Cox Communications
reviews and complaints

After an internal upgrade to their service, I was rendered offline for the most part, for over a week. I could not send anything over 256 bytes in size. It didn't matter if it was email, a post on the internet through a website, etc. I contacted their service department and gave them detailed information. They concluded that I needed a tech to visit me. At that time and all subsequent times they did not tell me I would be charged for a service call. The tech showed up, and I told him about what I found out, that I can surf the internet, even get email, but if I try to send anything (A packet for example) over 256 bytes i'm disconnected. He hooked up his laptop, when nuts on the keyboard, and all of a sudden I had a connection. He was even proud to show that to me, again on his laptop. I was mystified. He told me my cable modem was incompatible or fried. I asked if he had a cable modem I could get and cox could charge me the lease fee. He said no but he could sell me his for $50. I thought that was a little odd so I said no. When he started to leave, I noticed my cable modem was still disconnected so I asked him to look and see if it was working now. He told me he was in a hurry but I insisted. After reconnecting my cable modem, all of a sudden, I was able to email and upload.

What the tech didn't know is that I tried everything throughout the week. Cycling the equipment, even trying a friend's cable modem and calling cox to enable it. Same results. I went online to search this anomaly and found that their upgrade turned off some ports on some nodes, and a tech was needed to turn them back on.

End result, cox charged me a $50 service fee for the visit and never gave that money back. I have been fighting with them about it for almost a year.

I don't know where to go to get satisfaction for this but I wish I did. If anyone can give me some suggestions i'd certainly would appreciate it.

The end result after the visit, the linksys cable modem I was using was working fine but my throughput was slow, so I did go buy a motorola surf modem and the throughput was faster. But... I was totally offline, and after the visit, my so-called incompatible modem was working albeit slowly. They messed up on some ports, and charged me for it.

And the fact that they didn't admit to it or take care of me as a customer makes me feel like I was totally taken advantage of.

Our digital phone which cox insists is the best service out there has been making a clicking noise (similar to someone calling in on the other line) every 30-45 seconds. They have logged my complaint numerous times and have had home tech service at my home twice. After resetting modem and house call was assured problem was fixed. It is NOT. Now they are telling us that the problem is widespread throughout Queen Creek and are fixing it as their budget will allow. WHAT? Oh by the way they just raised rates out here by 3$ per month. I guess they have to pay for all that overtime to fix a problem that probably doesn't even exist. Cox won't say anything else about the issue except to be patient. Hard to be patient when no timeline is given or even a 3rd grade explanation as to what the problem even is.

Completely disgusted in QC
Erik M

We had Cox Communications install phone, cable, and internet on December 1st. Since that time we had continuous problems with our internet service being disrupted and we even lost our phone service for 2 days as well. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Cox Communications trying to troubleshoot the problems we kept having with the internet.

In mid-December, after spending several hours on the phone with Cox Communications and LinkSys trying to fix the problem with our router I was finally told by a Cox Communications customer service rep that they would send out a technician to fix our internet service. When we received our bill there was a 100.00 charge for the technician coming out in mid-December.

I was not told there would be a charge to repair our internet service/router problem when I spoke to the customer service rep who scheduled the technician to come out nor at any point when the technician was here. (We continued to have disruptions in internet service after the technician 'fixed' the issue with the router.) I called Cox Communications and finally spoke with a supervisor who finally removed the 100.00 charge.

We were so fed up with the problems we were having that we contacted other internet services to have our service switched over but unfortunately the earliest we could have it switched was the second week in January.
When we received our bill for services for December 1 through December 31 we paid the bill in full.

In January I canceled all of our services with Cox Communications effective January 9th on which date we were switching to another internet/phone/cable service. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The response from Cox Communications stated that we were charged the 100.00 for a technician to come out in mid-December to install internet on a new laptop (which was untrue) and the letter made it sound like they had done us a huge favor by removing the charge.

