Seems like “gruntled” would be the grouchy state, and dis-gruntled would be the other state.
I may be the only person in the only world who came out of an encounter with Comcast richer than before. Here’s what happened: Part 1: I signed up for Comcast because they were running a special. Part 2: I discovered very shortly that they had lied to me about the rate. Part 3: I canceled within 30 days, and so owed nothing.
And finally, Part 4: They inexplicably sent me a refund check! For like $1.42 or something. Why? I’m not sure, but I think they felt bad in advance about the way they were going to treat Randy Seltzer.
Nice. We once took a half day from work to stay home for the cable guy to get our DVR unit put in. He said he’d be here between 12-2. 3:00 still nobody so we call. “He’ll be there shortly.” 4:00 “You’re next on his list.” 6:00 “Yeah sorry. Turns out we didn’t have any left.”
The kicker…she offers to reschedule. We ask how we can be sure they’ll have some next time. How can we be sure the same thing isn’t going to happen and we aren’t going to stay home for nothing? She says, “You won’t.”
That’s right! From 7:30am until 4:30pm. And I’ve got another technician scheduled to come back tomorrow “between one and four.”
I learned a few things today:[ol][li]Nobody buys their own modems. The concept bamboozles installers, even when it’s clearly outlined in their work orders. []When an installer (an ind. k’er, not a Comcast employee) runs into a problem, he’ll immediately blame it on the only piece of hardware doesn’t belong to him. Okay, I already knew this one, so it probably shouldn’t go on the list of things I learned. But he absolutely convinced me that my modem was bad. I know that modems are notorious for coming from the factory bricked, so I believed him. []Radio Shack has a surprisingly easy exchange policy. Really: I walked in. I said “Comcast says this modem is bad.” I saw another box on the shelf. I grabbed it. The guy said “yup, that’s it. You’re all set.” And I walked out the door. Amazing. [/li][li]They will send out another technician within two hours if you display the right combination of flirtation, exhaustion, and rage. []In-house Comcast techs are vastly more knowledgeable than Comcast k’ers. []The Comcast cable infrastructure in Chicago is not ready for the new Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 modem, even though their website lists it as a compatible model. In fact, I was not the only person to learn this today. George, my friendly Comcast technician learned this first hand. With me as a guinea pig. []Sometimes, a new modem needs to sit overnight to update its firmware. Actually, I didn’t learn this because I still don’t believe it. What I believe is that George needed some way to get out of my apartment, to get back to home base and huddle with his team. Because they’re going to start seeing a lot of these modems, and they’ll need some kind of solution. I do actually believe that he wants to make my modem work, but needs some help to think up another solution.[/li][li]Sometimes (just sometimes) the gods will smile down on you and make your modem start working for no reason, after no prompting, and with no external stimuli. And when the gods smile in such a way, you will get 18.08 Mbps down and 3.84 Mbps up, with a 9ms ping. Which is almost twice what you’re paying for, and certainly more than the 2.55 down / 0.43 up / 55 ping that you were getting before with DSL. []DO NOT (this is important) DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES listen to the tech support person for your router when she tells you to unplug your modem as the first step in getting your router set up properly. SHE IS THE PRINCE OF LIES. She will make you lose your 18.09 down / 3.84 up / 9 ping and will make your modem start doing the thing again. The thing that so frustrated George. Do not even call her. Go directly to the Dope and ask the fine folks in GQ to help you, because the router lady will take a little piece of your soul. At least for a few hours, until (if you’re lucky) the gods may smile down on you again.San Francisco has a decent football team this year. This was unrelated to my Comcast adventure, but I did learn it today, and hey, who knew?[/ol][/li]So the way it stands now is I have super-fast internet as long as my laptop’s plugged in to the modem, and the modem is working and not being temperamental. The modem does not work with my router, my other computer, or my game console. The guy is coming back out tomorrow to take another crack at the modem, and I’m gonna try to get him to look at hooking it up to my router while he’s here. I’m sure that I will be relying heavily on you, my fellow teeming millions, for your computer help in the coming days. Thanks in advance.
I just got stuck with Comcast, because I moved, and they don’t offer Picture-in-Piicture. It’s not available in any store, at any price.
How primitive is that? What next, will I have to put up rabbit ears and adjust the vertical hold?
Randy Seltzer —welcome to the club, & the only customer service worse is AT&T.
just wait until they lie to you on the phone and claim that they came by during their scheduled time and no one was home…
Happiest Days of My Life:
- Wedding Day
- The Day I got rid of Comcast
Oh no, I fucking love AT&T compared to Comcast. They’ve been quite benign to us so far (knocks wood). Changed to them from Comcast for cable/Internet, and before that we changed to Cingular-now-AT&T from Verizon. Verizon had told us, “Yes, you should have gotten reception in <That City> as it’s in your calling area, and no, you should not have been charged long-distance for calls made when you were there. However, we aren’t going to refund you any of the long distance charges you incurred while you were there, and it’s just too darned bad that you couldn’t receive any calls and everything went to voicemail (which you had to call frequently, at the aforementioned long distance rates, to make sure you weren’t missing any calls from the friends you were trying to meet while you were vacationing there). Sorry! You’re stuck with us for another year of your contract!” Yeah, screw them.
Wow, so *everything *they told you was a lie?! 
I like my Comcast service in Atlanta.
There was an installation problem, but the company took responsibility and issued credit along with a follow up call to be sure everything was working well.
The installer was very polite and called me about 20 minutes before his arrival to confirm the appointment.
I always hear the Comcast hate, but I like them.
I have RCN in Chicago. They’re in a limited number of cities, but wherever they’re available, I highly recommend them!
I used to date a tech support guy for Comcast. Rule #1: the second you get a human on the phone, immediately ask to have your call escalated to Level 2 support. Skip the front line techies.
Freddy the Pig, we have Comcast and we have PIP. I think it’s because of the TV we have and not something we can credit Comcast for.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve gotten a brochure telling us what we need to have Infinity Digital TV through Comcast. It didn’t seem to be any different from what we already have except they will deliver extra boxes that we don’t need. I asked Zeldar to take care of it and I heard the phone conversation. They confirmed that we didn’t need anything. Fine. Toss the brochure.
Today the second brochure – just like the first – arrived. The envelope said: SECOND NOTICE! YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED!
You are confused Comcast! And you want me to let you have access to our computer???
I just have to say I laughed my butt off at “[angry silence]” and this:
My AT&T Net went down over weekend.
Modem failing.
Net access going in & out, this is the first itime it was “up” in 2 days.
Had to jump through a zillion hoops to get anything done.
New modem arrives Tuesday, maybe.
My life has been sunshine and lollipops since I dumped Comcast for DSL. They are really evil.
The thing that killed me is that every time I called their techinical help because our internet was down (which was about once a month) they would try to sell me their phone service. That’s a great idea! That way when my internet goes down next month, I’LL HAVE NO WAY TO CONTACT YOU. Is that your strategy?
At least you get the NFL Network. Bright House may have decent service but their programming lineup sucks.
But I had PIP with the same TV just fine, back when my provider was Wide Open West. Now the instructions for the remote, which Comcast gave me, say “This service is not yet available.” So the remote has PIP buttons, but (as advertised) they don’t do anything.
Maybe they gave me the wrong damn remote. They don’t have a clue.
Is that how you resolved your lovers’ quarrels?