Monday, July 16, 2007

Comcast - lousy customer service

I don't want to go into a big rant here about Comcast. I'm going to try and just list some of the basics without going into details...
Thursday night, I noticed one of my cable channels (G4/techTV) had gone out and was complete static. Ok, this has happened in the past, and usually if I wait a couple days it comes back on. But then it starts to bother me that I'm paying for this service and I'm not getting what I paid for. So I call to report it on Friday Night. After explaining the problem, the customer service tells me they can set me up with a Saturday appointment. Well, I had plans all day so I said "I don't really have to be here do I?" I mean just have the tech come out and fix it, IF the problem is something inside my apartment (Doubtful, because ALL the other channels are working fine), I said I would call them back to set up a second appointment. Well, after some back and forth comments on the logic of this, the support guy agreed and set me up for a Tuesday "outside only" appointment. Great.
So the next morning, I get a call from Comcast. First the woman attempts to tell me that my channel was recently eliminated from basic cable and moved to the all digital package (which did happen on two other channels about 2 weeks ago). I had to correct her and say "no, the G4 channel is not the "Game show network". Oh, ok, got that straightened out. Then she says "so you have an appointment scheduled for today, what time would you like them there?
What? Today? I explained the whole Tuesday thing to her. She didn't understand, and finally said, so do you want me to cancel today's appointment? At this point I figured... ok, I'm on the schedule, I might as well wait here for 2 hours (She said between 12 and 2). I hung up and proceed to cancel my Saturday plans.
So about 12:10, I start to wonder... this woman gave me several wrong pieces of information on the phone, I better call to confirm this. I call. The next guy I spoke to, told me I was just scheduled for a full day appointment and that there was nothing in the system about 12-2. I knew it! So I started to go through the process of re-scheduling BACK to my original Tuesday only appointment, at which point he hung up on me.
I called back yet again. I spoke to a woman this time and had to re-explain all of this. She was nice and apologized for my inconvenience. She set up my appointment again for outside only on Tuesday.
I got home Saturday evening and sure enough, there was a phone call from the technician... He said I was scheduled for an appointment between 12 and 2 and since I wasn't home, I had to reschedule the appointment. (It was 2:34 by the way!).
And as of last night (Sunday).... the channel came back on. So now I have to call back again to cancel Tuesday's appointment. (Which I think is automated, so that's good).
I'm THIS CLOSE { } to canceling or downgrading my Comcast. IF it were not for the fact that I'm addicted to Comedy Central and BattleStar Galactica, I would.

2 comments:

JWD said...

Argh!

Keep in mind that BSG is available on itunes the day after it airs. I know you don't like to download itunes video, but it may be something to think about if that's what's preventing you. (Although, would that mean giving up cspan, too?)

cyen said...

Good point jwd! But I think it's comedy central that keeps me shelling out about $55 a month.
Yes, Cspan too... but that was one of the channels they took away a couple weeks ago. Cspan2! Which would have "bookTV" on every weekend that I enjoyed! Grrr...
I still predict that it won't be long until all networks put their entire shows online. At which point, I'll be the first to cancel my cable.