Their letter went on to state that our services had been disconnected effective January 9th but that our phone service was disconnected on January 23rd (we had a NEW phone service installed effective January 9th along with new internet and cable service with another provider and when I called Cox Communications to cancel our services with them I canceled ALL of our services – internet, cable, AND phone – effective January 9th and was not told when I canceled our services that our phone service would be disconnected on a different date).

Yesterday we received our final bill from Cox Communications. The bill states that we owe 124.00. I called to find out exactly what we owed 124.00 for since we only had service from January 1st through January 9th and the itemized charges on the bill don't match up to the amount they state we owe. I was told there was a previous balance.

A previous balance? We paid our December bill. I was told there was a charge for this, another charge was deducted, there was a charge for something else, something else was deducted, blah blah blah. None of it made any sense. Then I was told we were being charged for the remaining amount owed on the router and adapter. I asked why.

I was told that we owed because we hadn't canceled service within 30 days of activating our service, that we wouldn't have owed anything more on the router and adapter and could have returned them if we had canceled within 30 days. I was never told – not when we called to schedule to have phone/internet/cable service connected or when I called to cancel our services with Cox - that we would have to pay for the router and adapter if we canceled our services after 30 days.

So now we owe for a router and adapter that we aren't using and they won't let us return them. And, in addition, we owe approximately $70.00 for 9 days of service?!?!?!?!? (Our MONTHLY bill was only supposed to be 116.00 for basic phone/internet/basic cable and they're charging us approximately 70.00 for 9 days of service.)

I filed a new complaint with the Better Business Bureau regarding this final bill we just received and am waiting for a response to that.

We use mozilla foxfire through cox internet. I am very unsatisfied with mozilla foxfire - we continuously get the message - "mozilla foxfire not responding" - I am quite frankly tired of my computer freezing because of this.

Cox has been charging me for an Equipment that i never received. They apparently claim they had it delivered but there is no receipt of that. I get calls from their customer Reps every month for this and i try and explain them the scenario.
Once i had even been to their service centre personally and they said that they will open an research case with UPS or who ever was their delivery agent. However it keeps repeating every time. They will not give me a case id or some sort of ticket number to follow up on this issue.

The standard reply is they will check it internally and get back to me but never hear back and it is the same story every month. Yesterday i got a call from a collection agent for the collection of that money. I have no clue where the equipment was delivered, even if it was.

Cox seems to overcharge many of their customers, but in my case they continued to charge me after I closed my account (I was assured by a Customer Rep this would not happen).

That was 4 months ago ... they still have not refunded my money, and to try and make me feel better the latest rep I talked to said that "lots of people go through this, one woman is waiting on a $1000 refund and she cannot buy christmas presents" ... no joke! Like that was supposed to make me feel BETTER!

It takes Cox 4-8 weeks to issue a check despite the fact that they can electronically charge your account in minutes (why not do the refunds the same way like most other companies?) ... then they try to tell you it will take another 4-8 weeks to go through the mail - yeah right, what mail service takes that long? When I get a supervisor on the phone I am told that is incorrect (obviously).

After waiting 16 weeks, they've made enough money on your refund's interest that it seems like fraud to me. I still don't have a check and now they're saying they will cancel the old one and send a new one - in 4-8 weeks! I bet they never actually sent the first one.

They also tell me they will have people look into the case and call me back. No one ever calls me back. I think they are just blowing me off and hoping I don't keep calling.

But now I feel so bad for the $1000 woman that I will make sure to call them every day. They take people's money when they know they shouldn't, and then wait months and months to get it back to them.

If I hadn't called over and over again, they would have kept my money forever. They might still be trying to, who knows. I may call a lawyer - it's really easy to return people's money to them, but that's not what they want to do.

I was without cable service this weekend due to a fail cable box. Customer Service and Tech Support told me to they couldn't do anything until next week. I told them that it was are only HDTV and we were having a football party on Sunday. They didn't care or have fix the problem yet. They wouldn't dispatch a tech until Monday late or Tuesday. They wouldn't transfer me to a manager or return my e-mail to their complaint dept. I have never been treated this bad before with Cox's Customer Service and Tech Support Depts. We are still without TV service at my residence and their no reprecussion to them. I paid over $150 per month for cable/internet services. And yet I get treated like a second class citizen to them.

