Chasmo’s Place
Just a biomed, ma’am, just a biomed.Archive for Rip Off
Stuff
Well I am slacking again. On the way to work I was listening to TWiT and Leo was talking about filling 5 hours of video time a day from his new office, and everyone was ripping him, because he states he is going to put real content up, not just a Chris Pirillo sit in front of a webcam for hours, and thinking that I want make sure I put something up everyday. Who knows what it will be. Today is a hodge-podge of ideas. So, here we go…
Well my biggest hit on these pages was my rant about Comcast, and how their customer service just plain sucks. Since then I have 3 outstanding calls to these VPs that were calling me, none of which have been returned. Great job guys. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and obvious from my experience, Comcast has people whose whole job is to scan the interwebs for rants about Comcast. Well that alone speaks volumes about how much of a reality this is. If you need people to do this, you are merely plugging big holes in your ship with a paper bag, it simply doesn’t work. While I think it is wise for them to do this, because they certainly get a lot of bad PR on the web, calling the posters up and giving them a month free or something similar doesn’t fix the whole, it masks them. I am sure, from talking to people who have written me regarding these entries, those whom have similar sites posted to their free web page supplied by Comcast, have had their accounts either blocked or their site blocked, or accounts simply cancelled. None of these things do anything to fix the problem either. What it does do is upset the people that are posting these entries, such as myself, even more, hence they go elsewhere and post more similar entries. What Comcast needs to do is focus on fixing the issues, not painting over them. Returning phone calls, hiring enough people to man the phones, so no one waits on hold for more than 5 minutes to talk to a human. Having humans, instead of computers answer the phone. Here is an idea, giving people what they pay for, instead of figuring out how to charge them more for services that they already paid for. Now that word is out that they are capping what people can download, and how much, they are working on plans to put a 250GB cap on their unlimited plans. Doesn’t sound unlimited to me, does it to you? Now, you may be saying, “Chasmo, 250GB, is a lot.” Well right now it may be, but if you look at what is going on out there, people are starting to download movies to rent from iTunes, XBox store and amazon, not to mention the music and TV shows. It all adds up pretty quickly, and is going to quickly become more and more prevalent. They already throttle the download speeds they give you so that you get slower speeds than promised. Yes their ads say up to, the highway signs say speed limit 65, which means you can go up to 65 MPH, how many people really go slower? The fact is you expect that speed. And to throttle it without telling you is just bad business. The fact of the matter is, the executives may have grown up where consumers didn’t have a voice, consumers now have a voice, and once more people are listening, you know that, you hire people to watch that, now the next step is to actually fix the problems, not squelch them.
Ok, so enough Comcast bashing, no matter how well deserved. This AM, I woke and made Squish and I lunch, she a Lebanon bologna, salami, and swiss and a German Bologna for me. I have been on a Bologna kick lately, not sure why, but hey its cheap, and thats a requirement right now, and I like it so why not. Oh and a pear for me, Squish still didn’t eat an apple in her bag, so it stays. I am also into pears again. An old favorite.
Thursday we leave for Jekyll Island for Emily’s wedding. We are flying down on my NWA frequent flyer miles. If we couldn’t do that, we wouldn’t be going, it is simply too expensive. We were hoping to have a new picture of B/C, but alas the anatomy ultrasound can’t be done until next week. Shannon plead our case to Dr. Ufberg, but he simply told her, you can’t take a picture of what isn’t there yet. Oh well, but we get a new picture on the 28th!
Oh, and I am not wearing pants.
