April Fool’s Day this year marked the beginning of a period of frustration for many Malibu cable consumers that has been no laughing matter. Connecticut-based Frontier Communications took over Verizon’s landline phone, television and Internet service in Malibu, as well as the rest of California and two other states, in a deal worth $10.5 billion. The transition of service from one company to the other has been less than smooth.
Complaints of service disruption and other technological issues have been rampant. And the quality of customer service in responding to these complaints has been just as bad, numerous subscribers have said. Plenty of people have taken to the Internet (apparently in times it is working) to air their frustration.
“I can’t wait for them to finally figure out how to locate my account so I can cancel my cable service with them,” wrote one Malibu customer on the recently created website frontier-sucks.com.
The website serves as a message board featuring comments from upset customers throughout the country. Another Malibu customer wrote, “Last 10 days six hours on the phone with their customer service all on my cellphone since I do not have phone service at home. The appointment by service tech Monday was a no show … so lame.”
One Malibu resident posted a message on a website asking if there were any class action lawsuits to join.
The problems have even hit City Hall, which used Verizon and now Frontier for its Internet service and to broadcast City TV, which went down for three days last month.
“The switch over was not smooth,” City Manager Reva Feldman said. “It appears to have been due to a software problem, which has been resolved.”
Feldman said the city government is not directly involved in this matter that involves a private company, but she has made connections with some executives at the company and been able to tell them about complaints the city has received. Frontier officials have since set up a special email address and phone number people can use to notify the company of their problems.
Frontier declined an interview request from The Malibu Times.
In place of accepting an interview request, company spokeswoman Emily Tantare sent an email with a statement that addresses California issues in general, but not Malibu specifically. The statement claims the company has “nearly 1,000 highly trained technicians working extended hours to respond as quickly as possible to resolve every customer request.” It further claims the company had to rely on “a mix of on-shore and off-shore vendors” while it trained its field technicians and customer service representatives.
“We, like many of our customers, are deeply disappointed in the quality of customer service these vendors provided, and we are taking steps to reduce our reliance on these vendors as quickly as possible,” the statement said.
Tantare told The Times that she did not have specific information on how many Malibu customers Frontier has, nor did she know how many people have had problems. But she said approximately 10,000 customers statewide “have requested assistance.”
There are various theories floating around about why the Frontier transition has been less than smooth. None has been officially confirmed. Answers could possibly come this Wednesday when the State Assembly’s Utilities and Commerce Committee holds a hearing in Sacramento, and committee members can ask Frontier executives directly. The hearing will be livestreamed beginning at 1:30 p.m. on the state government’s website.
Frontier subscribers dealing with issues should send an email to letmelindaknow@ftr.com or call 800.921.8101 (residents) and 800.921.8102 (businesses).