January 2019 by Susan M.
I would give this company NO STARS. We had an issue with poor cable signal with Cox. After numerous resets, Cox stated they would send a technician out, obiviously it was a third party contractor. A young man came out and when he was in the cable box (on the side of our house), a tv in the bedroom that was not on (first cable connection in the house), but was plugged in started billowing smoke, then lights started flashing and popping in the house, and a table top ice-maker that had just started a cycle was shorted out. I immediately ran outside and ask what happened, the tech stated that he had just disconnected the service. He immediately calls his supervisor, Shane Landsbury, Mr. Landsbury's first response was "it's not our fault, your house is not grounded. I am not repairing any services until you have an electrician come out and ground the house." He stated our contract says we are not responsible for electrical, and our cables carry no voltage, therefore we are not responsible for anything." (By the way, this is for my 80 yr-old mother who is hard of hearing, and has dementia.) This was on Friday, January 18, 2019 around 2:30-3:30 p.m. I contacted an electrician on Saturday, he said that he was pretty busy but he could come on Sunday to verify if the house was grounded or not, and it would be a 2 hr. minimum charge. I agreed. The gentleman came out, checked the electrical plugs inside the house, which showed grounded. (I took pictures of the test on the outlets that showed they were grounded and supplied to Mr. Landsbury). He pulled the panel in the house and checked there and stated that the house was indeed grounded. He wasn't sure what Mr. Landsbury was requesting, so he stated on the invoice that the outlet where the tv was plugged into was indeed grounded as that was where the source of the issue started. After he was through with the house, I showed the electrician where the cable box was. The electrician did say that they should not have grounded to the water faucet below the cable box as the pipe is not exposed, therefore they do not know if that pipe is copper or plastic. When I walked him to the pole, he said, well they have a ground to their cable to a ground wire running down the side of the pole, but it should really be ground between the box on the pole and the houses service. Since Monday was a holiday, I contacted Ozark Electric on Tuesday, January 22, to come out and check the electrical at the pole. A young man named, Stephen, came out, pulled the meter, checked the box at the pole, tested the voltage of wires going into the house, got in the bucket, went up to the top of pole and checked equipment there. He stated there was not a problem. I then went to the Cox office in Fayetteville, Ar. to file a claim.A gentleman there who identified himself as either the manager or assistant manager, said that the only way they had to contact Mill-Tel was through email, and he said he was emailing "Jeff" who was Shane Landbury's supervisor. The manager requested that I send him photos that I had taken of the cable groundings, the outlets being tested and the invoice. I did that in their office and they were emailed to "Jeff" while we were there. I was told that either Jeff or Shane would be contacting me very shortly. Shane Landsbury did contact me and say that he had been trying to get ahold of the electrician and started asking if he was licensed, I responded "Yes Shane, his master licenses is right there on the invoice along with a phone number. I'm sorry he is not responding, I don't know why." Shane then said he would be getting a second opinion with his own electrician and I was fine with that. He asked if he could come out on Thursday (this was Tuesday) between 11-1. I replied yes, but please make it closer to 11 as we have to leave by 2 pm as we (my mother and I) were going out of state and had to catch a plane. I would like