More Comcast Rants
Well Catherine Brown did call me this AM, and left me a message at 8:16 AM, I did ask to be called by 8:15 AM, but of course the clocks are all down at Comcast, and Timex can’t get to them until Friday, sometime between 1 and 3PM. She informed me, what I had informed her on the phone Saturday. That indeed there was an internet downage Saturday. Surprise! Or so was I supposed to act that way? Let’s see, I tell them its down and they verified, its down. Great customer service Comcast. I know its down if I tell you. Did they credit our accounts for the time down automatically, no. We have to call them, even if we called during the outage, to tell them again that it was down, and so that they can give us what they owe us. Not only that, if you called during the outage, they had an automated system designed to call you back to tell you the internet was back up. They called a number that I had told them not to call me on instead of the number that I asked to be called on. Comcast simply doesn’t care, and really there is no incentive for them to care. The government doesn’t do anything to stop them from ripping people off. In fact Arlen Spector recently started a whole Congressional overlook on how the Patriots cheated against the Eagles during the Super Bowl a few years ago. Did he care about the game, maybe he did, and lost some money betting on the Birds, but most likely he didn’t and just wanted to fight the fight for Comcast, whom is fighting the NFL over the NFL networks, and happen to be his biggest contributors. Thus giving the NFL a black eye. Great use of more of our tax monies eh? Comcast regularly shapes the internet speeds to suit their like, they say they are fighting pirating, they are not they are being given incentives by the big media players to do so. Whats worse they lied about doing so for months, even when confronted with the evidence. Only recently have they come clean, and still say they are doing it for your own good. They know better than you do after all. They regularly try to compress multiple channels into 1 channel, thus the artifacts you are so used to seeing on your screen while watching tv. And yet even with all of this extra compression they have the gall to say that you are getting HD quality pictures. Simply not true. They give you upload and download speeds much lower than advertised. They advertise great phone service, but when you are down it takes multiple days to get you back up, what about 911, does your heart attack wait until Friday between 1 and 3PM to happen? Then do they always show when they say the will. I can tell you of three times that they didn’t when I had appointments with them, and not even so much as a call saying we are backed up, and will not be able to get to you today, can we reschedule? No they just don’t show. And then when they finally do, and you have taken your 4th day off of work to be there for them, you have to call and argue with customer service to be credited the time your services were down. It’s appalling! When are the Attorney Generals going to do something about this for the people. Comcast must be stopped. It truly is Craptastic!
Here are some more links and the infamous video:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/08/first-hand-expe.html
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/crm/comcast-customer-service.html
http://ladylucretia.livejournal.com/176494.html?thread=456302
http://www.football247indiana.com/news/10_25_2007d.php
http://steelkaleidoscopes.typepad.com/steel_kaleidoscopes/2006/07/comcast_a_terri.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/loss-of-internet-signal-c26064.html
http://www.thesqueakywheel.com/complaints/2007/JUL/complaint15565.cfm
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/593-dont-make-me-scream
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/internet/comcast_isp.html
http://consumerist.com/consumer/complaints/why-i-canceled-comcast-313512.php
UPDATED: Just got TWITTERed this: http://www.comcastsupport.com/forms/contact/RickGermano/
Supposedly Rick Germano is a SVP at Comcast. Please feel free to email him, with the above link, your Comcast horror stories.
Comcast Down Again, Almost Made 12 Hours Up
Well this AM I awoke to check my email, sorry, can’t do that, I am on Comcast. Tried to check google.com, no problem, cnn, problem but the kicker is comcast.net…problem. Well at least this time it wasn’t just me, its most of Philadelphia, and maybe more. I am not sure what they are doing today. If it were a service upgrade or something, they should do it in the middle of the night, not during the day. If it is a broken cable somewhere, they should be using all of the money that they are not paying in taxes or setting up a public access channel(they promised this one when they started in Philly, and still haven’t delivered, almost 20 years later, yet they still take all of their tax breaks, hmm, pretty good scam if you ask me). But no, they keep giving us crap for service, and I am sure they will soon be telling us about rate increases, that is what they usually do when this happens. Quick someone call Brian Roberts see if his services are down, or if he is getting a pay cut for all of the company’s complaints. No probably just bonuses. I called and left Catherine Brown a message demanding she call me by 8:15AM Monday, because you know those executives are no where to be found when there is trouble. What do they do again? Oh yeah, they steal our money, in return give us the internet, that we the tax paying citizens of the United States paid for the building of with our tax money. Remember people, the Internet was started by researcher working on Defense department research to share information, Comcast, Verizon, AOL, they are all just using what we built to make money off of it. I think we should demand these companies start to reimburse us for what we built for them. Oh sure they keep the infrastructure of it up, oh wait, today they proved they don’t do that, and of course they get huge tax breaks and government grants to do it also, again our tax money. Hmm, why do we pay for these services again? Well thanks Comcast! You win again, and rip us off.
