I don't remember customer service being this bad

[Exterous]

at Comcast and thats a low bar to start with. In the last few days I've had some internet outages and my Upstream Power levels have been up in the 51+ dBmV range so I called Comcast about it.

Part of the problem is that they seem do everything possible to make it the longest call they can. For example they seem to have a new requirement to summarize each sentence you make to ensure proper understanding.

Me: "I am calling in regards to internet service interruptions"
'Tech': "To make sure I understand you are calling about service interruptions with your internet services, correct?"
Me: "Yes"
'Tech': "To make sure I understand you said yes, correct?"

Each person I speak to also needs to know my phone number, name, address, blood type, medications I am allergic to, family history etc which wouldn't have been quite as annoying if I didn't end up speaking to 5 different people...

Finally I got to the part where I got to argue with the tech so I knew I was at last making progress. They didn't want to send a tech out because it was a new case and they wanted to see if the problem continued. They didn't want to use my documented list of 8 occurrences since yesterday morning - they could only be NEW instances since the case was created

--shortened debate--

Oh wait - it totally just went out

"Ok, let me check and see what-"

Its back on again

"Ok let me just make a note-"

Its out again

"Ok-"

And its back on. Can you send a tech out now?

*Pause*

"Sure let me pull up the schedule. We have a slot on Wednesday. Will that work."

Yes

"Ok I am scheduling it now-"

Click

Godd@&^! sonofa%&^*^ Mother(@*)(*$

So I call Comcast again.

I am calling about an interruption in my internet service

"To make sure I understand you are calling about service interruptions with your internet services, correct? And can you please provide you name, phone number, address, name of your kindergarten teacher's first pet, First 5 paragraphs of Roosevelt's inauguration speech...."

*sigh*

TLDR;

Comcast sucks
I know we all know that but I don't remember them sucking this much

 

[Vapid Cabal]

For whatever reason, all cable service providers seem silly to me. Twc sends me junk mail.. I already have twc. I get twc marketing calls as well. Kinda makes you wonder if the rates we pay are due to inefficiency.

 

[Imp]

Which country were you routed to?

 

[dmcowen674]

I don't remember customer service being this bad at Comcast and thats a low bar to start with. In the last few days I've had some internet outages and my Upstream Power levels have been up in the 51+ dBmV range so I called Comcast about it.

Part of the problem is that they seem do everything possible to make it the longest call they can. For example they seem to have a new requirement to summarize each sentence you make to ensure proper understanding.

Me: "I am calling in regards to internet service interruptions"
'Tech': "To make sure I understand you are calling about service interruptions with your internet services, correct?"
Me: "Yes"
'Tech': "To make sure I understand you said yes, correct?"

Each person I speak to also needs to know my phone number, name, address, blood type, medications I am allergic to, family history etc which wouldn't have been quite as annoying if I didn't end up speaking to 5 different people...

Finally I got to the part where I got to argue with the tech so I knew I was at last making progress. They didn't want to send a tech out because it was a new case and they wanted to see if the problem continued. They didn't want to use my documented list of 8 occurrences since yesterday morning - they could only be NEW instances since the case was created

--shortened debate--

Oh wait - it totally just went out

"Ok, let me check and see what-"

Its back on again

"Ok let me just make a note-"

Its out again

"Ok-"

And its back on. Can you send a tech out now?

*Pause*

"Sure let me pull up the schedule. We have a slot on Wednesday. Will that work."

Yes

"Ok I am scheduling it now-"

Click

Godd@&^! sonofa%&^*^ Mother(@*)(*$

So I call Comcast again.

I am calling about an interruption in my internet service

"To make sure I understand you are calling about service interruptions with your internet services, correct? And can you please provide you name, phone number, address, name of your kindergarten teacher's first pet, First 5 paragraphs of Roosevelt's inauguration speech...."

*sigh*

TLDR;

Comcast sucks
I know we all know that but I don't remember them sucking this much

Americans love Monopoly's so deserve every bit of this, enjoy

 

[Exterous]

Which country were you routed to?

