Strange door to door Time Warner solicitation today... (sales, apartment complex)

[caspian65]

Had something strange happen today, wondering if anyone else has experienced the same..

About 1:30pm, my AT&T U-verse service went out. Internet, phone, everything. My wife called from her work to report the outage.

Around 3pm, I noticed a car parked out on the road across from my house with a Time Warner magnetic sign on the door. It was not a TW service vehicle, appeared to just be a personal car (Ford Taurus). A little while later, my doorbell rings and the guy is wearing a Time Warner shirt and has some pamphlets. He says he is handing out information on Time Warner, asked if I had them before and I said yes. Then he goes on to say "I understand your AT&T service is out right now." At the time, I thought to myself that it couldn't have been more perfect timing for a sales pitch. After he left, I started to wonder if maybe he was responsible for my service being out?

Something else he said... "If you're interested in switching, call the number on this card, Don't call Time Warner directly."

Everything came back on around 5pm.

Kinda spooked now, not sure what to think about this?!

[dchz1]

Something else he said... "If you're interested in switching, call the number on this card, Don't call Time Warner directly."


This part maybe true, my daughter just had her service installed by a TW tech, she called him direct on his cell phone ( number was provided by apartment complex ) he came by with magnetic sign on his truck and did the install with no problems - if they sell the service and install tech gets extra $ this is why they do not want you to call directly and if there is a service issue you just call him.

[kelly237]

Wasn't there a thriller movie about a fake cable guy that was really installing video cameras ..LOL

[RDUBiker]

The whole thing sounds sketchy and I'm glad your BS detectors were going off. I always question things like this - I would call TWC and ask them if this is normal practice and my guess is, it's not.

[CHTransplant]

Using independent sales representatives is not all that unusual. They work on commissions for the customers they bring in, so if you call the company directly they lose out on credit for the sale.

Does AT&T publicly post its network issues in the way TWC does? If so it wouldn't be that surprising for an enterprising sales rep to use that information to quickly target affected customers.

Never hurts to be cautious, though.

[caspian65]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe it was just a coincidence that my service went out, but it seems awfully suspicious.

[Ed_RDNC]

I think CHTransplant has it right.
An entrepreneurial independent contractor had been watching network outage information and then ran over to push his product. That's pretty smart.

Though, this thread shows that it would be better if he just made up some flyers to leave on your door, promoting his own network's reliability over the one that went down.
Knocking on doors under this circumstance is a bit creepy.

[CHTransplant]

Originally Posted by Ed_RDNC

An entrepreneurial independent contractor had been watching network outage information and then ran over to push his product. That's pretty smart.

Or he was already there and had just heard from one neighbor that their service was out, and used that as he called on other neighbors within the neighborhood.