Comcast

[Dianne]

Moved to this area in the beginning of October and signed up for Comcast cable and internet services.

This is the first time dealing with them and to make a long story short, I have a dispute resolution claim filed against them with the Better Business Bureau.

Anyone else had any problems with them?

[JeffL]

Yeah, my connection sucks donkey balls. Sometimes its fine, but like for the past 2 weeks, it will drop for 1-2 minutes at a time, every 10-15 minutes. Granted, that doesnt sound like a big deal, but TRUST ME, it gets fucking annoying.

Called up several times and they ping the house or whatever, always comes back as "no issue on our end, we can have a tech come to your house for $18394/hr to check out your equipment." Riiight. Thats nice and all, but I've swapped in known good routers and modems with no such luck.

[Dianne]

I can't believe how bad they've been. Never seen anything like it before. One thing that pisses me off to no end is bad customer service.

I work my ass off to maintain a certain level of service for my customers at work and expect the same efforts from others when I am dealing with being on the customer side of things myself.

I reached a point where even after calling back about 4 times in a span of 2-3 days in hopes of getting someone that (1) knew what they were doing and (2) gave a fuck, I abandoned all hope.

I made one last attempt and asked the representative for the name and contact info of someone in their main office thats in charge of customer service. They refused to give me the information.

So I filed a dispute resolution claim with the Better Business Bureau. I was all done trying to deal with them directly. They have 10 business days to reply so I'll have to wait it out and see what happens.

[rebelpacket]

Mine is fricken sweet. I pay about 130$ total a month for the SPEED package + basic digital cable, and the "speed tier" of cable internet.

I almost never have any disconnects, and my normal download speed is around 500-600 kiloBYTES a second. Maybe its just because I pay the 19$ a month extra, but they rock in my eyes.

[Dianne]

Mine is fricken sweet. I pay about 130$ total a month for the SPEED package + basic digital cable, and the "speed tier" of cable internet.

I almost never have any disconnects, and my normal download speed is around 500-600 kiloBYTES a second. Maybe its just because I pay the 19$ a month extra, but they rock in my eyes.

The service itself was fine. The problem arose from a serious mistake in the billing. They are trying to charge me $650 for 3 months of cable and basic cable internet. No pay per views and what not.

I have asked that they give me something in writing that breaks it down more than just the invoice, they won't provide me with detailed billing info. So until I saw how in the hell they think I owe them that much, Im not paying on the bill.

In the meantime, they shut me off. I call and try to resolve the issue, tell them the bill should be no more than $400ish and offer to pay said amount over the phone to have service back on.

They wont budge. They want me to pay the $650 before I can have service back on. Without some kind of breakdown of where they got that insane amount, they are not getting that kind of money out of me.

[nefarious]

The service itself was fine. The problem arose from a serious mistake in the billing. They are trying to charge me $650 for 3 months of cable and basic cable internet. No pay per views and what not.

I have asked that they give me something in writing that breaks it down more than just the invoice, they won't provide me with detailed billing info. So until I saw how in the hell they think I owe them that much, Im not paying on the bill.

In the meantime, they shut me off. I call and try to resolve the issue, tell them the bill should be no more than $400ish and offer to pay said amount over the phone to have service back on.

They wont budge. They want me to pay the $650 before I can have service back on. Without some kind of breakdown of where they got that insane amount, they are not getting that kind of money out of me.

Odd my bills where always very specific on what they where charging me for, even when the tried to charge me for unreturned equipment.

[Dianne]

Their head customer service representative just called me. They will turn services back on and settle on the $400 I offered them to begin with.

[SSearchVT]

My Last bill had an $80 credit because the service sucked. During my phone call with the Manager of customer service I said they would have to improve the service to reach the description of pathetic...

[TurboRush91]

Yeah, my connection sucks donkey balls. Sometimes its fine, but like for the past 2 weeks, it will drop for 1-2 minutes at a time, every 10-15 minutes. Granted, that doesnt sound like a big deal, but TRUST ME, it gets fucking annoying.

I had a similar issue back in the day. Tracked it down to my router, did a firmware update and everything has been fine since.

[KB]

The only thing I don't like is that they charge yu a month in a dvance. why do i want them holding my cash. Eff that. Send me the needed paper work at their cost to let me know when it's geting shut off then I will pay at 11:59 on the day of. Eff the cable douches.

