I have been waiting 7 hours for a comcast tech to show up....

[Mend]

my internet has been slower than webtv for the last three days. I am supposed to have high-speed cable....I tried to bring in the modem to their store but they said they were all out of boxes and to wait for the service call. The dispatcher won't answer the phone. We don't have choices here and I don't have a landline phone. Thanks for listening.... COMCAST REALLY SUCKS

[GirlinContempt]

1. Call comcast from a payphone/cell phone

Just the tech support line. I used to work for them. They'll track the tech, and get a supervisor on it.

EDIT:
If the person on the phone doesn't, ask for a supervisor. If they try to sidetrack you ask again. But be polite.

[GirlinContempt]

2. Also, comcast contracts for technicians.

[Mend]

3. he came and it was a simple problem that apparently five

phone calls couldn't handle....does anyone have experience with Sprint DSL? I hate tv and I hate these guys, maybe I can switch unless they are all the same poor service. I can't even begin to tell you what they have put me through and they only came right away because I started screaming. I hate being a bitch worst of all.

[GirlinContempt]

4. Well, screaming like a bitch usually make's for less-friendly

support later on. We kept records.

DSL is shit but if it's the only other thing in your area *shrug*

What was the 'simple' problem?

on edit:
Putting simple like that makes it seem snarkier than I meant it to be. I'm just curious if it was simple for an on-site tech, or simple in general.

[Mend]

6. I had a haircut appointment at 3:30 and I was waiting since 8am.

Home alone, I needed a time window which they wouldn't give me. I went to bed Wednesday night with a perfect computer, Mac PowerBook G4 and high-speed cable and I woke up to no internet, then very, very slow to get on-line and to get around. I called and called and they tried to reset it over and over and then said the man had to come out...two and half days later with an 8am-5pm range which is ridiculous for a working person like me to be trapped at home. Anyway, he went into the computer and reset something in the system preferences and voila. It took less than three minutes. One of the techs at comcast admitted they went down but this guy acted as though it was all my fault. I had my four German shepherds staring at him, maybe that's why it went so quickly.

[GirlinContempt]

11. Just something in the settings?

That fucking sucks. Complain about the phone support for sure

[Mend]

13. I just noticed what he did...he by-passed my airport and just

hooked me up to the cable. I hate these people.

[GirlinContempt]

15. Well then you just got a retard on the phone

Cause Comcast refuses to support airports.

[purr]

5. I dunno.. I like my dsl

:shrug: I had cable and it went down about 20x a day and I said f this and went back to dsl. Havent had a problem since.

[Mend]

7. the phone company is having engineers check out my area to see

if very high speed dsl is available here yet and then I am cutting the tv cable cord and going back to dtv and dsl. They shouldn't treat people like shit. I pay a small fortune every month for this and during hurricanes it always goes with no adjustments in the bills and then endless service call waits.

[LostinVA]

9. Me to -- the dsl never goes out, the broadband did constantly

And, everyone told me broadband was sooo much better than dsl.

[grace0418]

17. Yeah my dsl has gone out *maybe* 3 times in 3 years.

If Comcast broadband is anything like their cable, oy vey, I hate to think of how often it would be out.

[Midlodemocrat]

8. I've had really good luck with Comcast.

Doesn't go down as much as the local DSL, and the techs have been friendly.

[RebelOne]

10. Yup, I was going to switch to Comcast from satellite

I was told that the person who was to install it would be at my house between noon and 2 p.m. I took the day off from work. I waited all day and finally got a call saying that someone would be here to install it by 6 p.m. I told them to shove it, since I had been waiting all day. So I will just suffer with my satellite. It is a pain because when it rains, I lose all reception, which I am experiencing today because it has been raining.

[grace0418]

12. I feel your pain Mend. Comcast sucks eggs so hard.

Six months after our cable was installed it still wasn't working properly. We'd had no less than 4 technicians out because our picture would get all pixelated and some channels stopped coming through at all. Every time the technician would come out, they would tell us that the router going from the alley to our building didn't have the capacity to support all the units in my building. They said that they moved our cable to the "first spot" but as soon as somebody else called about their cable, we'd be back to square one. They said that the box in the alley would need to be upgraded and that they would put in a work order to get that done.

Sure enough, the cable would work for about a month before it started getting pixelated again. By the time the third technician came out and told us the same story, I would ask "Is there anything I can do to expedite this upgrade? Is there someone I can call to make sure it gets done?" And the tech said "No, I have to put in the request, but I'll do it right away."

