I know it’s old news by now, but some probably haven’t seen it yet. Besides, what kind of Comcast blog would I have if I didn’t post it?
Sorry I didn’t embed the video. WordPress.com doesn’t seem to allow that. They claim to have a workaround, but I couldn’t get it to work.
There were a few things that were actually comical about my tech visit today. I left them out of my previous entries from today in trying to keep my rambling posts as short as possible.
The first thing that I found really funny was his suggestion that I get rid of my wireless network. He said that I should wire my house with Ethernet outlets. Perhaps that would solve my problems. Yes, 30 minutes into his visit – the same one where he said there was nothing he could do about my constant connection drops – he suggested that the wireless signal might be to blame.
Let’s break this down.
I have a router attached to my cable modem about 10 percent of the time. It generally only serves to provide my two TiVo boxes with a way to get updated programming information. I make sure the router is hooked up at least once every two weeks so that my TiVos don’t quit working. Most of the time, however, I keep it unplugged because it’s one less thing I have to reset every time the signal drops. Plus, when I call the tech support folks they get distracted when I mention the router. It’s always the first thing they blame.
My computer – the one where I keep losing my Internet connection to – is hardwired to the router even during the 10 percent of the time when the router is hooked up. I’m not sure how he thinks the cables running upstairs to the TiVos would somehow be able to pull a non-existent signal out of the Ethernet cables any better than through the wireless signal.
The other thing that I found hilarious was what he called “the best thing I can tell you.” His final suggestion before driving off was to switch to BellSouth. I said that I’d rather not pay for a phone line that I don’t need and BellSouth won’t let me have DSL without a voice line. Besides, BellSouth is horrible. He agreed, but said his neighbor has BellSouth and never has any drops. He, on the other hand, has Comcast and his service is terrible. And he said that if you worked for Comcast it was worse because you couldn’t really complain.
Who knows whether any of that was true, but I thought it was pretty funny coming from a Comcast technician.
What’s that? A tiny ray of hope? While on the phone with Annie – THE 8TH COMCAST PHONE SUPPORT PERSON I’VE SPOKEN WITH TODAY – I actually got a call back from the person Stephanie referred me to.
Her name was Allie and, while she makes person number 9 today (not counting the technician who came to my home), she was the first to actually call me. This moment represented an actual step forward.
Over the next 20 minutes or so we discussed the issue. I kept things as brief as I could, but I went through everything. She seemed very helpful and sincere – as most have. She put me on a hold for a while, but apologized when she returned. She said that it took a while to find one of the people who could help me on the weekend. Allie also said that she had escalated my ticket to a division who handles situations like mine. She promised that a gentleman would be calling me back about my issue, but was up front in saying that I was behind 6 other people. I can appreciate her honesty and I’m OK with that. I don’t mind waiting for someone who may better be able to resolve my issue.
I guess I’ll wait and see what happens next.
As of 4:55 today, the person Stephanie said would call me back still had not. I really wanted to give him/her more time to return my call, but I was afraid that anyone with any power who just happened to be in on the weekend would certainly be gone by 5.
So I called Comcast again. I again tried to get through to someone in Georgia by choosing the cable TV department. I didn’t catch the name of the person I ended up with because she quickly cut me off by saying she didn’t work with the Internet service division. I repeated what I had told her 10 seconds earlier about how I didn’t want to talk to someone in FL, but she transferred me anyway.
And suddenly I was speaking with Edward Hill, who was from … say it with me … Florida. I spent quite a while talking to him. I described the frustration that I’ve been feeling, the situation I had went through earlier, every option that I could think to do. I told him everything. He talked me through how the call centers work, how they dispatch the techs and a number of possible issues that might be causing my problems. But as with all of the rest of the Comcast support people I’ve spoken with, he admitted that he had no way to help me.
Edward said the best that he could do was open another ticket, and try to speak with someone in the dispatch department to tell them the trouble I’ve had with previous appointments.
He put me on hold for a few minutes and then said that he couldn’t schedule another call because today’s call had not been closed yet. He went on to say that he was very concerned because today’s call – the one where the tech came out and said he couldn’t do anything to fix my issue – had been marked as “customer not home.” Edward said it best: “that’s a lie.”
The best Edward was able to do was give me a job number and transfer me back to the Georgia cable TV division. He said said the job number (639509) was “infinitely important.”
But that didn’t turn out to be true. I was greeted by another person from the TV side who seemed confused as to why I would call his division. He did promise me that when he transferred me I would get someone from Georgia.
So now I’m at Comcast support person number four, Annie, ON JUST THIS ONE CALL. I had literally been on the phone for more than an hour straight. And to top it off Annie didn’t care about job number. She said it was of no use and just wanted my telephone number.
