Here’s a topic that’s never really been discussed before: the horrible suckitude of Comcast. Has anyone, anywhere ever had a good customer service experience with them? I’ve certainly never heard of one.
Case in point, our recent Quixotic attempt to switch our internet from our current apartment to our soon-to-be new digs (that’s right, D,S is moving. Send gifts!)
You might think that switching service to a new apartment would be a simple matter of changing the address they associate with our account number, and then having someone come over and turn on the e-pipes. This is not in any way a possibility.
Or maybe we could just set up a new account with them, paying full price for another “professional installation” (clearly the only safe and reliable way to plug in the one (1) required cable), and then cancel our current account. Also not possible, since our apartment’s current resident hasn’t moved out yet, and Comcast won’t set up an installation appointment until he cancels his account.
So a task that could, in a more perfect world, be done by walking our router and cable over to the new place and plugging it into the wall will instead mean waiting until Wednesday for the guy to terminate his account, calling Comcast to set up an installation, and then waiting until…whenever they can get to us.
Meanwhile, Katie gets to spend the intermittent week or so figuring out where to work (internet access is kind of important to freelance writers).
FiOS really can’t get to the District soon enough. There’s no doubt in my mind that at least half of current Comcast customers would switch the very day FiOS gets to their residences.
What I’m trying to say is, Comcast is clearly involved in a massive conspiracy to suppress the spread of FiOS, and Barack Obama should have the SEC investigate within his first hundred days. Mr. President-elect, that would be some change I could damn well believe in.
I agree; switching services should not be as troublesome. I apologize for the experience.
I would like to look into this further and make sure that the transfer of service is completed successfully. If you are willing to provide the phone number associated with the account, I will be happy to look into this for you.
Thanks for the opportunity to assist!
Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
Noah,
My roommate and I have had our share of “fun” with Comcast as well. We’ve lived in our apartment in Bloomingdale for over two years now, and Comcast has yet to successfully get cable into our apartment, even after at least 10 visits to our place to try to make things work.
They’ve had trouble with the “drop” that exists behind our apartment (it apparently needs “upgrading”). At the beginning, they told us that our address “did not exist”. We were informed by one less that scrupulous subcontractor that he could hook us up “for free”, but we were sure that would lead to crappy signal, so we politely declined.
It’s amazing that a company actually exists that you can literally beg them to take your money, and in a roundabout way, they basically refuse to take it. It’s like they want to fail.
Bring on the competition, I say!
Okay WOW, IMGoph wins. We’ve had some crappy Comcast stories beyond the one in this post, but nothing as bad as all that.
My sympathies.