I've been a customer of Cox Communications for Internet service for several years. I used to have but then got rid of their tv service because it was the only way I could protest their ignoring my complaints that they stop sending me giant amounts of postal ads, which is bad for the environment as it is a big waste of paper.

So on to the current problem. The Cox email service has been down at least six times in the past two months for most of a day. Despite their denying this, I know for a fact that this has also caused lost email. They never have any explanation of what is going on, nor any idea when the service will be restored.

The crowning blow for this truly spectacular series of failures was the tech support(sic) guy telling me just now that 'after all, email is free.' Apparently Cox now has the theory that the $40 a month its customers pay suddenly does not include email.

The other major ISP in this area is Verizon FIOS, but Verizon insists on replacing the landline when they install FIOS, which means if there's a power failure you only have 4 hours of battery time for the 'regular' phone. If there's a flood (this is a low lying area), the batteries get ruined and you have no phone service.

Curses. I am nonetheless certainly going to look for alternatives. Cox really sucks. They are technically incompetent, have uninformed and snotty tech support people, and don't give a damn about their customers.

I recently started receiving pop up on my computer, i downloaded a couple of pop up blocker programs that came recommended, But I continue to get pop ups. I had talked to friends and they saaid they too were having problems with pop ups. I called today [protected]) and talked to a very nice tech one rep. She helped the best she could but did mention that they had made an upgrade to the system and had been receiving calls about the same problem. She was unable to help me so she sent me to a level two tech who seemed to be bothered my my call. I explained my problem and his answer was "Sure i can help you with that" It will ost $120.00 and how would you like to pay for that. Well, i was floored! I asked if this was new and his answer was he didnt know. I asked if there is anything they could do and he was silent a bit but then said pay the $120.00 and he will fix it. Since i dont have 120.00 sitting in my pocket just waiting to be spent i guess my last resort is to go to circuit city or best buy and try another pop up program. Lets just say my experience with cox cable was beyond crappy. Tech one is willing to help but if you have to go to a tech two then your screwed unless you cough up the money. Guess i wont call for their help anymore.

Cox Communications has left a mess across my property. They were on the property on Monday to fix some sort of breakage in the line. They did not complete their work and left wiring down as low as 3 to 4 feet off the ground across about 2 acres of property. The lines are tagged with streamers over my driveway. When I call, the customer service center only knows how to get a technician here to my house for my service. He said the earliest he can schedule someone is "Tuesday". This is not a home issue with regard to service, it is a safety issue. Any child can pull that wire down. I told him he was putting his company at risk and he stuck with his ability to only schedule on Tuesday. I would hope that Cox could see this is a very UNUSUAL situation that requires more attention than "we will have a tech check it out". When I told him a tech was here yesterday to fix my outage, I was told that no one was here. ? Really?My service was out, I could describe the man...and I am typing this email on Cox service. What is wrong? I was also told that there was no record of Cox trucks being here Monday working on the high wires.

Please encourage people to train representatives to listen carefully before a customer gets this angry. Every once in a while there is a WEIRD problem that someone needs to come out and check. Right away.

I have used Cox Communications for almost 5 years now under my mothers name. I just recently moved into a new house and out of my mothers and ordered Cox thinking I would be getting a GREAT deal since I was a new customer. Boy was I wrong. First of all the tech that came to install got saw dust all over my new living room floor and furniture. He left all the wires going to the computer, phone and TV in a huge knot and to top it off, the box on the side of my house he left opened with the cover to in on my driveway!
I was so upset to see this when I got home. I called and complained and they told me they would send someone out the next day, did they? NO! I had to wait over the weekend for someone to come and clean up after themselves.
When I thought this was the end of it... boy was I wrong! Next came all the hidden fees. I signed up for a bundle which should have saved me money. It was called the Max View Bundle cause we watch TV quite often. It said on line it should come with free HBO and Cinemax... turned on my TV... neither was on there. The went to use our DVR... didn't work... they gave us the wrong box. So I had to go and pick one up myself and call to have HBO and Cinemax put on.
Then I go to use my phone... no caller ID or call waiting! Is this the stone age? Since when does a bundle that should save you money not include caller ID and call waiting... but instead includes "phone tools" to let you listen to your messages online... I don't want that. I want to see who is calling when I am at home! So call and they charge you extra for that... You would think this would be the end of it... NO! Get my bill and they charge me an extra $10 for Cinemax. I call and they say oh that is right. There are TWO Max View Bundles... one with just HBO for free and the other with BOTH for free but that ones cost an extra $10... so I ask... what would it cost if I switched from the HBO and Cinemax one to just the HBO one with Starz... oh the same... WHAT THE HELL!

