Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Comcrap woes

Anyone else out there have any problems with Comcast high-speed internet having turtle-speed slowness? What about highly incompetent and uncaring customer service? How about service technicians that don't show, don't call, don't care, and don't know anything? What we need is a little competition -- some other options. Any suggestions for a decent service where I can still use YouTube and download and upload at decent speed?

Our Comcast woes are not over, and apparently we aren't the only ones who are affected. It seems to be a problem with Comcrap over-selling and not being able to supply the increasing demands, but they keep on selling anyway and that is bogging everything down, down, down. Do they care? Hardly. The first service appointment was canceled without our knowledge and we only found out by my husband calling on Monday to complain that the cable television was now affected. They said it was an area problem and that they automatically cancel residential service appointments when there is a need for techs to be elsewhere for "maintenance". They rescheduled someone to come out yesterday between 8 and noon. I waited, and waited and then as noon approached I decided I better call and find out what's up. Well, the dude who had our work order was "tied up" with a big problem in a neighboring town and couldn't make it, so the woman on the phone said they were sending someone else! Who shows up but a kid of maybe 22 at most who said he is new at this tech stuff. Great. He changed EVERYTHING that could be changed. He changed cables inside and out, cable connectors, and he tested our machine to see that yes, it is a fast computer, and yes we have it all set up correctly. We had tested our modem at our son's place and it was fine, but he didn't believe us so hooked up one of Comcast's modems and still the same snail-slow sluggishness. He finally did a test at the box and found that we have a 40% packet loss....at the outside box two doors down from us. He decides he can do no more, has me sign a sheet that he was there and leaves us with everything the same as it was. Only the cable television was a bit worse last night (it as perfect today...but not the internet).

So, hubby calls Comcrap from work today around 8 a.m. and talks to this woman on the phone who tries to tell him to check our modem, etc...and he stopped her and said "WAIT...I have a pink sheet here that says it is NOT our problem, the problem is outside our house"...and the woman started to argue, and he would not let her. He demanded another service guy come out. So, she scheduled one for tonight between 4-7. At 6:30 he still was not here so we called back to find out and sure enough, we were not on the schedule because she said that they accidentally scheduled the call for someone else! WTF??

So, now we have an appointment for Friday between 4 - 6. Anyone want to take bets of when or if they are going to show up and if we will get this problem resolved within the next few days?

8 comments:

Tommykey said...

They better get you fixed soon, I'm cracking out some really good posts on my blog again!

Joe said...

That's the problem when there's no real competition in the industry. Comcast doesn't have to care

Coyote Moon said...

If you can, get the Verizon FIOS (Fiber Optic!). I don't have it in my area, but I hear it's great.

Well, at least for the internet. :-)

Naomi said...

I received a short email from Stardust, via a public library PC. She's experiencing severe withdrawal from blogging and misses us all.

On the upside, she's been catching up on some of her reading, which is a pale "consolation prize" to our Stardust.

Please help me keep the trolls occupied in her absence. I'm also busy with moderating at the "other blog" she and I share duties at, so I need your vigilance in between my visits.

Thanks, in advance, for your help. And if we were the "prayin' kind" or superstitious enough to "cross our fingers", she'd be back, like, yesterday...

Jonzie said...

They do that everywhere, over-sell contracts and stuff the lines until they get as slow as an analogic connection. Tele 2 and tiscali do the exatct same thing in Italy and if you call them to complain, magically, everything works fine again. For a few hours.

Stardust said...

thanks naomi for watching over Stardust Musings while I was out of commission for awhile. Talk about frustration. I understand that there will sometimes be problems with technology, but it's nearly impossible to get ahold of a flesh-and-blood person in any reasonable amount of time when crap screws up. Anyway, I could have smooched this last repairman on the kisser for getting things running again. He was an older guy, and very tired because the abuse him and make him work long, long days..dispatching jobs to him when he thinks he is done he suddenly has three more calls. I would never want to work for this company, or any cable/internet company for that matter.

Stardust said...

coyote, we don't have that in our area yet, but will be looking for it, for sure because like Verizon phone service . . . it will get here eventually.

joe, nice to see you again.

tommy...great posts, I will be over there to catch up soon.

Stardust said...

jonzi, so it's the same there too. My overseas friends in several other countries say it's the same there, also. I think they need better management for their customer service departments. They also need to stop selling until they have the capability to provide good service to all before adding new accounts.