I've had it with Comcast Cable-long rant UPDATE on post #15

[hugsquared]

My cable has been out for 2 days now. I called yesterday morning and was told they were having outages in parts of Atlanta but crews were out working and things should be up and going soon. Okay, I can accept that. Although I'm not sure how he knew which area I was in since I called from a cell phone and he never asked for location, name, phone number, nada.
Today...cable is still out so I call again. This time, they ask for my phone number and tell me I'm not in the grid thats having trouble, they don't know whats wrong. I mention that a tenet above me moved out yesterday, could there have been a mix up in whose service got disconnected. She looks through logs and sure enough, the tech was out here yesterday to disconnect the lady that moved. Seems he disconnected mine instead. Comcast tells me it will be Wednesday or Thursday before they can come fix it. I mumble okay as I've just gotten home from working all night and am really not in my best thinking mode.
I nap for several hours and wake up...still no cable. Then I think, why do I have to wait that long when this was their screw up? I call back...hold for 33 minutes, explain the entire thing again telling the girl that upon further thought, Wednesday or Thursday was unacceptable and I wanted someone out sooner. She says they can't. Tells me she will try to contact a tech to set something up and will call me back in 10-15 minutes.
4 hours later, I call Comcast again. Re-explain plight, ask why no one ever returned a call, was told "I don't know". Reassured me that no one could come until at least Wednesday but probably Thursday. I ask why the commercials say "call and order and be installed within 24 hours". How come they can get new customers set up that quick but for someone who's been paying for service, we get the run around. Silence....
She gave me the cell phone number for one of the tech's that service the apartments I'm in...2 messages, no return call. I'm moving in 2 weeks into a new condo. I'm thinking about going back to Dish Network. Comcast just doesn't seem to give a fat baby's butt about me sitting here for 5-6 days with no cable. I'm peeved and needed to vent...thanks for listening.

 

[Pam]

Are they going to credit your bill for their mistake?

I don't blame you - I'd be raising heck if this happened to me!

 

[sunkissed212]

I'm sorry to hear you're having troubles with comcast. I've had several troubles with them in the past as well. This last time around I've been pretty lucky and haven't had any issues but I know a lot of people that have switched to other cable providers because of comcasts' lousy customer service.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

Sorry to hear that. This is exactly why when I bought my condo I made sure that the balcony fased the right direction so I could get directtv. Yes I do get the snowy screen once in awhile when it rains really really hard, but it is always up again in a few minutes. Plus it's so much cheaper.

 

[hugsquared]

The last lady told me I would get credit once they knew how long I was actually out of service. I almost told her to consider me "out of service forever" and they could come get their little boxes and store them where the sun don't shine

 

[Kermit]

That is horrible. I can't believe she gave you the tech's phone number. Isn't it her job to call the tech and set that up? I'd be incredibly upset if I were you, too.

 

[elliemae1192]

Those are exactly the kind of reasons I switched to Dishnetwork. I got so tired of the problems with service and the attitude when I would try to get the issues resolved.
I've had Dish for several months now and I LOVE it. Where I live we have ALOT of rainfall, especially in the summer. So far, it hasn't been much of a problem. Our signal has gone out a few times, but never for more than a few minutes. No big deal. I guess if it were to go out during Survivor I wouldn't be so calm about it though.

 

[DisneyVillain]

Are they going to credit your bill for their mistake?

There won't be any automatic credit. That will require another call to billing, after service is restored.

 

[bicker]

I'm sorry you're having such difficulties with Comcast. I surely would be upset as well, and if there were a better alternative, such an incident would make me seriously consider changing. However, it is always important to ensure that you're not jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. For cable television, I guess I'd be indifferent between Comcast and DirectTV. For high-speed Internet, it isn't so easy, since DSL sucks compared to cable Internet, and around here Comcast charges extra for high-speed Internet if you don't also have cable television with them.

While I'd be upset about the fact that you're out-of-service, for so long, through no fault of your own, I'm not sure, though, that I'd be as upset about the customer service you received. Some of the questions ("ask why no one ever returned a call" and "why the commercials say ...") you asked left the customer service rep with no polite answer to give you in response, given that they couldn't actually do anything for you. I find that I tend to get better customer service if I cast the discussions as a cooperative venture, rather than making the customer service rep uncomfortable. Something to consider.

