Man Lives Every Homeowner’s Nightmare And Finds Out He Would Have To Pay $117,000 To Get Internet Access

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Building a home is always a risky endeavor, because it is an expensive process that has many variables. However, this is one of the worst stories that you’d ever hear of homeowner nightmare scenarios. When Cole Marshall of Sun Prairie, Wis. decided to buy a vacant lot and build a house, he checked with Charter to ensure that the property could receive internet service. The lot was a little ways out of town, but Charter assured him that he was within the parameters to get reliable internet access in his new home.

After getting the go ahead, Marshall built his new home, but soon got some horrible news: Charter misled him, and in order to have access to their high speed internet, he would have to pay $117,000 up front and out of pocket to pay for an extension of the fiber optic lines to his home. He could use rival provider Frontier, but his only option is 3Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.  As a web developer who works from home, that kind of low service would make his professional life a nightmare. (As someone who works from home, this whole situation makes me break out in hives.)

The shocking — or not so shocking, if you have experience dealing with internet provider charlatans — aspect about this whole thing is Charter’s total unwillingness to take any blame here, instead firmly maintaining that their “information isn’t always accurate.” Unfortunately for Marshall, he did not get Charter’s service claims in writing, despite calling to affirm their coverage.

“I never imagined I would need it in writing because I mistakenly trusted them. It didn’t seem wrong to assume that they had the best information about their own network,” he said.

To add insult to injury, Charter didn’t bother to update their mailing list.

“I did get a mailing right after I moved in, ‘welcome to your new home, [Charter] Spectrum broadband Internet,’ and it made my blood boil when I saw that,” Marshall said.

This is hardly the first time internet providers have royally screwed over their customers. A man in Washington had to sell his home because Comcast refused to provide service to his house. Rule of thumb: Lock. That. Sh*t. Down. Before. Purchase.

(Via Ars Technica)

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