(Open letter to Comcast) When it's on autopay...

[Cookie]

...you really can't blame us if the bill isn't paid on time. So Comcast, time to get your shit together and quit sending us threatening letters about termination of our internet service. We set up autopay. You fucked it up once. We set it up again. You fucked it up again. We fixed it with you again on the phone to learn your site where we set this up isn't synced with your backend that handles the autopay. You fail so hard. The only other providers in my area if this city only offer their slowest plans here. When we move, the ability to choose a provider other than Comcast will be among the deciding factors in our choice of apartment.

-Your royally pissed customer


Aside from our experience, my husband tweeted about it and other people started chiming in about having the same experience and how it was NEVER resolved month after month. They'd BETTER not do that with us.

[wagegoth]

I have the Comcast bundle, and I'm fairly happy with them (considering the alternatives), but they will make a mistake and it will drag on for months before the one person in the fifty you've talked to, who actually knows what she is doing, gets it right.

[draggar]

I have the Comcast bundle, and I'm fairly happy with them (considering the alternatives), but they will make a mistake and it will drag on for months before the one person in the fifty you've talked to, who actually knows what she is doing, gets it right.

QFT - I think the main reason people stick with one provider is because all the others are worse or much worse, not that the one they're with is "better".

I've given up on my internet getting disconnected several times a week. They blame it on all the people stealing cable - then do something to them, why am I being punished??

[Gawdzillers]

I have said it many times before, and I will say it again:


FUCK COMCAST.

[sweetj82]

I have had comcast for about 5 years now and I never once had a problem. My parents had to forever too and never had a problem

I never have problems with my bills and when I moved everything was handled for me.When i needed to switch my plan I had everythinng taken care of within 2 mins.


I dont get the hate for them.

[blas]

AT&T did this to my family one too many times. And they shut our phones off and wouldn't turn us back on without a payment. And they refused a faxed copy of my mom's bank statement showing that she had paid the bill.

We'll never deal with those morons and their apathetic associates again.

[MadMike]

Comcast doesn't seem to have their shit together, at least with their automated stuff. My modem died a few weeks ago (can't complain, the thing lasted almost 8 years), and I ran out and bought a new one.

When I activated the first one, I had to call in, but I thought I had heard they had automated the process since then. Sure enough, I got some sort of activation screen, and I was glad I wasn't going to have to deal with calling someone. Unfortunately, the thing failed. I tried it again, it failed again. Eventually, I gave up and called.

The guy on the phone got it up and running without a problem, but he told me the automated system really doesn't work. Why the hell do they have it up if it doesn't work??? At least he was able to make me laugh by jokingly telling me, "Yeah, we like to make it as difficult as possible."

AT&T did this to my family one too many times.
We'll never deal with those morons and their apathetic associates again.

Yeah, don't even get me started on AT&T. I used to have them for long distance, until they switched me to another more expensive calling plan without my permission. It would have made sense for someone who makes a lot of calls, but not for someone like me who very rarely makes long-distance calls.

I emailed them about it, and they refused to do anything about it, claiming they sent me a letter notifying me. I never got any letter like that. So I emailed them back saying fine, I'll pay the bill, but to prevent this from happening again, I was switching providers. And I did.

A few months later, they sent me coupons to try to get me back, but fuck 'em. They had their chance. Too little, too late. I hope they crash and burn.

[Mytical]

I agree with the AT&T can crash and burn. Wholeheartedly.

To the OP..time to escalate it. Get on the phone, and get a manager..make absolutely 100% that things are situated. Get a recorder, put them on speaker phone, not you are recording the call, and by golly get them to commit that the problem is fixed. Do not get off the phone until that happens.

[blas]

There's a certain cable company that also is infamous for "free" upgrades or packages that are by no means free. I can't think of any instances where they did it without permission, but I advise anyone I know who also has them, NEVER accept any offers of free upgrades for internet. EVER. It's not free. If they don't sneak it into your next bill, it'll be snuck into an upcoming future bill. They notoriously try to upgrade you anyway anytime you call for help or to downgrade, any time they offer a free upgrade, DO NOT take it. They may tell you it's free for x many months, but they won't tell you to cancel it before they start charging you for it, and they have given "free" upgrades that they've billed people for in the next cycle anyway.

[Cookie]

sweetj82, you're the only person I've ever talked to that has used Comcast and hasn't had issue after issue. I'm glad it's worked out for you, because they're a real headache!

I DON'T want to channel an SC, but if I can't even pay my bill and my service (that I rely on for work) is going to get cut off, then I'm going to have to really kick some butt. I feel bad for the support reps. I know it's not them. It's their stupid infrastructure and idiots on the corporate level.

