I recently took TWC to small claims court because of a promotion (a laptop computer for starting TV service) that was denied to me. I lost the case because my wife was paying our bill using an auto-payment from our bank account. I added some equipment for my Tivo to work and that increased the amount by $4.60. The next month she paid the full amount but this difference resulted in us not being "in good standing".

I was never told that my promotion had been terminated and when the expected computer didn't arrive, I called and was told it was a delivery problem. I had to go to court to find out the actual reason why the promotion was not honored.

Was I legally in the wrong? I guess I was. I was an Internet customer with TWC for over 12 years. When I cancelled my account, TWC, sent me to collections because they lost track of the equipment I had returned! Neither of these factors impressed whomeever decided to renege on the promotion.

Okay, TWC won. I didn't get the $450 value of the computer because of the $4.60 shortfall, but they lost me as a customer and I got my neighbor to cancel his $200/month account. We both returned our equipment on the same day. I'm now helping another friend to move from TWC to Fios.

I gave TWC every chance to remedy this issue. I have no more options other than to continue to find TWC customers and to encourage them to switch. Perhaps TWC will start to get the message that treating customers without compassion or even common sense is not the recipe for a good business.

If you're a Time Warner Cable customer, please reconsider.