KB

[Punjistick]

Jeff the same exact thing has been happening to me. Connection going off and on every few minutes. It seems like it has been getting worse.

Sunday night the internet went out and stayed out for many hours. I tried the the usual bullshit. Unplug/replug router, modem, reboot, etc. It didn't work. Called them in the morning and they had me do the same thing. This time it went back on.

Just now, about an hour ago, it went off a again for about and hour until I called again. Unplug/replug and it works. They keep saying the the modem is connected on their end but I swear they they flip a switch or something.

TurboRush, I'll have to try the firmware update to see if that helps.

[stevecbr900rr]

Wow i thought i was alone,...the connection on the back of the computer is always disconnecting. We called and told them it was there wiring and they insist its our computer. This only just started happening after we switched from verizon to comcast...but its my computer.ya right. They won't even come out they diognosted the problem from there office or so they say,... and they say its or computer. I thought Verizon was bad.

[The Snowman]

Wow, I'm glad I'm not a horror story like those. I moved from millbury, MA where I had Charter and didn't like their service.

I moved to Blackstone and got Comcast via a kit I got at Circuit city, which included 2 $50 off certificates.

I have the digital preferred and HDTV and 8MB broadband cable, for $120 with the new rates. (including tax)

My only complaint is that the non-HD channels seem a little fuzzy. Well, I guess that's to be expected, like how trying to expand a normal signal to an HD screen results in a pixelated image.

[Degsy]

Yeah, my connection sucks donkey balls. Sometimes its fine, but like for the past 2 weeks, it will drop for 1-2 minutes at a time, every 10-15 minutes. Granted, that doesnt sound like a big deal, but TRUST ME, it gets fucking annoying.

Called up several times and they ping the house or whatever, always comes back as "no issue on our end, we can have a tech come to your house for $18394/hr to check out your equipment." Riiight. Thats nice and all, but I've swapped in known good routers and modems with no such luck.

It's not your connection. It's your cable modem. Go to your local Comcast offcie and swap it. Easy as that.

derek

[The Snowman]

It's not your connection. It's your cable modem. Go to your local Comcast offcie and swap it. Easy as that.

derek

I own my own Linksys Modem / Wireless router, so that may be why I don't have any of these issues.

The only issue I have is when I use my phone, which is a 2.4GHz (I use Vonage, since their 500 minute plan is only $19, including tax). Wireless networks run in the same frequency range as my phone, so wireless access is dropped momentarily while I'm on the phone.

[Punjistick]

I've got a 4-port linkys router comming off the modem and then a 3-port linksys switch coming off the router. I checked for new firmware but it's really old and the newest is from 2004. How long do these things last. Maybe it's time to get some new ones?

[NinjaSwan]

Techdirt: Comcast Fined For Being Too Slow At Answering Customer Calls



This one should make anyone who's experienced being on hold for way too long smile. Comcast has now been fined $12,281.84 in Montgomery County, Maryland, for being too slow to answer customer service calls. This shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, even Comcast's own technicians have been known to fall asleep waiting for support to answer a call. Apparently, Montgomery County is cracking down on cable service providers who treat customers terribly and is trying to hold them to a minimum service level (we assume that they can do this as part of the franchise agreements they give out for cable providers). Normally, a competitive market would force companies to serve customers better, but we all know that there still isn't much of a competitive market when it comes to cable services. There is some concern that the fines are too small to make Comcast care -- which may be true. It seems like a better solution might just be to try to increase the number of competitors in the market, and then publicize average hold times, so that customers know these things when they choose who provides their cable and broadband services. But, for now, that's probably just a pipe (or tube?) dream.

[Billy]

we ended up switching to Verizon for our phone, internet, and cable. Yes Verizon is now offering cable!!!!

Funny thing is, I'm getting more cable channels and the cable package is cheaper then comcasts.

[Punjistick]

FiOs is one town away from me. If it were in my town I would have switched already.

[babo]

Comcast sucks. I switched from RCN to Comcast 'cause Comcast offered to 1/2 my bill (from $ 140 to $ 70.00). Seemed like a nice deal until the first time that we lost our Vonage phone service , which was on the first day, and promptly every day after that. My wife was pissed.

After spending way too much time on the phone with these clowns, I promptly signed up with Verizon's fios, which has been flawless.

Check out PingPlotter to really find out how much they suck!