Comcast

In July, I had serious service issues with Comcast (Xfinity) a company which has poor technology, poor customer service, poor maintenance, and poor customer relations regarding its Internet service.

In July, I had a three-day total outage of my Internet service. For the next three to four WEEKS, I had intermittent Internet service issues.

During this period, I frequently called Comcast and asked to escalate the call to a supervisor. On at least one occasion, I was transferred, but the person receiving the transfer LIED about being a supervisor. On another occasion, I called in the late evening. I asked the person receiving the call to transfer me to his supervisor.

He claimed that his supervisor was in a meeting for nearly two hours between 10 PM and midnight. Either he was lying, or his supervisor was lying. Eventually my concerns were escalated to Comcasts executive complaint department. A lady there was finally able to get Comcast to get of its corporate behind and fix my issue.

It was nearly a month when I did not have reliable Internet service. I asked the lady at the executive complaint department to please email me her name and contact information in case I ever found myself having problems with Comcast. She said she would, but she never did.

I work from home a fact which I regularly told Comcast. They did not give a damn.

They kept apologizing for the inconvenience of throwing my business into turmoil for a month.

When the issue was eventually addressed, it was determined that the neighborhood taps junction boxes in peoples backyards off which four home service lines branch out off the main line. The taps were old (about 20 years old). They were reported to me as corroded or otherwise unreliable. Two of the MANY were repaired.

My service was reasonably reliable until the night of Monday, December 18, 2023.

When I went to sleep, all was fine. By 7 AM, I had recorded TWELVE separate service interruptions.

I called Comcast that (Tuesday) morning. I was scheduled for outpatient surgery that day. Comcast scheduled someone to come to my home between 10 AM and noon on Wednesday.

Today is Wednesday, and I have had seven (7) unsatisfactory interactions with Comcast today.

NTERACTION #1: Service visit to my home.

By this morning, the service was working. However, there was obviously something that caused TWELVE outages Monday night, and I wanted that underlying issue found and fixed.

The serviceman came at the appointed time. He checked everything inside my and the current signal levels were well within expected levels. He said that the issue was in the lines running to my home from Comcast.

He said that only the maintenance department dealt with that problem.

He said that he would file a report and escalate the problem so that maintenance would get involved. He left.

He completed his documentation, but he did NOT escalate the issue, as promised. So, on Comcasts records there was no open issue. He either lied, was lazy, or is just plain incompetent.

None of that is acceptable.

INTERACTION #2: Call to the Xfinity advected technical support team

I had received a call on Tuesday (while in surgery) from this group. They are in India.

I called them after the serviceman from INTERACTION #1 and driven away. I wanted to give him time to complete his report and request escalation. I spoke with Isaac.

Isaac said that his records showed that no serviceman was scheduled to come to my home and that none had already been to my home. It was clear that Isaac either had bad information or did not know how to access the information that should be available to him.

After twice explaining to Isaac that I wanted to confirm that an escalation was underway, he seemed clueless as to what I was asking. So, I politely asked to speak to his supervisor. Isaac said he would do that.

He asked if he could put me on hold. I asked him how long I would be on hold. I do that with Comcast, because I have been put on hold for very long times unable to awaken the person who put me on hold. Isaac said one to two minutes.

After being on hold for 8 minutes, I was disconnected.

That is strike two (today) for Comcast. They purport to being a technology company which offers telephone service. In fact, they cannot operate a phone system that can reliably put a call on hold (without hanging up while waiting or transferring the call). Either that, or Isaac did not want the black mark of having to call in a supervisor.

Some companies keep track of that, and it is easier for the Isaacs of this world to disconnect the customer.

Either way, Comcast was now 0 for 2 in providing decent support.

INTERACTION #3: A second call to India

I called back, explained that I had been disconnected while waiting to speak with a supervisor. I was quickly connected to a man who said he was a supervisor.

I explained the first two interactions. He said that I should call the main Xfinity phone number and press #2 which would immediately transfer the call to a special group which handling this sort of thing. He said that I should request an SRO (special request order).

He assured me that would get me to the right people quickly.

That was a huge pile of crap. #2 does nothing, a fact which the supervisor on INTERACTION #5 confirmed. It was an outright lie to get me off the phone.

Comcast is now 0 for 3.

INTERACTION #4: Call to the main Xfinity customer support number

I tried entering #2, but that did nothing at all. Following the supervisors dishonest instructions achieved nothing.

INTERACTION #5: Second call to the main Xfinity customer support number

I called back and spoke to a woman who check the service records.

She confirmed that the serviceman had come to my home and found no problem within the home.

However, she said that he had not escalated the call to the maintenance department. This is when I learned that the technicians promise in INTERACTION #1 was not fulfilled. (If it sounds like Comcasts people are a bunch of incompetent cats who are not herded by either their management or their customers, you have a good understanding of the situation.)

The woman wanted to send another serviceman to my home between 4 PM and 6 PM to repeat the same work, but this time he (might?) actually escalates the matter to the maintenance department. I asked her why this was necessary since she already had a report saying that there was nothing to be found at fault within my home.

She insisted that their service system required that only the serviceman could escalate the issue to maintenance.

I asked her to speak to her supervisor.

