Time Warner Fibs, Gets Boot

For those of you interested, below is a follow-up to my email the other day about cancelling my cable with Time Warner. It was interesting enough that I thought I would share:

I called customer service and asked to have my cable cancelled, and of course the rep asked why I wanted to leave. I contemplated even bothering to tell him or just say something like "eh... personal reasons." But instead, I blurted it out that HBO was doing something offensive to me as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS and I didn't want to do business with Time Warner any longer. The rep replied, "I know the show you are referring to and I want to let you know that Time Warner only owns a small investment in HBO and we are hardly affiliated with them at all." That didn't sit right with me, so while he was processing my cancellation request I went to timewarner.com, and sure enough, in the "About Us" section Time Warner talked about its wonderful divisions including HBO, AOL, etc. The page even included a list of awards HBO had recently won that Time Warner was proudly claiming on their behalf. So when the rep finished I called him on it. He didn't know how to respond so he put me on hold to talk to his manager. He came back and admitted that HBO was owned by Time Warner and he agreed to split the de-installation fee with me. How nice. I realized he was probably just saying to me what he was told to say to people like me, so I acknowledged that (which I think he appreciated, poor guy) and then thanked him for helping me.

In a way, this experience just validated to me that this isn't a company I want to do business. It also spoke to me that I should do what is in my power to not support companies like this who promote (and are proud to receive awards for) garbage that is directly opposed to the teachings of the restored Church of which I have a testimony.

Thanks for listening.

Link for the LDS.org article:
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma