Comcast

Comcast Sinks to a New Level of Incompetance For the past six years, I have signed up for Internet service for the 6 months I'm in Florida through Comcast/Xfinity. They provided a decent service (25 Mbps) for a reasonable price ($30 per month). My only irritation was that every two years they "upgraded" their list of compatible modems, and I had to buy another (because it's much cheaper to own your own than lease theirs). It must be difficult to recruit and retain qualified entry-level employees, because every year it was more difficult to sign up for and activate the service than I think it should have been. It takes more than 30 minutes on the phone just to sign up, with a series of redundant questions and numerous periods of being placed on hold. Getting disconnected and having to start all over is not uncommon. Then, when I actually arrive in Florida, I have to call again to activate the service. But, what are you going to do? Cable companies have a monopoly, because it's so expensive to run the cables to your house. If you want their service (and unfortunatlely, we all do), you have to put up with their incompetance and lack of caring. But this year, things were so remarkably different that I just had to comment on it. I called to sign up for TV and Internet services on October 4 (and asked that the Self-Install kit be shipped on October 16; having a technician come to the house would be an additional $60!). Upon arriving in Florida on October 20, I called to inquire where the equipment was. It turned out that Comcast, without contacting me, cancelled my order. Flabbergasted, I placed the order again and requested the equipment be shipped immediately (their closest retail store is more than an hour away). They had some difficulty accepting my order because they are switching to a new computer system, which they were clearly not prepared for -- the customer "service" person needed more than an hour to accept and place my order, because he clearly didn't know how their new system worked. On October 27, I again called to inquire where the equipment was. Again, with no notification at all, Comcast had cancelled my order! It turns out they refused my order because their system didn't receive "third party verification" of my new phone service. But I had never requested phone service. Apparently, their new system added it on its own, with no human intervention! Now forced to admit defeat, I decided that I would go to the Comast Retail Store (an hour away), to deal with a human face-to-face, and to pick up the equipment at the same time. Luckily, I decided to call the Store before driving there. I was strongly encouraged to place my order over the phone, and then just head to the store to pick up the equipment. After more than 45 minutes on the phone, the Comcast representative had to admit that she had no idea what was going on. The "double bundle" that I wanted was no longer available, and they had to manually pick the individual TV and Internet service that I wanted . But once they placed the order, their new system changed the selections. They could not provide me the services I wanted. In frustration, I finally decided to drop the TV service, and just order an Internet connection. After another 5 minutes on hold, I was told the service was ready to activate, and would be $85 per month. Shocked, I told her this was nearly triple the price I was expecting. She looked at her computer screen, and suddenly admitted that it would be $45 per month. She then asked if she could e-mail me the details for me to accept. This has also been an on-going comedy with Comcast -- when signing up for Internet service, they insist on e-mailing you something, or texting you a link. Why is it so hard for them to understand that I don't have an Internet connection until they process my order?! I eventually got the representative to read me the information. Despite several requests for a "no term commitment", she now explained that I would be locked in for 24 months. When I reminded her that I did not want a "contract" (since I have to cancel the service every 6 months), the price shot back up to $85. Disgusted with Comcast, I hung up. Luckily, there is a happy ending. I have found a local company selling Exede satellite Internet service. Although they do require a 24-month contact, they are perfectly willing to "hibernate" my service any time I want, for as long as I want (Comcast charges a fee to suspend your service, and requires you to continue to pay for the equipment lease). They offer free installation and free equipment, and scheduled the installation for the very next day. Central Floridians, I strongly urge you to leave Comcast, and give Exede a try!

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Everything was fine.

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They are horrible. It was the only one in town. I'm paying for 100MB internet service and I'm getting 1MB. I've called them five times and talked to three technicians. They can't even help me. They don't even offer a solution to this problem. It's insane. They don't have the knowledge to sustain my situation right.

Excellent. He was on time and knew his job and had the right equipment.

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I was then able to explain that, since the old cable was changed to xfinity (over a year) there have been multiple problems that the provider was unable to resolve. Finally, I had to demand that a technician come to the house. When the proper service tech came this time, he was finally able to see what other technicians had overlooked in the past. He changed the line oustide that was giving a poor signal because a squirrel had chewed on it, letting water in the line. He changed the cable box inside the house as the company provided the wrong one for my level of service,cutting out channels I should have been receiving. The system does finally work, but it is the last time I will go through the aggravation. If anything goes wrong again, I will change providers. B. A. S.

I was on the phone for 6 hours in one day trying to get an issue resolved, but no one knew what they were doing or what was going on.

I like them. There is no problem. It is a good company.

hours after 1-2 AM for no reason, then take 20-30 mins. to reboot back up. So many issues with my TV service... to numerous to explain. Do not have any problem with the phone and internet service however. Just wish we had more companies to choose from when buying these types of services. Not enough area wide competition. Comcast has quite a way to go still in their customer service department relations.

They were actually better than I expected. They came when they said they would and they did the job they said they would do. My only complaints with Comcast are that sometimes you get thrown out of movies (you paid for) for no apparent reason and you cannot get back into them -- and you are charged anyway! Also, trying to get a real live person on the phone is nearly impossible. For the price, I am seriously considering going back to either the Dish or some other movie channel provider. Right now, it seems like Comcast is the only deal in town (for our location).

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I’m not crazy about Comcast not because of their product but they keep switching around. I’m old and I like things to where they were. The lady from customer service was nice but she couldn’t help me for some reason.

I hate them. I can remember when they were really very good and communicative. They have gotten so diffuse now that when I call they most want to get me off the phone. The last time I had service they charged me a $50 service charge which I hadn't ever had before and I wasn't told about it. After I yelled loud and long enough, they finally took it off. I had to call several times to make any headway at all regarding the $50 charge and their charges in general. I was trying to reduce expenses so I had pared things done. I am an author and I need these things. I've had a couple of very nice service people and a couple that I couldn't wait until they left. The services are actually very good but nothing else is. The only way I got the price down is because somebody finally referred me to the loyalty team. Their bills are confusing and not consistent. I had a terrible time with them.

It is for the whole building. We have two buildings with 13 condos in each one and they take care of all of them. I think they are very good. They have excellent service.

In early July I spoke with a sales rep about setting up TV and broadband internet service in a seasonal home we bought in Sebring, FL. The rep told me they had a plan where I could put my service on "vacation" for the time we were not there. This vacation option was the determining factor in my decision to do business with Comcast I arranged for installation when we planned to be in town to set up house at the end of July. The installation went fine. The trouble began when I called to have the service put on vacation, 5 days after installation. We were returning to our Wisconsin home and would not be back until winter. Comcast told me that the option to put the service on vacation needed to be activated prior to June 30th and was therefor no longer available. This seemed ridiculous to me, so I left the service active and retuned to Wisconsin, determined to have this matter rectified. I made 4 phone calls to Comcast and spoke to 4 different customer service reps. Each call lasted 30-45 minutes and ended with me being transferred to a supervisor who promised to look into the problem and call me back. I never received a call from Comcast. Finally, on August 18th I called and insisted on speaking with a person with the authority to make a final decision on the matter. Each person I spoke to asked for the same information. I finally refused to even speak to people who could not help me and after being transferred three times I finally ended up speaking to someone who put my account on vacation effective the date I first called about the vacation option. In total, the service was active for five days, including the day I called to have it suspended. My bill has been adjusted to $71.09 for those five days. I'm not giving up yet. I'll continue to try to get this bill down to a more reasonable amount.