She said that he was in a meeting. She sent him a message requesting that he call me. As it happens, he called me as I was ending the call with her.

Also, as you will read below, she was dead wrong in advising me that only a serviceman could escalate the call to maintenance. Is she poorly trained, or did she just want to waste more of my valuable time?

As I was about to find out, Comcast was now 0 for 5.

INTERACTION #6: The supervisor calls me

I explained the five previous interactions to the supervisor.

He agreed that the serviceman from INTERACTION #1 failed to do his job by not escalating the issue to the maintenance department.

He agreed that the first guy in India from INTERACTION #2 should not have put me on hold for 8 minutes (when he promised 1-2 minutes) only for me to be disconnected.

He said that the supervisor in India from INTERACTION #3 was completely dishonest regarding entering #2 to escalate the issue to maintenance.

He said that there is no such capability.

He apologized for the time I wasted in INTERACTION #4 doing what the supervisor in INTERACTION #4 told me to do.

He said that the woman from INTERACTION #5 who told me that a return of another serviceman is necessary was wrong. He said that he could make add the escalation request to the first servicemans report, and that it was unnecessary for another serviceman to some to my home.

He said that he would make that change and cancel the 4 PM 6 PM duplicative service call that the woman had scheduled.

I asked him to look at my service records. He was able to find all the calls I made back in July. I asked him to attempt to locate the woman at the executive complaint department.

He promised that he would call me with whatever he found whether he found anything helpful.

This supervisor also failed in all regards. He did not escalate the matter to the maintenance department as promised. He did not cancel the 4 PM 6 PM duplicative service call. He did not call back with whatever he did (or did not) find out about the person in the executive complaint department.

So, now, Comcast was 0 for 6 today.

INTERACTION #7: Serviceman arrives unexpectedly

The duplicative service man arrived when his visit was supposed to be cancelled.

I explained to him everything above. I explained that there was a visit earlier today, and everything inside my home is working fine. The source of the intermittent problem is outside my home.

He said that he would submit his report with a request for escalation to the maintenance department.

I have no clue whether he will do it. So, I am posting this history online and tomorrow I will send a copy of this and a few choice words that I would not publish on the Internet to Comcasts headquarters in Philadelphia.

I have spent much of today experiencing incompetence, lies, laziness, and dishonesty from Comcast employees.

The only one who should not be fired for cause is the second serviceman (INTERACTION #7).

The jury is out on him.

No one should have to deal with this crap from a vendor. Going 0 for 6 when reasonable service should be at 99% -- is a symptom of a service organization that is manifestly poor in training its people to be competent and honest, promoting only reliable people to the supervisory level, and honoring the commitments they make.

Comcast fails on all counts.

I tried to pay my bill via phone the way I did this time last month. I called the exact same number that is printed on the bill.

The robot now says that you have to sign in to do anything. I could not remember my cell phone number for them to text me a link and the system hung up on me. I called again and asked to speak to customer service. It does not transfer you over to anyone.

It just keeps repeating the same pre-recorded loop. There is never any option to speak to actual customer service.

To make things even better, when I did finally manage to refresh my memory about my number, get the link, and follow all the rigamarole to try to log in, the system doesn't even work. I'm now having to go to a physical store in person with a check and HOPE that they will let me pay them with a check.

Which I would have mailed to them when I got the bill, if I knew that they were going to require this.

I never got any notice that this was going to be the procedure to do so, either. No communication in the past month has been given to me to let me know that this would be my experience in trying to pay a bill with them from now on.

A customer service rep was highly deceitful with me. I called to inquire about removing a particular package from my service to reduce my monthly cost after my promo period ended.

She assured me that removing the package would reduce my cost by $15-$20 a month. But what she actually did was remove my HBO add-on in addition to removing the package, even though we never talked about removing HBO. The monthly savings was due solely to the removal of HBO, and the removal of the package actually had no impact. But when I realized a couple of weeks later that I no longer had HBO and contacted Comcast to rectify the matter, I was told it was impossible to return me to what I had before the rep made this change.

If I had simply removed HBO on my own, I would have been paying exactly what I am paying now, but with the now-removed package (Showtime and other channels) included. So I am now paying the same amount for less. I complained to the BBB and asked for what I thought was a reasonable compromise: for Comcast to add HBO back to my service and comp me the extra cost for 12 months. Their response?

They would gladly add HBO back if I paid the full price for the HBO add-on -- a laughable non-resolution. They are taking zero accountability for the deceit of their customer service agent.

Whatever you do in Southwest Florida never use Comcast! Every year we spend 6 months in our home in FL.

and every year we spend at least a week just getting out internet and streaming services working.

Comcast always makes us go through a series of sending signals (which never work) before they have to send out a tech. Usually the technician fixes the problem. This year the tech did not fix the problem due to a password issue that Comcast caused by the way. The tech gave me his name and number to call when the password issue was resolved.

We resolved that issue (no, thanks to Comcast) but the tech did not answer texts or calls.

I had to call a TV tech it took him an hour to get our TV working costing me $60.00 cash!!!

Comcast and its service are the worst! I called to get a free month since I had to pay someone else to fix their issue, they said NO!

They are crooks and take advantage of the elderly.