Wait. He first "hacks" the order form to make the "supply my own modem" checkbox available, and then complains that "Time Warner should have known, based on the options selected during my purchase, that I would supply my own modem and asked me personally to supply the MAC address and relevant information".
Can't have it both ways, man. Time Warner can be blamed for many things, but expecting them to seamlessly support an option they had disabled intentionally is a bit much. You're lucky they let you do it at all.
The URL string suggested it was an A/B test, similar to what we use at AppSumo. The option was available when you went back to the options page, but disappeared after a script/some data loaded. For what it's worth, that particular insight was from "Bill."
You basically have to hack / debug every website from Time Warner in order to use it. I swear I've whipped out chrome inspector / firebug attempting to use TWC websites at least twice.
There could be an equally long blog post about the maddening information architecture and odd lapses in QA on critical features. For nearly 4 months their online recurring billing was sending me confirmation and then one day I get a shutoff notice with audacious late payment fees - why? Because the system failed at making the transaction but there was no error handling, so instead of throwing an error it instead just marked me as having missed a payment on the backend.
Don't worry, I am convinced that checkbox does absolutely nothing, enabled or not. I just moved within Austin, and I didn't hack the form. I selected the option for supplying my own modem because it was available, and the technician was still blindsided when he saw my modem.
To top it off, this was a transfer, so it should not have been news that I brought the modem from my previous apartment, especially given that I selected the checkbox confirming this. While holding the modem he brought along to install, the technician informed me that I also had a modem attached to my account supplied by them three years ago, and asked where it was. I was not paying for a modem that was listed on my account for three years--I verified this. Laughable account auditing on their part (that should be automated), no loss for me, and neither party has any idea where that modem wandered off to.
The technician was pleasant and the installation only took a few minutes, so I count myself lucky. Overall, though, it was incredibly sloppy and didn't exactly inspire confidence.
Par for the course, I suppose, because three years ago they goofed up my work order by never completing the scheduling process, but confirming the time and date of the appointment with me. Then, after apologizing, they scheduled the new work order another two weeks out.
Can't have it both ways, man. Time Warner can be blamed for many things, but expecting them to seamlessly support an option they had disabled intentionally is a bit much. You're lucky they let you do it at all.