Monday morning 8/16, after a stormy night, my COMCAST internet service was dead. So I tried calling COMCAST but after being on hold for eons I gave up. So I went to my office to use the Qwest DSL lines, which were up and running, and I saw a COMCAST tech guy in the parking lot. He informed me that internet service was in shambles all over Tucson due to the lightning and storms during the night. And that it would, hopefully, be up later in the day.
OK, mother nature, there was a big storm during the night. So no service on Monday, OK. But on Tuesday morning there was still no service. So I called 1 800 COMCAST customer service to see when service would be restored. They had no knowledge of the storms, storms, what storms. Nope, they had no record of a service outage here in Tucson. Nothing. OK, never mind, but I don’t have service so we made an appointment for the next available time – Wednesday 8/18 between 3:00 & 5:00 PM.
But come Wednesday at 5:00 PM, no one from COMCAST had showed. And no one had called. So once again I called
1 800 COMCAST and went through the whole rigamarole again and was put on hold while they checked with dispatch and eventually was told they were running late – gee whiz no kidding - but they would be here by 5:30 to 5:40. OK fine.
At 6:00 they still hadn’t showed so I called 1 800 again. This time I was told that the technicians were on their way and would be here by 6:30 or so.
Great. But while I was on the phone with COMCAST 1 800, being told that the techs were on their way, the techs called and left me a message that unless I called them right back that they were going home. I called them back as soon as I got off the phone with 1 800 and I got their voicemail and let them know that I’d been waiting 3+ hours and, yes *&%&$$, I expected them to show. They did not call back and they did not show.
I then spent the next 2 hours on the phone with COMCAST 1-800 trying to get customer service to send someone out. I was put on hold for eternity and, finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and hung up. But I called back again, still hoping to speak with someone who might actually be willing and able to help me. But no, that didn’t happen. Instead I was told the next available appointment was Friday. FRIDAY, wait a minute, lets see if I’ve got this right; I’m without internet service for three days, COMCAST totally blows me off and doesn’t show up for the service appointment and I get pushed to the back of the line and have to wait two more days to see if they’ll show up. Does that make sense. It made perfect sense to the COMCAST customer service rep I spoke with. Actually it made perfect sense to all three COMCAST customer service reps I spoke with.
I went ballistic.
(And btw, my experience with COMCAST is that getting them to show up does not mean that your problem will be fixed. No, no way. Last time I went through this with COMCAST, they sent five different tech guys over a weeks time before they were able to figure out how to restore my service.)
This is my little problem. But it is also the reality of the shoddy service you can expect from COMCAST in the Tucson Foothills, 85718. Buyer beware. COMCAST service is inept and, worse yet, COMCAST does not even care. They just want your money.
COMCAST is a cable monopoly that should not be allowed to exist.
Julius Genachowski, are you listening.
