Argh! Comcast!!!

[hlg22]

Clearly there are people on this thread that have never had the frustration of dealing with Comcast...yes, they make mistakes - and if I made the number of mistakes they do, I would have been unemployed a looong time ago. They make mistakes because nobody there talks to anybody else in other parts of the company or really cares about the service they're providing or whether the advice they're giving is right or wrong.

When I moved a few years ago I bought a TiVo because the Comcast-provided DVR was so loud in my bedroom that it was actually waking me up at night. To use the TiVo, I had to get a CableCard from Comcast. I had an AV guy doing some other TV and networking work at my house who said that he could install and set it up, but wasn't sure whether Comcast would just provide the CableCard or require a service appointment. So I called. CSR on the phone tells me with absolute assurance that I can pick up the CableCard at a Comcast office, I don't need to schedule an appointment. I ask him about 10 different times, even ask him about the specific office I'd be going to and he keeps saying yes, I know exactly what you're asking for and they'll have it and you can just pick it up. So I drive an hour RT out of my way after work to the Comcast office, pay to park in a busy area, wait in line for 20 mins. once I get inside...only to have the lady tell me that no, they have no CableCards. In fact they've never had CableCards, she has no idea why anyone would tell me that I could get one there, the only way to get one is to schedule an appointment and have the tech bring it out.

They have gotten marginally better though...when I moved to my old house 10 years ago and scheduled them to come out and set up internet, the tech showed up 8 hours after the end of my appointment window without apology (I'd been on hold for hours trying to figure out where he was and had been told by Comcast hours earlier that he was "literally on his way to your house right now"), yelled at ME for "scheduling an appointment on a busy day," had a young child with him who he left sitting in the truck in the dark outside, and ultimately refused to set up internet that day because he "didn't have time" so I had to reschedule the appointment. It took me weeks to finally just get internet installed.

 

[CrAzY4DL]

Got home from our 3 day camping trip and there were 2 boxes from Comcast on the porch. Haven't opened them yet but DH is sure that it's 2 more cable boxes, haha! I think it more likely that they sent 2 modems, one from online chat session and one from the 32 minute phone conversation. Sigh.

 

[travelitis]

Comcast is the best option for my household, although there are competitors. We didn't want cable, but we took the smallest, unadvertised package because it gave us a discount on our internet that made the cable free. I've had the rate go up, but the key is to ask when you call to get it adjusted downward when the expiration date on that rate is, because it always has one. We've been with Comcast 8 years, and we've had no worse service than we did with former providers. It's always frustrating when internet goes out, and my husband throws a fit about Comcast, but when we sit through tropical storms here in Florida with no service disruption, do you think he remarks how much better this is than when we had Dish and storms constantly knocked it out?
Now the OP had some really frustrating interaction with Comcast, but I had an outage today that was quickly solved. I was impressed with changes they have made to their phone tech support.

 

[Aryn]

Always get a receipt! I learned this the hard way as I am charged every month for a modem I returned 6 years ago!. We moved and went to a phone modem and I lost the return receipt somewhere in all the mess. about a year ago I noticed a charge of a modem so I called and had them take it off. That worked until we changed back to a cable modem and bought our own so we would not have to pay the rental fee.
Then the drama started! I called to have their modem taken off (again) and was accused of stealing the modem! She was pretty nasty and said my internet would be turned off if they inactivated the old modem. I said I didn't care since I wasn't using their modem!!

Every month now I check my bill and every month I have to call and have it taken off. I have spoken to everyone at comcast except the pres! They all assure me that next month it will be taken care of and the modem will be gone. I haven't had this modem for 6 years and they can't find it in the warehouse(prob destroyed and they lost the record or something)
So annoying! Keep your receipts!!!!

 

[TrulyMadlyDisney]

- but it's okay, I'm done offering suggestions in this thread.

Suggestions???

 

[Angeni11]

Always get a receipt! I learned this the hard way as I am charged every month for a modem I returned 6 years ago!. We moved and went to a phone modem and I lost the return receipt somewhere in all the mess. about a year ago I noticed a charge of a modem so I called and had them take it off. That worked until we changed back to a cable modem and bought our own so we would not have to pay the rental fee.
Then the drama started! I called to have their modem taken off (again) and was accused of stealing the modem! She was pretty nasty and said my internet would be turned off if they inactivated the old modem. I said I didn't care since I wasn't using their modem!!

Every month now I check my bill and every month I have to call and have it taken off. I have spoken to everyone at comcast except the pres! They all assure me that next month it will be taken care of and the modem will be gone. I haven't had this modem for 6 years and they can't find it in the warehouse(prob destroyed and they lost the record or something)
So annoying! Keep your receipts!!!!

OMG I had the same problem except it was 3 modems that kept reappearing randomly. They have no clue why it kept showing up when it was taken off (and yep I kept the receipts from the techs when they took them and even listened to them call it in to be removed from my account). It was a nightmare.

We moved a year and a half ago and omg talk about a nightmare of wrong equipment and being disconnected. My husband has a number of a high up supervisor who he had to talk to every other day for weeks on end.

Apparently they mixed up our lot # with another house on our street and they can NEVER fix it because once it is in their system it can't be changed. So our account can not be associated with our address and I hope the neighbors never get Comcast again because it will being another nightmare.

The tech who is one of the supervising techs is great and him and his manager are the ones who managed to set us up a seperate account from our address and even gave us some free services for a year due to the issue.

If I had another choice they would be gone as dealing with the reps over the phone is one of the most fustrating things ever. Only time I have ever blown up at someone on the phone because she told me I was lying and had internet (which I didn't).

 

[kiki02]

So we had modem problems last week, no internet for 1.5 days. I called, they set up a technician to come out and would mail me a new modem since my old one from them was "obsolete". Technician comes out, we have internet, yay! Get Comcast package the next day and it's a new cable box. We don't have cable with Comcast, okayyyyy. Go online, check my bill. I'm now paying for cable with them! Grrrrr! I chatted with them last night, modem resent out but now I have to call to cancel tv service I didn't even order. LIVID!

They are so weird. Similar thing hapened to us. I don't trust them now. Write to BBB. I'm betting there are thousands of complaints against them.

Not nice.

 

[dawnball]

Heh. We added cable TV awhile ago, because I was sick and stuck on the couch for months while the doctors prescribed "more rest and see if it gets better".

They sent a cable box, we plugged it in and called to activate. Multiple times I was assured, even "guaranteed" that the cable box was working, had accepted the programming, etc. No dice. Probably because the comcast-installed splitter it was plugged into was terminated on one side.

Five hours on the phone/live chat, including me removing the terminator from the end of the splitter - the box won't even light up the TV with it's boot sequence. I finally said "The cable box is clearly defective, and I'm tired of dealing with it. Send someone out to make this right or I'm sending it back."

Tech comes out. Cable box is defective. Tech assures me there will be no charge for the visit.

$50 failed install charge on the bill. More hours on the phone trying to get the failed charge removed. Apparently "The cable box was defective, and the tech replaced it" isn't enough evidence that the failed cable installation wasn't my fault. I I was assured multiple times it would be credited, and it took three months to credit properly.

The only reason I still have cable TV is that it doesn't cost any less to drop the cable(because of the special we have, our rate would go up), and I don't want to spend three weeks on the phone again.