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April 24, 2006

Comcast SUCKS!

I woke up yesterday morning at 10am with no internet, no cable and no phone. Something had apparently gone haywire around 7am as that was the time the last email was downloaded to my computer.

I have never witnessed so many problems with a cable company until I moved to Dallas last January. Comcast Cable is another reason why I hate Dallas.

Friday, January 7th, last year I drove to Dallas for New Student Orientation for CulinarySchool. About 4pm I was finally given the keys to my apartment in "DaHood" and I had an installation appointment scheduled with Comcast between 5pm and 8pm. About 8:01pm, when they hadn't shown up yet, I started calling.

I was told that they had come by my apartment and no one was home. Um, yeah, sure! I'm sitting here, on the floor, (freezing by the way since the heater in the new apartment didn't work for a week) by the front door, in a nearly empty apartment and you are trying to tell me someone came by here and knocked on my door. Um, yeah, sure.

Then I was told that they called my house 3 times and left messages. Ok, lets analyse this. 1) I wasn't home and had told them to call my CELL PHONE. 2) my answering machine at home was PACKED!

I was also told that they knocked on a brown door in a single story building. Lets examine the evidence shall we?

The edge of the building is in the corner of the top picture. It sure looks taller than a one story building to me. In fact it was three stories.

Hmmm. Am I color blind, or is that a BLACK door?

When I explained that I was in a three-story black and gray stucco apartment complex, the guy on the phone said... "well, its dark outside, that changes the colors."

So after being transfered to one too many supervisors, I decided to go ahead and drive back to "TheArmPitOfHell" where my uHaul was waiting in the driveway to be driven back up to Dallas the next day. I stayed on my cell phone the entire two hour drive talking to Comcast.

Once I finally had a supervisor on the phone who would listen I had a few points to make. 1) Don't schedule appointments you aren't going to keep. 2) Make sure your installers have enough reading skills to call the correct phone number. 3) Don't have your lackees answering the phones make excuses for your incompetent installers, telling me that a black door mysteriously turns brown at night.

They rescheduled my appointment for Monday and the guy messed up my computer installing the internet software, when I told the guy I was perfectly capable of installing it myself. And then he installed my cable TV with a switch box. I immediately told him that was not what I ordered and he was like, Sorry that's what is on the order, you will have to call in and schedule another appointment.

So, Thursday I had to sit at home again and wait for another installer to come bring me a cable box and take away this stupid switch box that hung off the front of my TV. Luckily he had called before he showed up and I had his cell phone number on my caller id, so when the channels were all messed up and I couldn't get anything to come in I got to call the skinny-crackshowing, jeans past your butt wearing thug, back to my apartment to fix it.

After my cable TV was finally working correctly and I received my first bill I saw a Comcast commercial where it said that internet was only $25.99 a month and I was being charged $42.99. I was then told by a Customer "Service" Rep (I use the term service lightly), that I had to have asked for that special when I placed my order. Hmm.. I didn't know about the special because I didn't live in Dallas when I placed the order and that they don't advertise in "TheArmPitOfHell." Again, I had to talk to a supervisor to get this fixed.

Within two weeks the cable modem was dead and they had to bring me another one. About two months later, the cable modem died again. The third time I finally got a cable modem that worked.

The supervisor I had talked to that first night supposedly set up my account to have a $99.00 credit (for the installation) and to have my first month free. It took two and a half months before they fixed my bill. I just refused to pay it until it was fixed. It took going thru about 20 different people on the phone before they figured out which supervisor I had talked to nealry three months prior and got me back in touch with her. She finally fixed my bill to show the first month fee, the $99 credit & the credit for the internet special that I'm supposed to know about before I even move there..

It was moving weekend in December when CY helped me move all my electronic stuff to my new condo. The appointment was between 11 and 2 and they were told to call before they came. We had started to go get something to eat for lunch and they called and said they would be there in 30 minutes, so instead of going to Masala Wok for lunch, we ended up at Wendy's on the corner. We were back at the new place within 25 minutes.

Two hours later, I had to call Comcast and find out what the heck was going on. The contracted installers called 15 minutes later and said they were on their way. Then an hour later, I called their cell phone back and said.. "um, did you get lost?" and they claimed that they did. It was nearly 5pm before they bothered to show up. Then, they were there for about 4 hours because they couldn't figure out which line was mine and couldn't get a signal inside my condo.

When they finally got a signal, set up the TV they switched DVRs. I was like wait a minute, I have shows recorded and saved on there. They were like, well they have already been erased when we deactivated the DVR. Well, why the hell did you do that? Well, we have to give you new ones when you move. WTF?

Then they went to the computer. And they switched out my cable modem again, back to the type I had the first three times that never worked. I was furious.

Not only did they switch out my modem, they set me up a new email address on my "new account" and didn't move over my old email address. No one told them to set me up a new email address, and I certainly would have never set up an account using my full name. About a week later, Outlook started having problems downloading my mail and I called in and they said... well that email address is no longer active. WHAT? It took them three weeks to fix this. No telling how many emails I lost.

I was not happy about the way this install went and I was really not happy that they switched out my equipment, because I had already been thru 3 cable modems and I finally had one that was working. In January I had to replace that cable modem they gave me in December.

The current bill I have from them shows a credit for 3 days of no service from back in February (one of their installers had switched my wires outside when installing service for someone else) and in March they had to come out and replace my cable modem, again!

Now, I have had no service since 7am yesterday morning. The weird thing is, my TV shows the channel box at the bottom of the screen with what show is supposed to be on, it is not snow like it was last time.

I would say that I was looking forward to getting away from Comcast when I move to Houston, BUT, last week my best friend had a installation appointment with TimeWarner Cable between 8 and 10 am. She called 3 times on Thursday and she was told that he was 15-20 minutes away and would be there shortly. At 4pm she called to find out what was going on. They were told the installer would call her. He finally called and said he would be there between 8 and 9pm. He never showed.

She called TimeWarner back and rescheduled for the next day. At 10:15 the next morning she had to call back again to find out why they didn't show up between 8 and 10 and she was told that she wasnt even on the schedule until Tuesday. She even called the technician back on his cell phone and when she told him who she was he hung up on her.

After talking to numerous supervisors, getting the original technician fired (apparently he didnt show up to a lot of other appointments either), the supervisor sent someone else. It was nearly 4pm on Friday before she had the installation originally scheduled for 8-10 am Thursday completed.

As soon as I move to Houston, I'm ordering Satellite like I had at my house in Smalltown, TX and if I have to, I may have to find T1 access because I am sick of these cable companies.

P.S. If you click on that link to Comcast above, it actually takes you to a different website called Comcast Sucks where some of Comcast's most wonderful qualities of unreliable service, crappy signals, idiot and late installers, high prices, etc.

There is also a link to a petition. If you hate the cable companies as much as I do, please go sign it. This is the email I received after signing the petition.

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the petition: "Petition Comcast's CEO To Answer For Service & Reliability"

Please take a moment to read about this important issue, and join me in signing the petition. It takes just 30 seconds, but can truly make a difference. We are trying to reach 100,000 signatures - please sign here.

Once you have signed, you can help even more by asking your friends and family to sign as well.

Thank you!

FutureFoodTVStar

Posted by FutureFoodTVStar at April 24, 2006 10:46 AM

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Posted by: Carrie at April 25, 2006 01:19 PM

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