As the superintendent of a Manhattan condominium building, Mr. Hogan enjoyed a significant discount on his Time Warner Cable bill for more than a decade, a fairly standard perk for resident managers around the city. In exchange, he understood his role to be giving repair crews access when they needed it, calling the company when problems arose and doing other things of a ho-hum nature.
Then, just a few months ago, he said, he finally saw the agreement in writing.
Mr. Hogan received his first contract for Time Warner’s Apartment Managers’ Program, he said. It required him to snoop on condo owners in his building to ensure they were not stealing cable, and demanded he allow Time Warner employees access to promote new products in the building.
“I looked at this and I thought, ‘This looks like double dipping,’” Mr. Hogan recounted. “I can’t do this.”
He refused to sign, and his cable was cut off.
Some cable companies around the country have long offered free or discounted service to superintendents, and if anybody has vociferous objections to the practice in general, they are difficult to find. But in recent years, as Time Warner Cable has increasingly formalized these longstanding deals, concerns have bubbled up that parts of its program deputize the employees of apartment buildings to carry out Time Warner’s business, thus creating a conflict for building superintendents: Ultimately, which master will you serve?
“You’re an employee of 77 Park Avenue Condominium, yet you’re being asked to do all these things for another entity,” said William G. Rusch, the condo board president of Mr. Hogan’s building. “It’s blurring the line of responsibility.”
Ziggy Chau, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable, said the arrangement was common in the industry and done for customers’ benefit. If they have a direct contact in the building, they can make repairs more quickly, she pointed out, so residents can make a swift return to their favorite shows and their Internet addictions. (She also pointed out that theft of cable service is, in fact, stealing.)
“If there are service issues, customers want those issues fixed yesterday,” Ms. Chau said.
“The people in these programs, they’re not going to do it for free,” she continued. “We’re building a good relationship.”
While the Apartment Managers contract has been in existence for years, it seems that in many instances, the only thing supers truly needed to get a cable discount was a letter from the building’s management company saying that they were, in fact, supers and that they lived in such-and-such apartment.
But over the past two years, Time Warner has been making an effort to comply with new federal tax legislation, Ms. Chau said, and it appears that has meant a stepped-up commitment to paperwork. They have pushed harder to get contracts signed, and sent out W-9 tax forms so the discounts supers receive are better accounted for.
“You have to be very careful about what you sign,” said Michael Jay Wolfe, president of Midboro Management, a large building management company.
Many of the duties outlined in the Time Warner Apartment Managers Program contract — available to resident managers, supers’ assistants and owners — are perfectly vanilla, and plenty of real estate professionals have no objection to the arrangement. Resident managers are asked to help coordinate the visits of work crews, for example, and to make sure they can get in the building. In exchange, they get free cable TV service, including an assortment of channels ( HBO and Showtime among them), and a discounted rate on Internet and phone service.
But Mr. Wolfe is wary of clauses that allow “the presentation of new products and services” in the building, as well as additional program incentives that reward every three leads that turn into sales with a free month of Internet.
“We would consider that a borderline kickback,” Mr. Wolfe said. “I mean, what are they going to be selling next, Tupperware? They work for the building. They’re not an agent for anybody else.”
Midboro allows its supers to sign the contract but limits the agreement with a letter that bars Time Warner from activities like setting up a tower of fliers in the lobby. Mr. Wolfe says Time Warner has been flexible.
Then there is the requirement that supers “identify, discourage and report” instances of cable theft or tampering with equipment. In essence, this instructs them to fink on people who are simultaneously their neighbors and their employers.
“Very creepy,” Mr. Wolfe said.
After refusing to sign the contract, Mr. Hogan, the resident manager, has had to look for contentment elsewhere, and he says he has found it in the form of another low-cost but, at least on Park Avenue, much more exotic accessory. He went to Radio Shack and bought his television a pair of rabbit ears.
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
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