Long story short... Cox Communications is a horrible company to have for cable... It is really too bad that they are the ONLY company that I can use in my location other than a dish... it is also too bad that they have the BEST internet around... other wise I would have switched a LONG time ago!

This is only my point of view of this major communications conglomerate, but with that being said, I believe they should be brought up on charges. If you take anything from this tale, it should be & ldquo;do not sign up for autopay with cox!”

My story starts in a rather benign way with purchasing cox communications to supply my tv and internet access to my household. I have had them for years since they were my only choice. (Can we cay monopoly?) only recently my husband and I reviewed our bill to find that we were paying a lot more and getting way less compared to various new satellite communication companies. We thought what could be better than getting more and paying less in this newly monetarily restrictive climate. Making the decision to change from cox to satellite tv we made the calls and settled on a new provider. All that was left was to call cox and cancel. Sounds simple enough, right?

Here is where cox’s dark noxious cloud settled over our household.

On a saturday afternoon, after 5 pm, I called cox to cancel my account. They tried to argue that I never called in to complain about the service so why should they need to cancel my service. Working in a service industry, this was absurd to me! Why would I need to justify my dislike of a product to get it canceled? I don’t want it any more… I have moved on… this is a break up and no we can not be friends… this it is in my right to cancel? After the cox representative forced me to come up with some bogus answer involving conspiracy theories, aliens and the need to wear tinfoil hats, she finally let me cancel the service. [this reason for canceling was for my amusement only; we all know aliens come through the toaster ;)] I had five days to return their battered cable boxes and I would even be getting a refund of $75 for part of the month.

Monday morning, I got up and doing my usual monday routine I grabbed coffee and got on line to read the news and check my bank account. The need for coffee became no longer needed when I found that cox had gone into my checking and withdrew over $600 for no viable reason. After getting the household off to summer camp and work I got on the phone with cox to ask them the ever elusive question of & ldquo;what the hell!”

After speaking with a high number of doltish ###ic representatives I was finally transferred to the credit department. The credit departments response boils down to & ldquo;oops, so sorry, this debit is our fault, but we will refund your money in 5 to 7 days”. It has always amazed my how they can withdraw funds overnight but it takes an act of congress to put the stolen money back.

It is now wednesday and still the account sits empty of the $600+ so I being proactive decide to call them and check on the progress. The all new doltish representative tells me they are waiting on the collection of the cable boxes to even process the & ldquo;oops, so sorry, this debit is our fault, but we will refund your money in 5 to 7 days” deposit. When I exclaim, in a slightly panicked and pissed off state, you have your stupid boxes and remotes I am once again placed on hold. After what felt like 10 minutes, she came back with the comment of & ldquo;oh, here they are. We can process your refund now”. It is everything I can do to maintain my composer and not release a tirade of expletives and adjectives that would probably just make her ears bleed.

Now, maybe to you $600+ is not that much money but to our household it was to cover groceries, gasoline and the power bill for the house let alone a little bit a cushion till payday. Now I find myself pawing through the pantry looking for anything I can put together and call dinner (In the looses sense of the word) and coasting the best I can if I have to drive anywhere to save every drop of gas I can till either cox replaces the money they stole or payday, which ever comes first.

Thank you for reading my rant and I hope at the very least you do not sign up for autopay with cox. (Or cancel before it’s too late).

