So, yeah… Comcast sucks. It takes a lot for me to say such a strong statement (and immature, at that, heh), but it’s true. Even one of their techs thinks so (neener neener neener!).
Phase one of Operation: Screw Comcast was to get DirecTV and cancel our digital cable. We are able to get more for our money with DTV. But Comcast decides that this isn’t fair, and decides to jack up the price of our Cable Modem access. Bah. Fine, whatever, I’m in favor of getting DSL later this month anyways.
Yesterday, a fellow comes to disconnect our Digital Cable and take away the cable box. Easy enough, right? He comes almost an hour and a half AFTER the scheduled timeframe. When he arrives, I verify with this guy that this operation was just to disconnect the digital cable, and NOT the cable modem/internet access. He nods, has me sign some paperwork, and says, “I’ll be right back”.
(the rest of the enrty is long and painful. I just wanted to record it for future reference…)
He never came back. The bastard. Granted, I also had a plumber working on the bathroom sink, so I was a little distracted, but the stupid cable guy never gave me a copy of the paperwork, never told me what he was up to, and didn’t tell me he was leaving.
Within half an hour, my net connection is dead. Kaput. No workie. I was absolutely flaming mad. I call their 800 number to find out what was going on. The customer care rep (if you want to call them that… I think that they are undeserving of such a title) said that yes, it was a mistake, and he will have someone from their local office call me within an hour to schedule someone to come by that afternoon. If they don’t call, I should call the 800 number again. Fine, good enough.
Actually, not really. As if expected, an hour later, no call. I call the 800 number again, explain this to yet another rep, who tells me, “Yeah, it’s been scheduled… for between 3-5pm tomorrow.” Gee, thanks for letting me know, guys. I bitch this guy out, telling him the situation about the disappearing cable guy, and the ignorance of my actual request. He told me I should physically go to the local office (gee, so convenient, they don’t have a local phone number nor can this idiot patch me in to them) and tell them the situation. That’s all I could do to try and expedite this request.
I go to the local office, which is about 10 minutes away, and speak to a rep at the front desk. She tells me, “The order is still open to be completed today by 5. If no one comes in by 5, you need to come back here tomorrow morning and talk to [some chick's name] because she’s really good at dealing with these kind of issues. WTF? Why the hell am *I* doing all the running around when it’s THEIR frickin’ fault?
So of course, no one comes by 5pm. Sorry to say, I expected as much.
Fast forward to this morning. A tech comes by at around 9AM. Fair enough. I tell him the whole sad story of the disappearing tech, which he is absolutely floored by. This guy is actually pretty nice. He goes to the backyard to reinstall the missing part(s), which should be a simple operation. It is… but there’s more crap to overcome.
The modem shows that the connection is active, but none of our computers are able to connect. So begins lots of messing with the router, the hubs, the various ethernet cabling, etc. We connect one of the machines directly to the modem to try and connect, which also takes some futzing with the TCP/IP settings, and trying to find the correct IP address of the modem. FINALLY, we get it right.
BUT, we still cannot connect. WTF? I suggest the possibility that Comcast might have cancelled my account ENTIRELY. So the tech calls the call center to find out. Yup, sure enough. We reset my account and password, and off we go.
Not so fast. hahaha…
It doesn’t work. We have a connection, but cannot config the account. It doesn’t accept the password. Gah. After multiple retries, the tech calls the call center yet again, to find that not a darn thing was done about the account, and that it wasn’t even on record to reactivate. Double Gah!
After all that (maybe an hour or after he initially arrived), we were up and running. FINALLY… a job that should have taken 15 minutes took almost 24 hours.
I get a week’s worth of reimbursement, but I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t show up on my next bill. Doesn’t matter, I’ll be switching to another ISP soon enough. Any suggestions? I’ve been looking into Speakeasy, because of glowing reviews.
Speakeasy is good, though they seem a little pricey to me.
Give Earthlink a try if you wish, I have them now, they are pretty good.