Thanks, Erica. You gave me advice, and I'll try it to see if it helps. But you really didn't answer the question. Here's why.
The link you gave took me to a page that says, "Contact us to pre-authorize your device and login credentials so you can access Cox.com and Cox Email without interruption while you travel."
Funny, about 3-4 weeks before I left the U.S. I did exactly this. I called Cox to say I'd be traveling overseas and asked what I needed to do. The agent said "nothing," but he recommended installing Cox's McAfee security software to protect against hacking. He said nothing about pre-authorization.
This makes two Cox agents who knew nothing about pre-authorization: the one I called, and the one who wasted my time with over 2 hrs of chat. So, my original question still stands: If even Cox's Tier 1 techs (answering both telephone calls and chats) don't know this deep secret, how does Cox expect customers to learn about it?
The best answer I can cobble together so far is this: Notify Cox and have Cox do nothing, then leave the U.S., have the customer's email stop working properly, waste 3+ hours on chat trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it, then post a question on the Cox forum, wait over a day to get an answer, then email Cox and keep fingers crossed.
Is this the correct answer? if not, what is?
Your answer also poses a second question: If customers do contact Cox to give notice they are traveling outside the U.S. and the agent knows nothing of this pre-authorization, how are customers supposed to get their devices pre-authorized?
BTW. The original agent's suggestion about installing McAfee software in itself has turned into a major headache. I'm still trying to get an answer from Cox or McAfee regarding how to install the McAfee software on an iPad Mini; McAfee requires IOS 10 or later, but the Mini can't run anything later than IOS 9. There must be a legacy version of the software somewhere, but where? Cox & McAfee keep pointing fingers at each other and wasting more of my time.
Hey Erica, I tried your suggestion. I clicked on your link and opened the page discussing pre-authorization. Then I clicked on the "Contact us" link on that page. This took me to this page: https://www.cox.com/residential/contactus.html. But the page only provides one actual option for contacting Cox: telephone.
Telephoning Cox from Nepal to correct a problem Cox should have fixed over a month ago is impractical, ridiculously expensive, and likely to result in even more frustration due to poor connections, etc.
There's also a bogus second, Double Secret way to contact Cox: if you want Tech Support Chat, click on the Sales Chat button! But this is as futile and frustrating as the telephone option. When you go through the prompts, you finally get this message:
For assistance with this request, please contact Customer Loyalty at
1-800-234-3993 (Monday – Friday,
8am - 8pm). Thank you and we look forward to serving you.
So your suggestion doesn't work. Please help with something that does.
Thanks!