Two more times this happened and by then I was getting ticked. Whenever I would call Comcast, I'd have to start the whole story from the beginning about three times with three different customer service reps and supervisors. No one ever had any record of the techs explanation or subsequent request for an upgrade. And each time they would tell me that they couldn't authorize the upgrade without first coming to check the cable in my condo unit. In six months I wasted FIVE paid-time-off days (I get fifteen total per year) waiting for techs to come and tell me the same damn thing. I even got a vice president of Comcast involved in the proceedings, which didn't seem to help much.

The fifth tech was supposed to come out on a Friday between 11-3. At 3:45 I called and they offered no apology but said a tech would be at my house no later than 5:30. At 6:15 I called again and the customer service rep said "I'm sorry, they won't be out today but can come out Saturday between 8-11." At this point I was pretty steamed. I always remained polite but I explained to the woman that this was not acceptable. I told her the whole story from start to finish and said I had already waited the entire day. She transferred me to a supervisor to whom I had to tell the whole story *again* but this time the supervisor said "Okay, how about if we promise to have the tech at your house by 8:00 a.m. sharp." I said fine, but that I had an appointment and could not wait if he was late, and I would not be as nice when I called back. The supervisor assured me he would be there.

The next morning, at 8:45 I called because no tech had arrived. The rep told me that he was schedule to arrive at my house between 12-3. :mad: I was really trying not to go ballistic at this point and explained calmly what the supervisor (who's name I then provided) had promised me. The rep then proceeded to tell me that there was "no way a supervisor would make an appointment for a specific time" and anyway "the technicians don't even get their work orders from dispatch until 8:00 a.m. so there was no way he could be at my house then" (which begs the question 'Why do you regularly schedule appointments for between 8-11 then?'). So after months of runaround, I was now being called a liar or an idiot. I told her I did not appreciate the implication. I asked her to call the tech and tell him to come right away because I had to leave at 10:00. She replied that she had no way to contact the tech once he was out in the field. I'm supposed to believe that a communications company has no means of communicating with its techs? Who exactly is lying here?

My husband ended up canceling his plans and waiting for the tech, who arrived at 1:30. This tech said that he had no idea what any of the other techs were talking about. He changed something in our downstairs cable and said it would work fine from now on. As my husband was questioning him, he excused himself to TAKE A PHONE CALL FROM DISPATCH. :mad: :mad: :mad:

The tech was right, the cable was fine after that. But I cannot believe all the bullshit we had to endure just to get our cable working. I hate Comcast with a passion and wish there was some alternative.

[Mend]

14. Wow, that is the worst. Our house is up for sale (please pray

for us) and if we can get out of here, where we are going has Road Runner....no more comcast hell. I heard that they and Pfizer drugs are the two biggest, i.e., repuke, political contributors in the country. Comcast wants to keep all competition out and then it is like trying to buy boots in communist Soviet Union. At least they didn't have to deal with cheney, only stalin.

[grace0418]

19. Good luck with the house. Thanks for your sympathy.

My blood pressure goes up every time I think of that. Comcast cost me a vacation that year because I used up so many days off waiting for those fuckers.

[GirlinContempt]

16. To be fair

if you called their 1-800 number, this is true:
"She replied that she had no way to contact the tech once he was out in the field. I'm supposed to believe that a communications company has no means of communicating with its techs?"

[grace0418]

18. If that is true, it's utterly ridiculous. I'm not blaming the individual

reps in that case then (although I do blame the one who implied that I was either lying or dumb or delusional). But if Comcast can't come up with a way for customer service reps to take care of the customers (i.e. being able to route a call to a local dispatch when a customer has been dicked around for two days straight), then they officially suck. I know they don't really care because they have a monopoly in my area, so our choice is to go with them or not have cable. But it would be nice if Comcast as a company actually pretended that their customers matter to them.

TO BE FAIR, I will say that the customer service reps, by and large, were all very pleasant and polite on the phone (except for the one I mentioned). It just seemed like they were utterly ineffectual. Same with the techs. They were all very nice when they finally showed up, but it should not take 5 service calls, 6 months and the intervention of a vice president to get my cable running properly. Especially for what we're paying every month.

[Burma Jones]

20. I have Comcast in Maryland - and it is superb

They have been exceptionally reliable. I have lost cable and ISP service twice in three years, once during Tropical Storm Isabel for a little over 24 hours and once when some jackass cut the cable when digging trenches for gas lines - that outage was fixed in an afternoon.....

The local government here is HIGHLY involved in monitoring cable service. The County franchise for Montgomery County MD is very valuable and the County Government knows it.