Dropped channels that were originally included in my basic package. Tuesday morning I had TMC on channel 60 and a program guide on channel 69, and Tuesday evening they were gone! Also other things like the History channel and Animal Planet and several others were on some other station number so without a program guide they are difficult to locate. When I called the company they told me that in order to continue getting TMC I would now have to up grade my package for an additional cost of $20.00! No warning. nothing, just oh, you'll have to pay more now to get what we promised in your original package.

I've been a TiVo subscriber for 11 months and I’m using the HD DR with two Scientific Atlanta cable cards provided by Cox Communications. On four occasions within a six month period one or both of my cable cards have needed to be replaced by Cox. Each time this happens we loose the opportunity to see several programs we thought were being recorded – then we loose our service for the three days it takes for Cox to make the repair – and then someone needs to be home for three or four hours waiting for the repairman. To say that this is an inconvenience is an understatement.

We are not accustomed to buying inexpensive equipment with unreliable performance. Our lifestyle is quite the opposite and this lack of reliable service from a piece of TiVo equipment or Cox Communications is very frustrating. I don’t know whose equipment is at fault – Cox says it’s TiVo and TiVo says it’s the Scientific Atlanta cards. I find it hard to believe that with all the cable subscribers using Scientific Atlanta cards and TiVo in this country that an incompatibility between these two pieces of equipment would be tolerated.

If the problem is with TiVo, I would appreciate some proof of that from Cox to use against them to force their prompt solution. If the problem is with Cox and their Scientific Atlanta cable cards, I want a full credit for my subscription fees for the past six months and to know what is being done to resolve this issue. I’m tired of being in the middle and paying full price for completely unreliable service and subjecting my household to these aggravating annoyances.

This company has the worst customer service possible.

I schedule an transfer of service 1-2 months in advance, left to go to the store, had my mother in law waiting to answer the door. Supposedly, the tech claims he showed up knocked on the door, and left. No note, nothing! I call re-schedule.

The tech shows up, I query him about the previous missed appt, he says he walked around the house and it was going to be a big install and they don't normally do those on Saturday..so it sound to me like he did not really want to do it so he did not really try too hard to knock at the door.

Cable gets Installed, within the next few days the cable stops working. I call wait on the phone for 30 minutes. They can't even find an account for me. It is lost, say they will call back shorty, never call back. I call again get it resolved.

In the next week or so... Internet stops working, call, wait an hour on the phone for help, get someone who can't help, they "transfer" me to another tech, I wait again for an hour - on my cell phone! totally wasting minutes. I ask for a credit. They say I can't be given one. I ask for a manager, I tells me I don't deserve one. I finally get some type of $25 credit.

Nice, my cable has not worked 100%, my internet stops working ( I work from home - its my life blood - they say i'm not losing any money because i can just use a neighbors wireless connection - hmmm...why should i even bother paying for what i get anyhow, right?), i waste hours on the phone trying to resolve any problem i have...

in the end...

Very poor customer service every time i have ever called... except when they were trying to get me to become a customer!

I recently reviewed my cable bill and noticed a charge for a pay per view I nor my wife nor my cat had ordered. The title was “1 grl takes’em all”. I honestly had not ordered this movie. I called to complain about it and the lady told me there was nothing she could do about it. She said the only way any pay per view material could be ordered was with my remote. Also they never refunded pay per view or on demand, especially adult material. Of course at this point I could not prove that I had not ordered and watched this movie. I was going to give up but I asked if there where any more ppv orders and she said, “yes, 3 more“. Three more! I have only lived here 4 months, that’s one a month! Each order was $12.99! So I hung up the phone and called my wife to be sure she had not ordered them. No she hadn’t. I called back ready to cancel all service (I had just canceled cable and kept internet and phone) and give them a peace of my mind. The girl that answered was polite and said that she could not reverse the charges but her manager could. Her manager gladly reversed the charges and told me she had to put a block on pay per view.

I had been charged $51.96 over four months.

There was no way to prove I had not ordered them. It was my word against hers.

Be careful! Watch your bill!