Sigh …
I was out of bed and downstairs before 10 a.m., prepared to sit at my computer and keep an eye out on the driveway through the window next to my computer desk. The tech was supposed to arrive between 11 and 2. By 1:30 I was getting nervous so I called Comcast. I’ll probably butcher the spelling of this name, but here goes … Condaway was the tech support person who answered. As expected she said that she didn’t see any notes that would indicate my technician would be delayed. I thanked her and hung up.
At 2:00, he had still not arrived. I called right at the hour and spoke to Michelle. She said that he had an ETA of 22 minutes. “Sounds responsible,” I thought. “Too random to make up.” I thanked her and hung up.
The techician showed up about 2:20 or so. That 22-min estimate was right on the money. But that was where the good times ended. The tech asked me what trouble I was having. When I described my problem, he looked at my modem and asked me if the lights usually stay on when I’m having outages. I said yes and he immediately said “then there’s nothing I can do. That’s a problem with Comcast’s servers and until they fix them, it won’t get any better.”
I was momentarily stunned. Did the tech really just show up after all of this and say there was nothing he could do for me – without touching a thing? I hadn’t mentally prepared for that. I figured he wouldn’t show up, or perhaps throw a couple of fake solutions my way and leave knowing that his work wouldn’t change a thing. Maybe put a “booster” on my line, as a couple of the tech support people I’ve spoken to have mentioned. I had even thought there was a chance the technician would even fix the problem. Never had I contemplated this happening.
“Um … OK. So, what would you suggest I do?”
Blank stare … “well, I mean … until they fix their servers, you’re going to keep having trouble.”
I wasn’t really sure what to do with that answer. “OK,” I said. “Well, if you can’t do anything for me, my only option is to call Comcast back and tell them their technician showed up and said that he couldn’t fix the problem, so what should I do. Is there anything we should look at before I do that? Do you have better suggestion?”
He thinks for a second and says “I’ll take a look at the line strength and see. Do you have a minute?”
I thought that meant he wanted me to follow him outside, but he said that I didn’t need to come outside, he would be right back. Still a little confused at the “do you have a minute” question, I just sat down and waited to see what he would do next.
A moment later he came back inside with some sort of testing device that he hooked to my cable outlet. He pushed a few buttons, read some numbers to me as if I might know what they meant, and said that my connection was fine.
I then spent a few more minutes trying to pull a solution out of him like a bone of out a pit bull’s mouth. Finally he said he would go check my “tap”. Whatever that was, he was back in a few minutes. He came in and said “is it out”, looking at darkened lights on my modem.
“Uh … you never plugged my modem back in,” I told him.
He then walked over and reconnected my modem and watched the lights come back on, looking at me as if he had just fixed my problem.
I tried one last attempt to try to get a solution from him before I finally let him go. I explained that I had tried calling Comcast over and over, and they had painted him as my savior. He was the one who was supposed to take care of all my problems. Was there nothing he could do? I went on to describe how I was detailing my experiences in a blog so that I would have a record of everything that has happened to perhaps put in a letter to whomever I could think of.
This caught his attention. He laughed and said, “can I see it.”
“Uh, sure.”
He looked at it for a second and then asked me if I could print it out so that he could take it with him. He said, “I’ll take this back to the dispatch office.” Though, I’m not sure if that meant to show someone who could help or merely so that he and the boys could laugh about it over drinks.
As he drove away, I picked up the phone and called Comcast back. Feeling pretty defeated, I waited for them to pick up my call for several minutes only to suddenly get a beeping sound as if their line was busy. That’s the second day in a row that’s happened. I called a second time and was able to get through to Mark, from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I told him what had happened and he suggested that I call the local dispatch, but choose the cable TV option. He said that if I chose the Internet service option I would just end up with a random person, but the cable TV people were local.
Sounded about as good of an idea as I had heard today, so I tried that. Unfortunately, the “local dispatch” number he gave me was the same number that I always call. (I didn’t realize until after I hung up because I had programed Comcast into my cell phone long ago and had forgotten their number.
I had to take my best guesses as to which options to choose, but I eventually did get through to a rep, Stephanie, from Georgia (where I am). She listened to my pleas for help and said she was emailing a collegue in “HSI”. Then came back and said that person wasn’t going to be in the office until later today, so she was going to walk over to the office of someone else and have that person call me. Stephanie was very patient and understanding. Hopefully she will be helpful as well. We’ll see. I’ll be waiting by the phone.
