Wonder if my tech visit today will even be successful
October 14, 2006As I start to stew more about the horrible customer service that Comcast provides with their tech calls, I’m wondering if anything will even come out of today’s visit (assuming someone shows).
The tech coming today is supposed to be someone who has the ability to work on the wiring to my home. You see, not all Comcast techs are created equal. (I’m not an expert on this, but I’ve learned a thing or two from my dozens of tech calls and numerous visits.) The ones who show up at your door are basically there to swap out modems, check very basic settings and generally do one level more than what they can do over the phone. About the only thing productive I’ve seen them accomplish is swapping out a modem.
Then there’s the guys who can work on the wiring. They actually show up in Comcast vans. (The other guys show up in trucks with a Comcast magnet on the side.) They have the ability to pull up the wiring inside your home, outside your home and the stuff coming into your neighborhood. When they finally got me working last time (for a full 3 weeks), it was one of those techs who came out and adjusted my lines.
That’s the guy I need today. That’s the type of tech who is supposed to show up. But now I’m wondering if they are just going to send a normal tech out. If so, it will be a waste of time. (Especially since right now my connection happens to be working.) He’ll walk in and tell me he can’t do anything. I’ve seen it before.
Comcast is the absolutely the worst cable provider I’ve ever had. We had a bad storm back in February that knocked a limb down onto the line that connects the box on my home to the main service line for my neighborhood. I called the next day, (via cell phone, cause my home phone rarely works; thanks again Comcast) to schedule a tech to come out and re-hang it. The limb had knocked it down so low you had to duck your head to walk under it. When I called, they said they had lots of similar calls and they would have to get back with us, but that we were on the list of connections to be repaired. So, I waited, and waited. March came around, nobody had called; I called to see what was up: “You on the list.” April came around. I went to the local office to pay my bill and inquire when they would get to me. “I see the repair request, I’m sure they’ll get to you soon.” May, same thing. June comes around. We get a call on Wednesday the 3rd that someone will be out tomorrow. So, Thursday June the 4th, it’s pouring down rain. Tech shows up and I explain what had happened with tree limb back in February; that my cable reception is pour, internet slow, and phone crackles. I showed him where it was pulled away from my house and mentioned that he’ll have to go in a neighbor’s yard to check the connection on the main line. He sees the line laying on the fence and goes right to work, even in the rain. 30 minutes later and he let me know it was OK to lock the gate. I think: “great, now he’ll climb the pole and fix the connection on the main line.” Except he didn’t. He left. He had just pulled the slack tight and made a huge loop of it and screwed that to my house. Which, had to have pulled the loose end of my line completely out of it’s loose connection with the main line; I had NO cable/phone/internet after the tech left. So I call the Comcast maintenance line and tell them what happened. “Well, we can schedule another Tech to come out tomorrow between 2pm and 4pm.” So, great. I had to be without anything for a whole day because the tech botched the job. I call the 800 customer service number and tell them what happened. The service rep only asked if I wanted to schedule a service appointment. I informed her I already made the appointment, but I wanted some form of consideration for having to be without all services for the better part of two days in addition to the several months of poor reception/quality of service. She told me she didn’t have a record of there being any initial service call and to call back when the cable was back on so they would know how many days to credit. That really upset me. Absolutely no acknowledgement of them providing poor service or this being below normal industry standards. So, I called the 800 number back, told my situation again. Finally, this third representative said she would write a letter to management on my behalf. A tech came out on Friday, checked my line with some device, saw it was bad and strung a new line. So, every thing worked that night. Cut to last weekend; we had a major wind storm come through here that knocked out power and cable. We were without everything for two days. Called on Monday the 15th and let them know; they said it was a problem for the whole area, “nodes” were out. (Also, said to CALL BACK, once service was restored so an adjustment would be made to the bill.) So, I had he check on the previous outage and if I had been credited for day and a half I was without everything; NOPE. So, I asked her to go ahead and do that. She said she’d take care of it.
I get the bill today, guess what’s not on there.
Oh yeah. My reception is bad again.
My server changed??? And I was not notified?? Had to be reconfigured?? Never heard from them. Still going round and round; always disconnected from server…. I mean, about 5 times a day. Talked with them, had my service reconfigured… SAME THING!! I run about 100 listings a month. DO I HAVE TIME FOR THIS???
I just signed up. Last week my HBO was turned off. When I called they informed me I had not signed the agreement they sent me so they have canceled my “Triple Play.”
I did my best to convince them I sent it, but apparently the customer is always wrong. Three levels of escalation resulted in only giving me HBO for three months.
Their best solution was that I should just cancel my subscription with them.