[Raveni]

I got a bill from the local toll tag agency, saying that I owed a few dollars, and a few dollars in a penalty... I was on autopay too, with a certain amount being taken out as soon as my account balance fell a certain amount.

When I called, the rep said that their autopay system was down for a few days. He really didn't get why they shouldn't be charging penalties because their system was down. Luckily, his supervisor agreed with me.

[AccountingDrone]

QFT - I think the main reason people stick with one provider is because all the others are worse or much worse, not that the one they're with is "better".

I've given up on my internet getting disconnected several times a week. They blame it on all the people stealing cable - then do something to them, why am I being punished??

With my odd sleep cycles, I see my cable cut off at like 3 am all the damned time. At least 2-3 days a week. They always claim it is the programming for the cable box updating.

I asked them if it would kill them to send out a bottom of the window scroll announcing they are updating.

*sigh*

[Dreamstalker]

QFT - I think the main reason people stick with one provider is because all the others are worse or much worse, not that the one they're with is "better".

Sadly, Crapcast is the only "choice" around here...believe me, if we had a viable option we'd switch in an instant. I had to buy a new router because it apparently wasn't compatible with the new modem (both routers were the same brand with the same firmware and the old router worked flawlessly with the old modem...).

We were on autopay for a while and they fucked that up as well; had to change the bank account and they were still trying to hit the old one while drawing from the new one (I could never get mom to pursue that either with them or the bank...she probably could have gotten a few hundred back in overdraft charges anyway).

[Lachrymose]

sweetj82, you're the only person I've ever talked to that has used Comcast and hasn't had issue after issue. I'm glad it's worked out for you, because they're a real headache!

Make it two.

I've had them for about ten years or so now and never had a (major) problem. I'm pretty happen with them.

I'm also happy with AT&T. I was also happy with Verizon.

Come to think of it, I've never had any major problems with any company that I can recall.

My theory is when a company is as big as these are, they're bound to have to some very unsatisfied customers. They're also bound to have satisfied customers, else they wouldn't still be in business.

Sometimes it's amusing to here from people who swear by a company that another hates and vice versa.

I usually hear more about this with regards to the shipping industry.

"Never use FedEx! OMG! Use UPS!"

or

"UPS totally sucks! Use FedEx!"

[Kogarashi]

I suspect it may be regional, too.

During undergrad, my roommates and I got Comcast for our internet, and rented a modem from them. The internet started dropping out quite frequently, staying out for short amounts of time before coming back on for a few minutes, then dropping again. It would do this for an hour or two, behave for a few hours, then repeat.

One roommate's father was a tech guy at his workplace and showed her how to do some testing. Between the two of them, they determined that a nearby node was having issues, and the fact that other apartments in our complex with Comcast were having the same connection issues corroborated this. So we called Comcast.

None of the phone reps would believe us that it wasn't somehow our fault in particular, nor would they listen to the fact that other people in our building had the same problem. One rep tried to blame the fact that we were networking three computers in our apartment via a router, claiming that Comcast couldn't handle networks (nevermind their website explaining how to set up a home network). Two more reps each tried to blame our modem, sending a tech out to check on it. The tech found nothing wrong whatsoever with our setup, and even if he had, the modem was rented and therefore covered by Comcast as well.

Finally, someone wised up without our help and fixed the faulty node, and our service started working again, almost a year after the problem first reared its ugly head.

Here (halfway across the US), however, Hubby and I had Comcast for a year before the university put in free wireless, and had no noticeable issues with the service. Belkin, on the other hand, is currently on our blacklist.

See, when the wireless was put in, we got wireless adapters so we could connect. Hubby got a new card for his laptop, and I got a USB adapter. After a few months, my adapter started frequently dropping the signal before reconnecting, much like Comcast's problem. Hubby's card continued to work fine. I though nothing of it, until about eight months after I first bought the card when it evolved to a sort of internet epilepsy. I e-mailed and got two responses that didn't read my complaint at all, so I called and got a tech who said he'd set up for someone to call me back about replacing the adapter.

The tech who called back, however, tried to blame my computer, the university's router, the university's internet service, anything but Belkin's adapter. She finally grudgingly put the RMA through when I persisted, claiming the new card would behave just like the old because it was the university's fault, not theirs.

Guess what's still working just fine three years later?

Hubby, however, ended up replacing his card last year with a USB adapter from a different company because Belkin's was using up way too many resources in his stone-age laptop. He couldn't get anything to run. The new adapter works much more efficiently. So Belkin won't be seeing any more of our business.