Comcast: Evil, or Just Stupid?
Until February, I was a somewhat satisfied customer of Comcast. I was happily paying about $50/month for digital cable, and everything seemed just fine. Until the day he called - with his annoying telemarketer script and his headphone and his predictive dialing - to offer me discounted HBO. I wasn't interested, but he had to wave the prospect of a full refund in front of my face, so I thought it was easier to let him sign me up for HBO than it was to deal with the salesdrone. Of course, I made sure to note on the calendar the deadline.
I specifically asked him "So, if I cancel in less than 30 days, I can go back to what I had before?" He said yes. If he had not said yes, I would have said goodbye, but he said yes, so I allowed him to sign me up.
Lying sack of Comcast. After 25 days, I called to cancel HBO. I said "Put me back on what I had last month before I got HBO."
It took me a couple of days to notice that the cable was not working at all. All of my DVR recorded shows were completely black and silent. Fortunately, I have a ReplayTV so I could easily (and legally) download the shows I missed from my "friends." Unfortunately I had to spend more time on the phone, again specifically asking to get back on whatever I had before the entire HBO fiasco. Finally I verify that my digital channels are working again, and all seems right in the universe.
One more month passes, and we arrive at Tuesday. I'm paying bills when I see my Comcast bill. It was $65. Sixty five freaking dollars. Instantly I was on the phone with a customer service representative, who seemed very nice and even spoke English very well. Unfortunately, my situation did not seem to evoke any sympathy in her.
I explained my situation to her, and that I just wanted to be on whatever freaking service plan I had before the asshole called me and convinced me to change anything about my service at all. At that point, we arrived at this conversation:
Me: Why did my bill go up by so much? Did you add more channels? If so, please take them away and put me back on what I had before.
Drone: Can I put you on hold?
Me: Sure. [seethes]
Drone: Sorry to keep you waiting sir. We no longer offer the package you had before, the digital plus plan we offer is $65/month.
Me: If I had not changed plans would I have been able to continue on at $50/month?
Drone: Well, we did make some adjustments to cable rates in your area, so it would have gone up.
Me: I'm quite used to rate increases, and I would have silently paid a rate increase of 3 or perhaps even 5%. But this is a 30% rate increase! Are you seriously tell me that if I hadn't done any changes to my plan that you were just going to send me a bill for 30% more than the previous month? Did you just expect I would bend over and take it?
Drone: Can I ask you to hold again sir?
Me: Sure. Whatever.
Drone: Sorry to keep you waiting. We did an audit of our service offerings and found that we were not charging as much in your area as in some other areas, so we made some adjustments.
Me: 30 freaking percent? I had service in Sunnyvale before I moved here, and the rates were similar. Are you saying that you just raised rates for the entire Bay Area by 30 freaking percent?
So I'm pretty sure she was lying to me, because I know that if that jerk had never called me and my rates shot up, I would have been on the phone to satellite providers the very next instant.
The upshot of this all is that I had the drone turn off my digital service and just give me standard cable for $33/month. I'm going to look into getting satellite service, but I just don't have the freaking time available to research providers and see if I have too many trees etc. etc. So I have no idea how long it will be.
But for now I take comfort in the fact that the original sales drone's rate of return on the call he made to me was -$17/month.
Tags: Comcast, customer service, cable
posted by Doug Simpkinson @ 10:16 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Comcast sucks. I switched to DirecTV and have been happy with their service. Just don't sign up for the HD-DVR. It's a wast of money because it does not receive the HD local channels.
Lol, man. I have friends with Comcast. They hate it.
The best suggestion I have for you is to jam vegetables into their cable box and give it back to them.
I was with Comcast before on two occasions. Once in 2 different states, and since they are a franchise, I know the experience isn't always the same however I seem to have broken that rule. I'll mention my last experience. The install was fine, and they called first but the internet was so terribly slow, (as bad as dial up) I called to complain. I was told that since I live in a highly populated area speeds will vary. I documented when speeds were slow then called back to tell them it was not during business hours. The next answer was because it was an apartment complex, that is when the people are home using the internet. I couldn't argue with that, but I was paying for a premium service and getting dial up speeds. The suggested I encrypt my modem, and stop using my wireless router, but no improvement. Next I suggested a tech. They came out and said the lines going to the complex were old and damaged and needed to be replaced. He said that was not going to happen so I will have to put up with the poor service. I called Comcast and they said the same. I went door to door and asked my neighbors to call in. I finally got fed up, canceled and moved for other reasons. Do you know just a month before I moved they dug up those lines to replace them? There are way too many reasons why service can go out with buried lines and I found that after I switched to DISH Network my service was more reliable for TV and internet. I have a bundle with them and since I'm an employee I get the TV part for free. It rarely goes out in bad weather and my price for internet is the same but more reliable. Needless to say I'm much happier.
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