Why Comcast Triple Play Sucks Today…Still
Well as an update to yesterday’s entry, I Recieved a call from a Catherin Brown at what she calls Corporate Headquarters, at 4:32PM yesterday, of course she leaves the office at 4:30PM, so my almost immediate (4:37PM) return call went unanswered. Her voicemail told me that she would be in at 8:00AM, as my internet service is down at home, I could not update. So starting at 8:01AM I started returning her call. Every time I called, I was sent directly to voice mail. At 8:21AM, I left her a long message, explaining that now that now Comcast has to be really aware that people’s livelihood often depend on internet and phone service these days, and their being unable to service down customers promptly, same day, next at the latest, their already terrible service is worsened. I also reminded her that I was told I could bring my box to the depot and get another, thus doing the service myself (I feel I should be paid the overtime hourly rate of their service technicians, as I am doing this after working a full day at my job), but the depot being unable, unwilling, and rude, I was not even able to fix the rather simple problem myself. So far, only Andrew, the third person I spoke with at Comcast, even attempted to help. All of the others are just there to blow you off, and waste the customers time. Further more Mark and Catherine wouldn’t even be calling if I hadn’t written this blog in the first place. It didn’t matter that I asked to speak to a supervisor. And of course the final straw is, after all of this is straightened out, I have already been told repeatedly that I will have to call back again to be give a credit for the down time. Utterly ridiculous! Comcast has obviously been given too much of a free ride by the government. Brian Roberts should have his service diconnected every time someone has even a remotely similar situation. Do you think that would help?
Here are some more links:
http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/2006/07/comcast-problem-in-need-of-solution.html
http://www.allthingswatercolor.com/blogorama/?p=276
http://www.silwenae.org/blog/?p=872
http://www.comcastwatch.com/consumer/page.jsp?itemID=27030827
http://marklindner.info/blog/2008/02/12/comcast-is-off-to-a-very-bad-start/
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/16932066.html
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/02/25/comcast-blocking-first-the-internet-now-the-public/
http://www.hookedongolfblog.com/2008/03/27/comcast-customer-service-sucks/
http://www.hookedongolfblog.com/2008/03/27/comcast-customer-service-sucks/
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/20/is-your-comcast-hd-quality-up-to-snuff/
http://www.tvpredictions.com/2008/03/is-comcast-squeezing-your-hd-picture.html
http://badluckcity.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/comcast-again-chooses-to-side-with-the-devil/
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/2/comcasts_supporters_at_fcc_meeting_paid_sleeping_strangers
http://www.baltimoresun2.com/talk/showthread.php?p=3146888
http://aholtommontgomery.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FBE07B9A8BA6161C!3300.entry
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=32142
I think thats enough for right now, its been almost an hour since I called Ms. Brown at Comcast, no return call yet, I will write more later, if there is an update.
UPDATE 1: 9:50AM, Catherine Brown called me back and apologized. That is well and good, but doesn’t fix the issue. My internet and phone are still down. The guy better show up between 1 and 3 today. Imagine if it happened to her, do you think she would be happy with just an apology?
UPDATE 2: Comcast is in the house at 1:34PM.
UPDATE 3: Well we are 1 hour and 10 minutes into the repair. Either they are taking a nap, or there was something more than the modem wrong with our phone/internet connection.
UPDATE 4: Internet and Phone are back up! Now to wait for a little bit to see if Catherine Brown calls me to verify everything is ok, as she said she would…But at least we are up.
UPDATE 5: Catherine Brown called at 2:55PM. And took care of crediting my account for the downtime.
Why Comcast Triple Play Sucks Today
Well this AM (4/2/2008) we woke up and couldn’t use our phone or internet. Now we all have cell phones these days, and in fact I don’t use our Comcast phone for that reason, both Squish and I have cell phones and use them, but the internet, that is a whole other ball game!
I called this AM and they told me that they were doing some line work in the area, and it should be back this AM. It wasn’t. I called around 1PM and the internet service woman tried to reset the line again, and then asked me if I had dial tone. I responded no, that my phone was down also, and she immediately asked me to hold, and transferred me to the phone unit. The unit told me the phone was down and that my internet was back up, I was at work so I couldn’t check. They proceeded to tell me that the earliest appointment I could have for a service person to come out was Friday afternoon. I signed up for that apt, and asked if they were indeed done with the line work in my area, to which I got the response, oh they were not doing any line work in your area. Ok, well I called Squish and she informed me that although I was told differently that the internet was indeed still down. So I got home and called again. This time I actually got someone on the phone that was helpful. We spent an hour trying everything we could to get this thing working. I actually tried 3 different computers on it. No luck. He and I came to the conclusion that something was indeed wrong with the modem box, and he informed me that the repair person scheduled to Friday would be able to fix it, whether a phone or a internet issue. I asked if I could go to the Comcast payment center on Columbus Blvd, a block and a half away from my home, and get a new modem, he said sure. “What time does it close?” “in ten minutes.” We rushed over there (honestly I was expecting them to have the doors locked early, as I have experienced on more than one occasion in the past), but they were still open. I waited for the 6 people a head of me, watching one of the women behind the glass doing paper work, and cracking jokes, as the other 2 worked. When I got to the window, they informed me that they couldn’t exchange the box, the repair person was the only one whom could. Fine but why don’t they tell the people on the help line this? Every other box you could exchange there. Seems silly.
