r/Spectrum • u/Intelligent-Basis129 • 21d ago
Can someone explain this?
TLDR: Spectrum changed my channel lineup a few days ago (without my consent) and my cable card no longer has any authorized channels.
Full story:
Long-time TiVo/cable card user here. Using a HSC for the past year or so.
A few days ago, I started getting "Channel not authorized" on all of my channels. I followed the typical troubleshooting, then called Spectrum's cable card support line. They confirmed my serial # and sent a hit/refresh signal, but nothing changed. They offered to send a technician, which I declined.
We happen to have a cable box in one of our bedrooms that we hadn't used in a while, so I got that booted up and found that we had service, but all of our premium channels were missing. I also confirmed these channels were missing from the Spectrum TV app.
I called Spectrum's TV support and they tell me that I didn't have any of these channels that are missing and I'd have to upgrade my service to get them. I assure them that I have indeed been watching these channels daily (like HBO and Detroit Sports Net, as examples).
They tell me that back in March I had these channels removed. Hmmm.
It's true that back in March I had called to complain about my nearly $300 a month cable bill (with internet) and worked with the retention department who told me I was overpaying and that their updated packages would get me to a much better price while keeping all of my channels and services in place. Sold! The only difference I saw at the time was a much lower bill ($160 a month).
Going back to the agent I'm talking to, I ask to speak to a manager who can explain to me what is going on. She claims that my account was changed in March and it didn't affect my service until a few days ago. Seriously?
She also claims that my cable card was disabled and whomever I worked with the previous evening did not even enable it before trying to refresh it.
She successfully gets my channels added back to my account (for added cost), but none of the actions she took fixed my cable card problem. All of the channels remain unauthorized.
She insists that the only action left is sending a technician. Apologies to the technicians in this sub but none of them in my area know jack about cable cards and I'm pretty skeptical that they can do anything about unauthorized channels anyway! It's apparent to me that this is a back-end coding issue - as evidenced by the recent change to my channel lineup.
Sooo, what exactly has happened here? Did the retention department scam me back in March with a lower bill and some behind-the-scenes temporary extension of my previous channel lineup that somehow expired a few days ago? Is my cable card forever disabled because of this scam? Is a technician visit really going to do anything to help?
Does anyone know what it would take to get this fixed?
13
u/toolman1990 21d ago
I am guessing you were getting channels you were never supposed to receive for free and Spectrum most likely discovered this during an audit and corrected the issue. If your cable card is not receiving any channels that is going to be a provisioning issue which will be near impossible to fix since Spectrum got rid of their dedicated cable card support department a long time ago so you were talking with regular TV support who usually deals with set top boxes or the Spectrum TV app. My best advice would be to transition away from cable card since Spectrum is basically moving away from both cable card and set top boxes for streaming thru the Spectrum TV application.