In the two years since becoming the major cable provider in the Los Angeles area, Time Warner Cable has drawn sometimes colorful criticism from its subscribers.
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City attorney, Rocky Delgadillo sued the company in Los Angeles County Superior Court accusing it of engaging in “unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business acts and practices and deceptive advertising.” The suit says that the company has subjected subscribers to delayed repair appointments, deceptive pricing and Internet outages.
“Time Warner Cable must be held accountable for illegally deceiving and ripping off its subscribers,” said Mr. Delgadillo in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr. Delgadillo is seeking $2,500 in civil penalties for each violation.
Time Warner Cable, a unit of Time Warner, joined with the Comcast Corporation in 2006 to buy the bankrupt cable provider Adelphia Communications Corporation. Time Warner Cable, based in New York, and Comcast, based in Philadelphia, then carved out regional markets in the United States. Time Warner Cable received the Los Angeles area.
A spokesman for Time Warner Cable said that the company disagreed that it had “misled customers in any way.”
Time Warner’s Los Angeles area subscriber base grew from 360,000 to about 2 million after the acquisition, Mr. Dudly said. Since then, the company has done an extensive renovation and upgrade of the system it inherited.
“We now receive fewer complaints than we did before the acquisition,” said Mr. Dudley. “I think that shows some substantial progress.”
Message boards for Los Angeles area residents rating the city businesses are filled with comments complaining about botched cable services.
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