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| Time Warner Gets Sued In Cincinnati |
By Harry Callahan
Special to The Daily Bellwether
CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Complaints about cable TV companies jacking their customers are legion -- they are like complaints about the weather. There are even websites devoted to chronicling battles between the cable giant and its subscribers. Now there's a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in Cincinnati federal court that's aimed at putting the region's dominant cable TV provider, Time Warner, on the defensive. It may even ignite the fury of customers. In the suit, John Williams accuses Time Warner of double-crossing him in its widely promoted "Price Lock Guarantee" program. When the deal was offered in March 2008, he said a customer representative told him that he would get a "guaranteed" or "locked" discounted monthly rate by signing up for cable TV and Internet access services. As the Time Warner website says, "With the Price Lock Guarantee packages where available, you can lock in your monthly rates." It sounded good, so Williams signed up for the two-year program and began paying a base rate of $117.35 a month. He said he bought the package at the company's store on Highland Avenue in Pleasant Ridge.
In March 2010, the Price Lock Guarantee automatically renewed, and, sure enough, Time Warner continued to charge Williams the old rate. But before the two years passed, he noticed that his monthly base rate had gone up $7.50, or 6.4 percent. He said the bill contained no explanation for the increase. All he knew was that Time Warner had reneged on its Price Lock Guarantee.