Well we will see what happens Friday, or if they even make the appointment. When I first got Comcast service, they blew off my first 2 appointments, which I took off of work for. And the third guy wasn’t able to install my cable because he had the wrong work order, finally the fourth could. I hope I have better luck this time. Maybe Arlen Spector could spend more time actually helping his constituents instead of shooting the NFL with Comcast’s Magic Bullet. In essence, if your business depends on any of Comcast’s services, run quickly to Verizon FIOS, or really anyone else, because Comcast will not come to your aide. If its up its great, but the second you have an issue, they don’t, won’t, can’t help you. But what is worse is they will gouge you for services in the meantime. Let’s not even get into how they get government monies to help wire your towns, and how they pay very little in taxes once they are in town. Is it a nice free ride Comcast?
Oh and if you don’t believe me try these stories:
http://lonelymachines.org/2007/10/27/comcast-and-fallout-control/
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9829267-7.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/73353/comcast_horrible_service_reps_terrible.html
http://www.hookedongolfblog.com/2008/03/27/comcast-customer-service-sucks/
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/02/06/comcast-new-terms-of-service-recipe-for-discrimination/
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2007-12-03-comcast-complaints_N.htm
http://brand.blogs.com/mantra/2005/02/i_hate_comcast.html
http://www.thisisvlad.com/werd/archives/2006/04/28/comcast-customer-service-sucks/index.php
http://www.benstanfield.com/thrash/2005/10/comcast_sucks.html
http://www.comcastsucks.org/
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=34831
http://www.saschameinrath.com/2008/feb/23/why_comcast_sucks_its_not_what_you_think_k_why_you_couldnt_read_my_blog_last_week
http://digg.com/tech_news/Comcast_is_an_Evil_Corporation_that_Sucks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeFIjB43zQ4
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/432288/comcast_sucks.html
http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=178850
http://www.chuckscorner.com/ComCast%20Sucks.htm
Is that enough? If you want more if you Google “Comcast Sucks” you get over 100,000 links! Imagine if you do “Bad Comcast”? “No Service Comcast”?
UPDATED 1: If you read my comments, you can see a Mark C. from Comcast left me one, asking me to contact him. I tried via phone (he left me his number, which I omitted from his post, as a courtesy), and it rang and rang so I sent him the following email:
Mark-
I just tried calling your office for the 3rd time since getting your comment to my Blog. The reason I have called 3 times is because it rings and rings and no voicemail. Maybe you are using the same system that you have given me, and it is not working, I am not sure. But in any case I can not get thru to you. Thank you for your attempt to get in contact with me. Feel free to reply to this with a good phone number or the questions you need answers to.
Sincerely yours,
C R Speers
UPDATED 2: I got an email back from Mark Casem at 2:45PM 4/3/2008:
Hi Charles,
Thanks for writing back! I am sorry you were not able to get through. If you could please send me a number where I can reach you, I will be happy to contact you.
Thanks again,
Mark Casem
Comcast Executive Offices
I replied with my number at 3:08PM 4/3/2008.
UPDATED 3: Well I got another email from Mr. Casem: Thanks for the information. I just called the number you have provided and I left a message with my direct line. Please feel free to call me at ### ###-#### at your earliest convenience. Also, if it is alright with you, will you please provide me with your account address so that I could look into this?
Mark
I called him back and gave him the requested information at 3:43PM, and he told me that someone would be calling me back. I also asked which number he called me to leave a message for me, and he gave me the number that I gave him, but when he called he told me it was to a generic mailbox with a woman’s voice, not mine, interesting as I get calls all day on my direct line which I gave him.
