Comcast is staffed by idiots.

[markw]

That Motorola modem/router I ordered yesterday showed up at my door about 12:00 today.

So, down I went. I yanked out all my old stuff and connected my new stuff. With only one piece, it's a lot less crowded down there. Totaltime: About 1/2 hour and most of that was neatening up the wiring.

Now, the hard part: Registering the new hardware with Comcast.

First, when I clicked on the internet icon, it brought me directly to te Comcast website where it said I could do this.

Take 1:

I input my account number and phone number and it initiates a chat with a "tech".

I meet Suzanne. She asks what I need, I say I need to register my new modem. She wants a MAC number. I give it to her. She says she's gonna send a command sequence to my modem and I'll need to reset it and we're done.

Great!


She sends it and, on her direction, I reset the modem. She says to test it by going to google and man to see if it works.

It doesn't and my chat session is gone.

Take 2:

I input my account number and phone number again and it initiates a chat with another "tech".

This time I meet Dennis. I fill him in and he says I shouldn't have reset the modem. He asks my modem's serial number and, again, my MAC address.

He tries to send that command string but says some problem with billing won't allow it. He gives me a number to call. I say this is odd since I've always owned my own modem and hav enever been billed for this. He sais I have to talk to billing.

Chat 2 ends with the same results.

Take 3:


I call Billing. He says since I've akways owned my hardware they nothing to do with this but he offers to transfer me to someone who can help me. He transfers my call.

Take 4:.

Te person he transferred me to only deals with televisio programming but she gives me a direct number to my local comcast service center.

Take 5:

I call the number, follow the maze and get through to some tough old bird who I can hear chawin spittin' terbaccy and she asks what's the problem. I like her already. So, I give her the rundown and she laughs and says she'll see what she can do. Somehow, by her attitude, I felt I was in good hands. She asks for a different MAC address, which was what they needed. It turns out there are two but she was more specific in her request, and explained this.

She clicks at the keyboard, has me power down the computer, sends out the command string, and has me reboot the modem, turn on the computer and give it a try. Houston, we have liftoff.

Time with this last lady: about 15 minutes.

Total time since starting this project: about three and a half hours, and that includes my hooking it up initially. Had it been done correctly, this would have taken less than an hour.

But, it did increase my speed. I'm doing 1 gig downstairs hard wired to the router, 54 meg on the two prehistoric, coal-fired Compaq wireless laptops and I stream Amazon prime around 15 meg on the upstairs wireless Blu-ray, which is enough for hi-def.

Comcast is staffed by idiots.

 

[dpc]

This lady took a different route dealing with Comcast customer service.

 

[Pyrrho]

This lady took a different route dealing with Comcast customer service.

I can easily believe the "suspended sentence" part of it. My guess is that the judge has had some experience with cable service, too.

 

[fuzz092888]

That sounds about right for just about any major service provider. The local office is almost always able to give quicker, better service than calling the global or national "tech's". As many issues I've had with Time Warner, I can't say that service has been one of them. Hooking up cable or internet has always been hassle free and they've always showed up in the window I asked for. The last time a tech was here, he was hooking up a router for me that I had purchased, since I definitely didn't want one like my parents have (one of the Time Warner Samsung one's) and he was in and out in about 15 mins.

That being said, I'd switch to fios in heartbeat if it was available.

 

[brianedm]

This sounds like every day of my life at work. Like any job, there's good, competent people and other people who don't have the desire/ability to be good at their job

 

[Adam]

You gotta admit that asking someone on an internet chat to reset their modem is pure gold. Suzanne is either dumb as a box of rocks, or an absolute genius.

 

[avnetguy]

You gotta admit that asking someone on an internet chat to reset their modem is pure gold. Suzanne is either dumb as a box of rocks, or an absolute genius.

Oh that's a classic right there .... I've used one close to that but a bit different "Just send me an email if the network goes down again".

Steve

 

[gmichael]

This lady took a different route dealing with Comcast customer service.

Ha! If she thinks that's bad, just wait till she tries to get any help from Verizon when she needs it.

 

[lsiberian]

You gotta admit that asking someone on an internet chat to reset their modem is pure gold. Suzanne is either dumb as a box of rocks, or an absolute genius.

She's probably a bot.

Gotta love that hammer time. It took me like 3 tech to get the charter cable working too.

 

[Midwesthonky]

Comcast is staffed by idiots.

WHAT?!?!?!? Oh wait...Comcast.

And you were surprised/shocked for what reason???

Nothing worse than calling for tech support and you know more than they do.

 

[j_garcia]

I've had the same experience with AT&T, Comcast, etc... They are all the same.

 

[Steve81]

This reminds me of one moment of schadenfreude the wife and I experienced a few years back: watching a Comcast van getting towed outside her old apartment complex and the Comcast employee running after it

 

[Grador]

I've had the pleasure of dealing with 3 providers:

Time Warner: Nicest, most helpful, least willing to actually "do anything".


Comcast: When they hooked up my cable the installer didn't have an HD box in the truck, so he left me with a DVR "temporarily." They never came back to swap it out, never charged me for it, except for ONE MONTH 7 month's into the year I had them. Sometimes their incompetence can fall in your favor....

At the end of that year, my housemates were going to keep the service, but get a new contract so that they could get new subscriber price. They were told by customer service that if I called in and left a note on my account that I was fine with them taking over the equipment (cable boxes) I was leaving. It took me 4 phone calls and 6 people to get this done. They kept asking "so you want to continue service?" or telling me I couldn't do that.

Verizon: Mark, you think your 3 hour ordeal was bad? I spent 6 hours on the phone, 2 hours with one person FOUR HOURS with another. Now to start off, I would like to say that these PEOPLE were very helpful, but the support system verizon has set up is designed so very poorly that they were incapable of providing me with assistance. When they installed service at our house it was a great big debacle that involved them failing to put us unto the system beforehand. Two days later our landline still wasn't working (FiOS all around for services), and our Tv subscription was flaky, channels would randomly say they weren't available. Frankly I don't know what was going on, but it took the tech 4 hours of calling every contact he had in about 4 different departments to get everything set. The techs themselves do not have access to any of the account controls, and can only make the most basic of changes... All told: all the services worked, our 6 month free Showtime access disappeared, and we had access to Epix for 2 months?