Comcast Technical Support Mission Statement
Wednesday or Thursday of last week I lost all the channels on my TV because Comcast switched fully to digital broadcasting. Sure, okay … whatever. Little message on the screen tells me to go to the website blah blah blah.
So I look up the number and call them.
A little back story. My land lady is a crazy woman and wouldn’t let me put any of the bills in my name. She wanted everything to remain in her name, but the bills would come and I’d just pay them. Yes this has been a pain in the ass since I have to literally write checks every month and mail them out wasting money on stamps and other bullshit because God Forbid things work normally here. Somehow I managed to get the Comcast bill to autocharge to my credit card without being an authorized user on the account, but who knows how.
I get on the phone with the Comcast people, I have an old statement so I know the account number but I don’t know the phone number she’s registered the account to (which is how Comcast indexes/catalogs everyone) … so of course that would have been too easy. I have to go through umpteen menus and button presses to get to where they’ll just accept the account number. After who knows how long I finally find myself talking to a person.
I tell them what the message on my TV says and that I need digital converter boxes. The guy verifies I have the bare minimum subscription, tries to upsell me (of course), then offers to at least send me an HD Digital Converter box for the one HDTV I have (and a standard definition box for the other TV). For $3 a month I guess I can afford to get the four channels in HD that I was getting before. Big spender that I am.
Then he offers to ship the boxes to me, says it’ll cost $15. Okay, $15 for something I don’t need or want really … but I get absolutely nothing without them so I ask for an alternative. He tells me that since LL (Landlady) is the only authorized user on the account she’d have to come down to the local office and pick them up. I would only be allowed to do it with a note from her saying it’s okay and a copy of her driver’s license.
For those of you who have heard tales of LL before you know how feasible this idea would have been, so I grumble and tell the guy to just charge me the $15.
The boxes showed up today, neither worked for 4 hours … an hour spent on an internet chat with customer support gets the HD box to work, without showing anything in HD … but the Standard Definition box still doesn’t work so she tells me I have to get a technician to come out. She also informs me that the HD Box won’t be giving me any HD channels because I have the bare minimum and no HD channels come with that. Not even the ones that I was getting before (for some reason).
I start to tell her what my availability is and she informs me that because I’m not an authorized user, LL has to call in and schedule the technician. And when I asked her to at least remove the HD box from my bill so I’m not paying $3 a month for a PoS box that doesn’t do me any good, she says that because … you know what she said.
So not only were they more than happy to take my credit card, ship me boxes and add to my subscription without me being an authorized user, but when it came time to remove anything that might give them money or actually provide support for their service … Oh shit you’re not … yeah we can’t help you I’m sorry. Have your LL call this number here and hopefully they’ll figure something out.
I politely informed the lady that I’m sure that she, personally, was a very nice and competent individual but that her company was a clown show on its very best days. Then I got on the phone thinking there was maybe a disconnect I could circumvent … but of course after all the time with the woman online I was past the office hours of their support phone number.
Basically the sentiment of the entire evening: Fuck Comcast.
You hear me Comcast? Fuck you.
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