India area would be my guess

 

[ZaneNBK]

Have Cox here and ended up switching to a home office business account that costs about twice as much as residential but has a 4 hour response SLA. I switched because I went through months of back and forth with them over a shitty intermittent outages that would happen basically every day during a certain time period where my packet loss would go up to 30% sometimes, making the connection almost unusable. During that time period I re-wired my house entirely with RG62U quad-shielded cable, new wall outlets, etc.. They also re-ran the drop to my house twice.

It wasn't until I switched to a home office line that they would even troubleshoot beyond my house, even though I'd been telling them repeatedly that this was obviously a neighborhood level issue and not an issue with my house. They'd even get similar test results at the green tower in my backyard but continue to troubleshoot the house.

Business support noticed an issue with our neighborhood on the first or second visit and got it fixed relatively quickly.

However, a few months back we had a region-wide issue where every day from about 7-9PM or so throughput would be in the shitter, getting about 5Mbps on a 50Mbps line. Multiple users in our area reported the issue through multiple channels and it went weeks before it finally got resolved. It was actually fixed by a Cox rep in a different state who looked into the issue after a bunch of complaints on the DSLreports forum and found a routing problem that was causing congestion for the entire NW corner of our state. You would think they'd have automated metrics to identify these problems and alert responsible people so these types of issue could be fixed in a timely manner, but apparently not.

 

[pontifex]

I called HP support for a PC the other day. An obviously Indian guy answers and says his name is John. He then had to do a remote control of the PC and it came and said I was chatting with Biswajit.

The issue was green squares showing up on the monitor, then the PC would crash. At one point during boot it mentioned the hard drive was not found. Its weird that it happens randomly.

Before calling I had done a anti-virus and malware search with multiple products (nothing found), did a chkdisk, used the HP diagnostics during boot to run a check on the disk (both came back ok), reinstalled the the video driver (problem still occurred). So he reinstalls the video driver (which I told him I already did), he then wants to do the disk check from the HP diags that I already. He then says it's most likely a virus or malware causing it and wants to do a system restore.

We do that and we'll see what happens...

I searched online for the same issue and most people were saying it;s either a power supply or video card issue. Don't have a spare PSU or vid card to test.

Its under warranty until Nov. so we'll see what happens.

 

[TallBill]

Luckily I have a direct line to the guy in my area... makes it incredibly easy, plus he seems more intelligent than most reps.

 

[mmntech]

Bell Canada is pretty bad as well. I'm with an indie ISP who rents bandwidth from them. So whenever I need any technical work done, it's Bell who comes out. Guy who came to do my speed upgrade last month was a right beautiful being. Just being very rude and disrespectful. Kept refusing to hook up the modem because it wasn't theirs, even though I bought it from them and was assured they would. Wouldn't phone my ISP to get the setup info or anything. Had no work order with him. Just being a dick about everything. Ended up having to complete the installation myself. Told my guy and they demanded Bell write the guy up. Not sure if they actually did though. Doubtful. They're still very bitter over the CRTC's ruling that forces them rent out bandwidth to indies.

They were also giving my mom's friend the run around when she got their TV service installed. Kept claiming nobody was home whenever the techs showed up, then were giving her the run around and trying to blame her for why they couldn't install it. Here's the kicker, my mom's friend actually works for Bell, in the enterprise division. She had complain directly to the CEO before anything was done. So these big telcos treat their own like shit too.

 

[SandEagle]

i stopped reading at 'Comcast'

 

[KentState]

Been fighting the same battle down here with Comcast the last few weeks. The cable has been out more than DirecTV ever was over the 5 years period I had them. The last two times, Comcast blamed it on routine maintenance. Sure, you are doing maintenance during prime time college football on Saturday?

 

[Imp]

They all suck... High turnover, low wage, poor training? My main ISP lost my business when the guy couldn't explain to me why I needed to schedule an appointment when I wanted to install a second cable internet connection. The one I switched to had the same issue, but at least the service was cheaper.