The name on my uncle's cable account is his mother's name, probably because decades ago he lied to his apartment building management and claimed his mother was living with him to get a bigger apartment.
His mother died 32 years ago.
He has supposedly tried multiple times to change the name on the account to him and has been unable to get Spectrum to do it. (2/3)

Today, I tried to get the two unwanted channels removed from the account and was told they couldn't speak to me (or my uncle) about it because neither of us is his mother.
They're _supposedly_ going to have the right department call me so that I can try yet again to get the name on the account changed. If I can do it, then I'll change it to my name, not my uncle's, so I can manage his cable for him the future without any more of this bullshit.
Spectrum sucks. (3/3)

Update:
The department at #Spectrum that handles account ownership changes did call. After speaking with them, I sent the following in an attempt to convince them to let me take over Uncle's account:
1 Death certificate of current owner of the account
2 My power-of-attorney for Uncle
3 Bank statement showing Uncle's and my name (as POA) and his address
4 proof that the address on the bank statement is the same building as the address on the Spectrum account (*sigh* a story for another time)
1/

Unfortunately, all this wasn't good enough, because Uncle is not named on his mother's death certificate (he's not the "informant"), and my Gmother died so many years ago (1994) that there's no online obituary for her so they couldn't draw a straight line from my Gmother (who did 32 years ago!) and her son (Uncle) currently living in the apartment and using the cable account. *sigh*
2/

They told me I would have to just stop paying the cable bill and eventually his service would get disconnected and then we could call to set up a new account under my name.
I explained that was not acceptable because my uncle is disabled and home-bound and relies on his cable not just for TV but also for phone and internet, and he has no cell phone, and we couldn't risk having his TV, phone, and internet go down and be unavailable for an unpredictable time and duration.
3/

@jik this is absolutely absurd

@zed yeah tell me about it

@jik @zed We switched to Google Fiber, and I told the installer I wasn't looking forward to terminating Spectrum. He said to take all the Spectrum equipment and turn it in, and cancel via the store. He said that works really well. I did that, and the young woman who handled it told me she could process the cancellation, but they would penalize her for it. I cancelled anyway, and I've wondered if that's something they're told to say. They really want you to grapple with a "retention agent."

@jonkl @zed They would penalize HER for it? yhgtbfkmwts