It’s probably not the best nickname, but that’s what I call the process you are told by Comcast to go through when you lose your Internet connection. Most of the time while you’re waiting on hold for their tech support, a recording tells you that most of the time you can fix your problem by following these steps:
They don’t tell you this on the recording, but if you have router you should unplug that after step 2. Once you finish step 3, wait for all of the modem lights to come back on and then plug the router back in. And, as far as the reboot, it’s not really necessary. In most cases if this process is going to work, it will without rebooting. Sometimes if it doesn’t immediately start working you can go into the Network Connections section of the Windows Control Panel and disable your Local Area Connection, effectively cutting off your computer from trying to connect to the Internet. Wait a few seconds and Enable it again. This does the same thing that a reboot would accomplish.
If you don’t get this message while waiting for your friendly tech support representative, don’t worry. When he/she answers that’s what they will tell you to do anyway. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t call tech support. Many times I find that they will walk me through these steps and my connection will magically return even though I’ve done the same thing myself four times in the previous 20 minutes. I’m convinced that they are sending some sort of refresh command or something through the lines while they are doing this with you.
I think what bothers me the most about this procedure is that Comcast acts like this is a solution to your problem and an exercise that you should be OK with routinely doing. Yes, it can many times fix your current issue, but it won’t fix any real problems you have. And more importantly, why should I be OK with having to go through this process every day?! I’ve said this to Comcast’s tech support people before, but what if your electricity went down all the time and when you called to report the problem they told you to go into each of your rooms and turn off the light switches. Then they said to go out to your circuit box and flip the breaker off and back on. Lastly, go back to each room and turn the light switches back on, finishing with a cheery “Is there anything else we can help you with tonight?”
Would the average person be OK with that? I would think not. So why should I be expected to put up with it from my ISP?
Welcome Adelphia customers. I hear your relationship with your cable company wasn’t great. That’s too bad because I’m not sure that it’s going to get better. Sorry guys, welcome to Comcast.
Looks like it’s not just Pennsylvania, as New Jersey is also pushing through a bill that would open up cable competition to likes of Verizon.
New day, same as the last.
Today I spoke with not one, but two Comcast support people. First, this morning I didn’t have any connection when I get up this morning. No surprise, I haven’t had it any morning yet this week. I didn’t get a chance to call about it this morning so I called on my way home from work. Derek was my support tech for the first call. I asked if there were any notes on my account from the four technician appointments that were supposedly going on this week. He said he didn’t see any notes, but saw that I had an appointment for Saturday.
It didn’t take very long into the call to see that I wasn’t going to get any new information from him, so I just said “well, I just wanted to let you know that my service didn’t work this morning – 5th day in a row that I have had documented a service interruption. I don’t suppose there’s anything more you can do for me now other than to note that I called and confirmed that I had problems again today.”
He was a little perplexed by that statement. I could tell he really wasn’t sure what to do from there. “Don’t worry, Derek. I just want you guys to have it on record how often I have service problems. I’m going to continue calling each time that I have interrupts. That way at the end of the month you guys will have a complete record when I call up to find out how much my bill should be.”
“Um … OK,” he says.
“Thank you for your time, Derek. I appreciate your help.”
“You’re welcome, sir. Thank you for choosing Comcast.”
…
When I arrived home this evening, of course, my connection was out. I didn’t bother to try the Comcast Shuffle, I just grabbed the phone and called Comcast while I was changing out of my suit. I figured if I was going to do something to fix their problem, I might as well do it on their time.
Eileen answered. I told her that my connection was out and gave her my phone number. I told her that I was just about to do the Comcast Shuffle … I mean about to unplug the modem and reconnect it. She waited as I tried it. While waiting I asked whether or not she was local to my area. She was in Florida. I said “I’m in Atlanta. When I call back will I get another tech from Florida or is just random?”
“Just random, sir. Is your connection back?”
It was back, though, it’s still very weak. She suggested that perhaps my modem was bad. I said that was a possibility and asked if there was a way she could make a notation on my appointment for Saturday to let the technician know he should bring a spare. Assuming he shows up.
Eileen seemed nice, but a little annoyed that I would call her to essentially keep her on the line while I ran through a few steps I could have done without her. Too bad. I think that I’m going to continue calling every time and if I have time I’ll do so without even trying the Comcast Shuffle first.
I don’t remember where I heard that phrase, but I was reminded of it when reading this story about the squabble between the cable and telephone companies in Pennsylvania. A bill was proposed in the state government to further open cable competition. Verizon, and the other phone companies, are in favor of that because they want to be that competition. Comcast, and the other cable companies, of course are against the bill.
I’m always in favor of more competition, though, in this case I find it hard to route for the same side as Verizon and the telcos. They are no better – often times, worse – than the cable companies. I’m so tired of big companies like the cable and telephone companies having monopolies on area services, allowing them to get away with charging whatever they want and not caring about customer service.
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