Comcast: Continuing To Alienate Customers...

With the new house, I needed to turn on Internet. Because I have a venerable analog CRT TV and no HD antenna I needed TV anyway, so against my better judgment I went with shitty, evil Comcast.

First they try to sell me a "bundle" that is like, $20 a month higher than if I just bought the services ala carte. Then they tell me there's going to be a $118 "install fee". AND they can't come for 4 days.

On the plus side, they told me I could pay the installer with credit card. The installer told me to just call it in myself and, because I'm too honest for my own good, I diligently called up Comcast. (Oh, while I'm doing this, Comcast has hijacked my browser so that I can't use the Internet until I install a bunch of their crap on it and it resets my homepage from Google to Comcast. )

After dealing with a useless voicemail thing and pressing "0" about a dozen times, I finally get a human. Then it turns out that he can't take my money unless I tell him my full name, address, telephone number, high school GPA, and the last 4 digits of my Comcast account.

Finally we get through all that and he is about to take my payment when he informs me that, because I'm paying via phone, there is a "convenience fee."

At this point I said "You know what? Fine. Bill me." and hung up.

Fucking Comcast. They run a worse business than GM and I look forward to the day when DirectTV and Clear put them out of business.

The thing I really, really loved (hated) about Comcast was cancellation. They'll bring the box, but they won't pick it up when you cancel. For me, this meant driving to their ghetto office during MY business hours and dropping it off.

I hate that company with a passion. Comcast sucks balls.

Comcast & Charter are 2 of the worst cable companies in the U.S. They excel at customer disservice.

Just curious, if you knew they were so bad, why did you go with them in the first place? Are they the only company providing service in your area?

Nobody can hate Comcast (CumCrust) more then I do.

I don't know of anywhere that has two cable companies serving the same location.

Over the years- friends, relatives, associates- telling me what crap their cable companies are when the subject came up.

My city has at least two, Knology and Charter, that I know for sure. I'm sure Birmingham has a couple as well...it'd almost have to since it's bigger than Montgomery.

There are other options.

But, then again, I know metro Birmingham has at least five. When he moved, my buddy had to choose from Charter, Comcast, Verizon, Time-Warner, and AT&T U-verse.

I was about set to go with Clear. It is a WiMax network (think WiFi on steroids) that they test marketed in Portland--even though Comcast's introductory rate is $10 a month cheaper. But I have a clunky old analog TV so rather than try to track down a digital converter box I took the easy way and got Comcast.

Hopefully in six months I'll be in a situation where I can justify buying a flat panel TV. Alternately, I may just get DirectTV.

Most municipalities have only one cable provider (and only one local phone / DSL provider) because they only want one utility tearing up their streets to lay cable.

In Portland, we're stuck with Comcast unless we want to go with the Possibly-Being-Sold-To-Some-Random-Idiots-On-The-East-Coast Verizon FiOS or whoever'd stumble through DSL. There's also DirecTV/Dish, but that's not terribly common around here, from what I've seen.

Comcast is reviled. Google "Comcast Sucks" and the number of hits is amazing. If this was the old West, they'd be tarred and feathered, and then shot.
Cumcast, CumCrust, ComCrass, anyway you spell it, they suck.

I'd be surprised if they would both be able to serve the same exact address, though. When there's more than one cable company in a town, they will usually only be available in certain separate parts of town.

For example, here there are two cable companies. One has the NFL Network and the other doesn't. People served by the non-NFL Network company are always bitching because they can't get service in their part of town from the cable company that does have that channel.

I called them "ComCrap". Now we have FiOS and I am very happy. :santa_grin:

Comcast traded places with Time Warner about three years ago here, just swapped areas of service. Weird. I speculate it was for write off reasons.
I never have been much for cable anyway, a waste of money for the most part imho. The fact that they expected me to take back their box at my expense was the final straw, it sits in the garage covered in years of dust, I told them if they wanted it they can come and get it. Fuck 'em.

I had Dish for years and gave them up a few years back.

With the transition to digital though the rabbit ears aren't doing as well as the analog stations were, but I think that was part of the plan, suck service to drive customers to their services.
I suppose it worked, I'm tired of fighting the ears and chopped up reception.

I'll go U-Verse early next year, all other media options are teh suck afaic.

My neighborhood has both Comcast and Astound (same poles, different wires), plus U-Verse (in theory). I've got Dish anyway.

You could have got a Converter box from Walmart for $49 and saved yourself a hell of a lot of headache. Hell, I'd have sent you one, I have two and all my TVs are now digital.

J.

No FiOS in my area, but Comcast gets me pretty good speeds (20Mbps). Not bad.

Fuck Comcast. In the ass. With a big rubber dick. :dildo:

I've got DirecTV.

I've never really had a problem with Comcast. I had Dish Network a few years back, and was less than impressed.

Dish Network.

'nuff said.

I just got a courtesy reminder from Comcast that my account is past due in the amount of $.00 and that my total account balance is $0.00.

I'm seriously contemplating writing them a check for $.00. I'd call them up to confirm they are idiots, but they'd probably charge me a $6.50 "convenience charge" for the call.

Do they have a physical location you can visit? I find sometimes that showing up looking like you're one wrong word away from an axe murdering spree, while conversing calmly and politely, often gets the best results from people who delight in fucking you over on the phone.

Or, you can go in, shoot someone in the leg through the flesh, and tell them next time you won't miss the bone.

That normally gets results.

It's happening around here more and more, but it's still rare.

I've heard great things about AT&T U-Verse, I wonder if it's worth it.

We have a choice here between Charter and the local utility provider.


I use the local utility provider.

I had just such an encounter with the Geek Squad at Best Buy just last week.

They're sending me a new power supply for my laptop.

^Geek squad. There's nothing like paying a premium to have your hard drive formatted and your laptop "installed".

Yeah, the Comcast office around here is in Beaverton on Cirrus. Had to return my modem there because they never informed me where I had to return it, and then threatened to charge me for it because I hadn't returned it.

Once when my cable + internet service was cut off (after I knew I'd paid) I called them up. I told them their clerk said I owed 100 dollars, and I paid 100 dollars over the phone. They floored me with "yes, but that 100 you paid was the current bill. You still had an overdue balance, so we still needed that paid."

Of course I asked them why they didn't just tell me the total, and they said I only wanted to know my current balance....not my past due.

So.....you ask yourself.....why didn't they just consider the 100 I paid as the "past due" portion, and send me a notice that my current balance is late (I get a pretty long grace period) thus not having to cut off my cable? Who knows.....I guess they "got it like that."