Regardless, Comcast actually does a great job up here. I think a lot it has to do with how long Comcast has actually been in control of the local staff, because when our area first was taken over by Comcast, we still had a good few years of very bad service, similar to what we received from the previous company. Comcast has since not only cleaned house, as far as I can tell, but also substantially rebuilt the network, so problems such as yours are completely impossible. There is no tech who goes out to your home to turn off service. It's all done by computer. I suppose it is a wonder that the previous cable company was still in business spending so much money on techs to do something that a computer could do. So I suspect that over time, as Comcast rebuilds its acquisitions to a rational network design, and as Comcast gains more control over the local personnel, service will markedly improve.

 

[froglady]

Don't even start on Comcast! Unfortunately, it's the ONLY cable company in our area, so you don't have much choice. I'm also considering a dish, although I haven't had any problems with MY cable.

My mother's cable is a different story. She lives in a senior's high rise, so has to have cable. Comcast is switching all of their premium stations (Max, etc) over to digital, so informed subscribers that they would lose those stations if they didn't get the converter box. I KNEW my mother would have troble with the universal remote, but the installer didn't leave printed instructions. It took me three weeks to get them; everytime I called, they wanted to "talk me through it." I refused, because I knew I would NEVER get the instructions if they did, and I would have to call everytime she hit the wrong buttons. (which she does at least once or twice a week.)

When I finally got the instructions, and tried to fix the problem, I couldn't. Turns out it was a used, defective converter.

She, after a month, finally has everything she's paying for, although she still doesn't understand that she CANNOT touch the buttons on the TV to shut it off, change channel, etc.

 

[stm61]

Comcast is our only option other then the dish. I was all set to switch to dishnetwork or direct tv. Unfortunately, we can't get DSL and aol is our only dial-up option. Since aol doesn't work with my computer I'm forced to use comcast for cable as well. Dropping comcast for the tv raises the price for the computer so we're basically stuck with comcast until someone else comes into the area.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

I dropped my comcast tv, swithed to directtv and kept my comcast internet service and it did raise the rate like $5 a month. However since I'm only paying $54 a month for directtv instead of the $89 a month I was paying through comcast, I am actually ahead by $30.

 

[Hermosa11]

Wow, what a flukey situation! Well, I am switching today actually from DISH to Comcast. I am getting reception in all four rooms for free (Dish would charge me a flippen $99 for each room) and then the bill will only be $25 for next 16 months and my internet will go down about $20/mth too. Knowing me, in 16 months, I may go back to Dish. Keeps them on their toes.
I personally think all providers suck, but ....since I want my MTV.....
I will now be able to watch tv and record some shows that are on the same time!!! on one of the other tvs. way cool...............

 

[MagicKingdom05]

I am a huge NFL fan and since the NFL Ticket is only available by having a sat. dish there was no hesitation in switching.

 

[hugsquared]

UPDATE****
Well, as I'm walking the dogs this morning, lo and behold I see the Comcast truck rolling through the gates. I literally ran the poor man down and practically hi-jacked him out of his truck. He was here to do an install for someone else (didn't even know I was having trouble but he does know about it now ). I think he knew he was about to have a hysterical, crying woman on his hands so he kindly came on into my apartment to take a look. Nope, nothing looked wrong inside. He heads out to the closet where all the connections are hooked up, AND GUESS WHAT???? Just like we figured, the tech here on Friday disconnected me by mistake. He plugged me back in and TADA..everything's back on. I wanted to kiss him but I think I had already scared him enough in the parking lot. We had quite a little talk and he told me some stories about Comcast and upper management Now he's an older gentleman, retired military (told you we talked a while) and wonderful. And if I didn't say it in my first post...the customer service people we very nice and polite, never ugly or rude. At one point, I even thanked one of the women I talked to yesterday and told her I needed to hang up because I was getting really upset and was afraid I was going to say something ugly out of frustration and I didn't want to be ugly to her because she had been so nice. She calmly helped me so my beef is not with customer service REPS....its cutomer service in general.
Bicker...I agree, anything less than cable internet sucks and I will most likely keep that but we had Direct TV in Virginia and never had a moments trouble and it was actually cheaper than the cable...had 3 rooms and only paid $4.99 to have the additional boxes. Anyhow, I am fat and happy again since it came back on, my biggest beef still being that it was, in fact, a mistake on their part and they didn't care to come fix the mistake and made me feel like it was my problem not theirs. If it had been that lines were down or some glitch in the system, I wouldn't have been happy but would have understood that they were working on getting it fixed, this was just a tech not paying attention to what he was doing and really made me mad. My DH travels and I'm here so much by myself and we just moved here so I have no real friends to see or talk to...right now, my TV is my lifeline for entertainment and news.
Sorry to ramble on and on and I appreciate you guys listening to this crazy old woman have her hissy fit. Bye guys.