The technician also said FIOS guys break Comcast cables so often that there’s no point to complain anymore. Some competition!

This is crazy what us customers have to go through.
I think if I have any other problems – I am going to call the Customer Utility Control on the back of my bill — and see what they can do.

Hopefully my credit will improve enough where I can switch to AT&T whom my co-workers and others I’ve heard Love…. will finally get to record more than TWO shows at one time and have all the other features such as caller ID-TV, Set/Record DVR from PC; etc “ComCrap” doesn’t have YET — in 2010!

The customer service rep said she could take a payment for the amount due on the account and take care of the situation. No problem, I gave her the credit card number, yes the same one that is on my automatic payment account, and she said “You are all set, is there anything else I can do for you?” I said, “let me make sure I can log in to my email before I let you go.” I was rather shocked by the response, “Oh, it will take from 24 to 72 hours to get your service restored.” As a comparison, DirecTV stays on the line with you until you verify that you are receiving all the stations you subscribe to (I have changed out a few receivers over the years).

At this point I needed a supervisor who could make a decision and get me turned back on. Much to my amazement, she confirmed 24 – 72 hours “unless I wanted to go to the “local” Comcast office and pay the amount in cash. Once I realized she was going to do nothing for me I ended the call. The local office is only about half an hour out of the way when I go to work. So this morning, off I go to the “local” Comcast office that opens at 8:00 (or as I soon found out, 8:00 is merely a suggestion). So in to the office I go when it opened at about 8:25. I was the only one there so I thought I would be able to take care of this quickly (the concept of dealing with Comcast is new to me, I have so much to learn). After watching the rep brush off his coat, fold his gloves, put his lunch away, rearrange his post-it notes, sharpen his pencils, and a few other critical tasks it was time to pay my bill and be on the way. Not exactly, I had to tell the whole story again but I knew I was walking away with my internet and cable working because the supervisor last night told me exactly what I had to do. After being accused of maxing out my credit card (the reason the automatic payment was not taken) to paying the wrong account (that’s a whole other adventure. My wife set up an account for our son in college. Thankfully she deals with Comcast on that one). I was then informed that it would be up to a week before my account was turned back on. He finally said the best he could do was tomorrow. I left thinking it was scheduled for tomorrow. Wrong again, I think because nobody can tell me what’s going on.
I thought I would log in to my account and see if the payment had been received and check the automatic payment but I was completely locked out. No way to check anything at Comcast, even email. Unfortunately this goes on and on. I spent another hour and a half on the phone with Comcast trying to get this situation rectified. I spoke to a CS rep that was friendly; she even went in and “fixed” my automatic payment account because “whoever went in there did something so payments weren’t being made”. She saw that I made the payment last night but could not understand why my account was not working. I think she was on a VoIP phone because the echo was horrible. It probably took twice as long because I could not understand her. I finally asked for a supervisor hoping I would get a better connection.

I got a better connection and the supervisor said since Comcast’s computer system had not updated, the payment was not showing in my account. I had confirmed with the credit card company that Comcast had received the payment early in the morning. He could not understand how the previous CS rep knew the exact amount I had paid when she told me is was credited to my account. He told me it takes 24 – 26 hours for payments to be credited to accounts because of Comcast’s computer system. He said once the payment is credited to my account it should be turned back on. The remainder of the conversation made me feel like a character in Catch-22. I have to log in to my account to see if the payment has been posted so I can talk to somebody about turning my account back on so I can get my email and set up automatic payment even though he confirmed that automatic payment is enabled for my account.

I’m not sure what Comcast’s forte is but I’m going to guess that it’s customer service.

Onward through the fog!

I need the next step – Please Help!

Basically I was told that I would get the triple play package for 99.00 a month for 2 years, My wife and figured out the savings and were very excited about the prospect of savings several hundred dollars over the course of 2 years. When the initial call took place we asked if all of our current cable services would be included in the price (DVR, HD channels) and we were assured that it would be. We were also told that there would be 100.00 dollar gift card included . … Sounds great right !!!

During the initial call the very nice lady who was handling our call informed us that she was having problems with her computer and that she woulds have to call us back, she set up an installation date for the phone and internet services and never called us back.

After not receiving the call back from the first costomer service rep I called back the next day to make sure that everything was in order and that we would be getting the deal that that the initial costomer rep promised us. Again the agent on the phone assured us that we would be getting that deal as long as we signed up before the end of the month and even told us that the gift card would be 200.00 dollars… sounds even better right !!! Wrong.

We were also promised that our home phone # would not change (A phone number that my wife and I shared for almost twenty years). That did not happen either!!!

Because of summer vacation I had to push back the install date to the middle of August, I then called to confirm the install date and this is when I learned that I would not be able to keep my original phone # as well as change the install date again because they needed more time due to the fact that we needed a new # ???, My wife and I reluctantly agreed to change our home phone # because we had no choice!

After the install of triple play and the initial shock of having to change our email and home phone number which was attached to every aspect our lives ( schools, billing, contacts, ext !!), we received a contract in the mail that needed to be signed or emailed back to comcast, although I did not immediately look at it, when I did I was shocked to see rate of 99.00 a month that we were originally promised had gone up to 119.00 for the first 12 months 129.00 for the second 12 months.

I immediately called comcast and spoke to a customer service rep who informed me that that package was no longer available to me and that she could not offer me anything close to what what I was orinally offered, She offered me 1 month credit of service and basically that I would have to take the contract sent in the mail.

I was in shock !!!, I asked to speak to her direct supervisor and let her know that comcast was pulling the classic “Bait and Switch” on me. I was then told that her Supervisor was in a meeting and that she would call me back, I left a voice mail for the supervisor to call me back ( She did not call me back).

I then called back the next day to speak to the Supervisor I had left a voice mail for and finally after another voicemail and call I received a call back. After a lengthy and sometimes heated discussion in which I asked for only what was promised to me initially, we were still at a stand still, she could still not come close to offering me the original offer” That offer was no longer in the system” and said that she would confer with her colleagues and in her words “Try and make this right”. She said she would call me the next day, I let her know that would great that I was off work. She did not call me back the next day.

I then called the day after that and left another voicemail for the Supervisor and was called back by another costomer service rep who was a subordinate of the Supervisor I was dealing with, He informed me that he was instructed to call on her behalf because she was out of the office for the holiday weekend and would not be back until Tuesday. CAN YOU SEE THE STEAM RISING !!!!!

The customer service rep offered me a deal of 114.00 a month for twelve months, All services would be billed seperately, I informed him that I would take that deal if it was 24 months, He informed me that he could not offer that deal because it was not ” in the system”. I asked him what the price would go up to after the 12 month period he said it would 215.00 a month. At this point I almost lost it !!!. after a few choice words I ended that call and left yet another voicemail for the Supervisor to call me back on Tuesday. “Folks do the math, I guess have stupid written on forehead”

Today after not receiving a call, I left yet another voicemail for the Supervisor, she called me back as I was reading this blog. To sum up the final offer after all of this, I was offered a 2 month credit spread out over 3 months with the 119/129 contract and when I asked about the gift card she said that was not available. she did inform me that if an offer came available that was close to what I was initally offered that she would call me. “I wont hold my Breath”

I am still not completely satisfied with the results of this compromise and feel like I need to get license of the comcast truck that ran me over. Anyone have any suggestions or advice?