what exactly does this document say they will do for me, the consumer?

Hmmm. I have now read through the table of contents (labeled “INSIDE:”). It's not promising. I see lots of headings about how I have to make payment and what I cannot do with the services and equipment, about termination of service, about the “term” of this “agreement,” and so on. But nothing that promises to specifically state my rights or the obligations of Time Warner.

I did find a statement that they would replace my modem if it is defective.

But what about, say, my privacy rights? This has become a big issue to me in this age of dinner-time interruptions by marketing callers. But there is nothing about privacy in this document's table of contents.

As it turns out there is a chapter on privacy. Chapter 12. Isn't it interesting that the table of contents stopped at chapter 11? There is more, but is it a secret? There's chapter 12 on privacy, chapter 13 on “Consent to Phone and Email Contact,” chapter 14 on “Arbitration,” and so on up to chapter 24 on “Conflicting Terms.”

What Time Warner calls “Privacy” is also a misnomer. It really should be called something like “Absence of Privacy” because they say in effect I have no right to privacy when it comes to their rights and interests. When you cut through all the verbal crap, they are saying they can call, mail or otherwise contact me about anything they want to, including their own promotions and products. And they can sell my information to third parties so they, too, can call the hell out of me and try to sell me stuff in which I have no interest whatsoever.

Unless I opt out, that is. If I want to take the time to call or write Time Warner I can tell them to put me on their do-not-call list and not to email me. (Chapter 13(b) of this document specifically states: “I acknowledge that being included in any state or federal 'do not call' registry will not be sufficient to remove me from TWC's phone marketing list.”) Cute!

Okay, so I'm one of those obstreperous bastards who will actually go to the trouble to opt out. Where do I send the letter?

Nowhere in this verbose document can I find an address. I have to go to a statement of account to get the address of the local TW office. Here it is for your convenience if you happen to live in the Ithaca area of New York:
Time Warner Cable
519 W. State St.
Ithaca, NY 14850-5221

They say I can also opt out by telephone, but I'd rather put it in writing. Besides, who has time to wait on hold – forced to listen to an endless litany of commercials about Time Warner's services and products – until an overworked phone operator in India can finally get around to taking the call.

(I don't really know if Time Warner has outsourced their phone service outside the country yet. If they have not, they probably will sooner or later.)

With my opt-out letter done, and my service still not resumed, I tackle the “agreement” from the beginning. I can't say that I studied it the way I would have studied for a test in college, but I looked it over pretty thoroughly.

There are lots of things in this dictate I would like to challenge or at least ask about, but like I said in so many words above, fat chance!

For example, do I understand correctly that if I have a legal issue with Time Warner I must submit it to arbitration, but if they want to come after me they can use the courts? Isn't that lopsided? How is it that I have given up my constitutional rights without even agreeing to do that?

And how can Time Warner get away with opting out of any responsibility for anything their representatives tell me? What are they, the IRS? They specifically state that “I am not entitled to rely on any oral or written statements by TWC's representatives” relating to anything covered in the “agreement,” and said agreement covers everything for which they are liable or can be held responsible. Which is to say, not much!

Isn't that nice! Aside from the tortured language (“entitled to rely”?), they, whoever “they” is or are, are telling me that no one is to be believed. Since a corporation under American law is not a person per se, I assume that the corporate CEO and other officers, all the way down the chain of command, are all “representatives” of TW.

In other words, everything, EVERYTHING!, is determined by this document and nothing anyone from Time Warner tells me am I “entitled to rely on.”

So far now the break Time Warner has afforded me by their breakdown in service has given me the time to look over the “agreement” which they have forced on me, get a letter ready to go out that says don't call or email me or sell my information to any third party (good luck on that one, Charlie!), and eat lunch. And four hours later I still have no Internet or TV service.

One thing I did find in their dictate is the right to request, in writing, a refund (by way of credit only) for any down time. According to my calculations, that would amount to 13.67 cents per hour of lost service. How big of them. Can you imagine how much shit would hit the fan if I could somehow block Time Warner's CEO Richard D. Parsons from doing his job for four or more hours?

I certainly don't make $6,622 an hour like he does, but my time is as important to me as his is to him. (Parsons' annual cash compensation is $13,245,165.)

But what right do I have to complain when in their magnanimity they are willing to compensate me at the munificent rate of 13.67 cents for each and every hour I am unable to work?

Right now I would net about 17 cents over the cost of a first class postage stamp if I requested credit for a four-hour outage.

Why, I wonder, did this outage happen in the first place? If Time Warner were really as interested in their customers as they like to pretend they are, they would give the poor customer service people on the front line – the ones who have to answer all those phone calls and deal with complaints – some real information about what happened. But all they know is “there was a regional outage.”

(Actually they can, if they want to, call other departments in the company and get more information about what is going on when service is down.)

So, lacking details, my imagination goes to work. Here's why I think this outage occurred. For profits! Utility companies used to keep trees around their lines trimmed so they wouldn't be brought down by a falling limb. But I've noticed around this area the utilities don't seem to be much concerned about such things. After all, that kind of maintenance of their infrastructure dips into profits now for something that might not happen. At least, not in the current quarter.

It has been very windy around here his morning, so . . . I am sitting here unable to work because Time Warner wanted to delete the expense of trimming tree limbs around their lines and add that amount as revenue to their bottom line.

As for Time Warner's customer “agreement,” it is just another pathetic example of the empowerment of corporations and how they ultimately answer to no one but themselves. They own the media, they own the government, and they only pretend to give a damn about what you and I think of them. And even that little bit is probably on the way out.
– Chuck Henderson

PS – I hasten to point out that every time I have called technical support at Time Warner their people have been friendly and helpful. The Time Warner people whose job it is to deal with customers seem to be a decent lot who really care about what goes on. But there is a disjoint between the corporate boardroom and the front line troops. It seems pretty obvious to me that the corporate decision makers operate strictly on a basis of what will best advance their individual careers, which is usually interpreted as what is best for the concern's bottom line, and customers be damned. (No surprise there!) Then they hire people who need jobs (and healthcare coverage), train them to represent the company with an image of an all-caring, loving entity whose uppermost concern is the welfare and interests of its customers. Sharks at the top, friendly shrimp at the bottom (which is the only level at which you or I are likely to ever connect with the megalithic corporations). This myth they so assiduously develop breaks down when goof balls like me actually take the time to look under the hood. As in the case with this so-called agreement.

By the way, if my guess is correct as to how much the front line technical people make, Parsons is paid 442 times as much! Only in America do you find these kinds of ratios between CEOs and their lower-paids.

Next day: I noticed an article in the New York Times this morning about how Carl Icahn, who is leading a group of dissident investors in a campaign against Parsons and his rule. One of the things they are after is the complete separation of the company's cable business from the rest of its media assets. If that happens, I wonder if it will make any difference to those of us on the customer end? I bet we'll still have to “opt out” to maintain any semblance of privacy.

The amount of this month's bill is 19 percent higher than last month's! A note is included on the statement telling me how much more the charges are going to be now. I guess I'm doomed to be forever pissed off at companies like this. They had better hope that citizens never regain control of the government, because if we did I'm pretty sure companies like Time Warner would be in for a very rough time.

– Chuck Henderson

Addendum December 3, 2005. ABC News is reporting lawsuits against AOL. "Lawsuit Accuses AOL of Illegal Billing. Lawsuit Accuses AOL of Illegally Billing Customers by Creating Secondary Accounts Without Consent." AOL, as you probably know, is a unit of Time Warner. Interesting reading. Check it out.