“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”


"This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people . . . better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave." ~ Captain Malcom Reynolds

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Comcast displays the suxorz...

So yeah, the whole "internet problems" we discussed? Well, the lovely wife called up yesterday & scheduled an appointment for the technician to drop off a new cable modem to replace our old one today. We got the famous "He'll be there between 11 and 2." speech, and since she had to help with Angel Food distribution today anyway I planned on taking care of it during my morning with the children. Since we both need the internet for work purposes, as well as for my school courses, we felt the prompt replacement was kind of important after all.

First thing this morning that the kiddos give me a moment I go ahead and unplug/disconnect etc the offending electronic device, shift desks around to clear a path for new wires and all that - all in preparation for our little replacement at some point.

Of course, you all know where this is going already...

Yep - 2pm rolls around, and no technician in sight. My wife calls on the phone at about 2:30 while I'm running to feed the dogs at work & gets a "Oh, he's running late, you're the next house on the list he should be there in about 30 minutes."

So, we wait some more... About 4pm I start to bypass "frustrated" and move towards "annoyed" - so I call up again. This time it's a customer service representative promising to call the dispatcher & have them "get right back to me" with an ETA or a reschedule - which I explain politely my dislike of, given we have been without service for almost 24 hours AND have scheduled our day around this. He grovels etc. appropriately swearing my phone will be ringing any moment with news.

5pm still nothing... I'm working on dinner for everyone in the oven, and have bypassed all my levels heading straight to "pissed off" - so I call up the old Comcast demons yet again. To get stuck on hold. Each minute passing I am crafting my discussion for the supervisor on my problem with not only no service, no technician, but now not even the courtesy of a return call. And I wait. And wait. And wait.

Finally at about 545 the tech pulls up just as I'm trying to wrap up dinner. Good sense takes over, for once, and I let my wife deal with him swapping out the modems while I cook, so as not to express my displeasure prior to the service being completed. It takes him about 15 minutes to get everything done (which I could have done myself, but they get to overbill users every month for service so they can do the gorram work on a trouble call) & he wraps up as I watch him and do the router reboot he can't get straight while my family eats.

So - all said & done, yes we have internet service again, but I am still heartily displeased with Comcast today... just another in a list of too many episodes of trouble lately, so I am considering again switching to the Verizon FiOS system soon - we will see. One way or another I definitely am planning a disgruntled email to their complaint department once I have rested on it a night.

5 comments:

Dori said...

Ah, a fine rant indeed! And a rather fitting celebration of our refound internet service! Did you notice my silence when he was all, so sorry about the delay?

Gothelittle Rose said...

Only one of multiple reasons why we switched from Comcast to DSL. Another is because DSL is cheaper. Another is because we get our very own bandwidth instead of claiming, say, 3MB per person when it's actually something like 15MB per seven or eight people on the premise that Not Everyone Can Be Using It To Full At The Same Time.

Captain Tightpants said...

Gothelittle_Rose - we had DSL before and the problem we had here was a TON of connectivity issues - on average it was down for 3 hours a day, and that was peak times, not during the middle of the night. Plus, here at least, the costs work out to be the same - which was a waste for us anyways, since we don't use landline. So that was the reason for the switch.

However - with the FiOS and adding the HD TV it might be worth it - not sure yet.

ComcastCares1 said...

I apologize for the unacceptable experience.

I would really like to find out why the tech was late and why no one called you back as promised. Will you please provide the phone number associated with the account?

I will make sure your experience is shared with our local leaders so that you'll have a better experience next time.

Best Regards,

Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com

Mrs. "Smith" said...

It took comcast 2 years to figure out our tiling problem. It was their wires outside. During this time they killed our cable box with the mysterious "signals" they would send to it.