Sadly FIOS turns out to be unavailable in my area -- there's only DSL. But the phone, DirecTV and DSL bundles are looking rather attractive.
Anyway, so I take an afternoon off from work (which I can ill afford) and sit around the house from 1 PM on. No tech shows up. 3:30 I call Comcast, and the automated system that picks up the phone says "We see that you are scheduled for a technician tomorrow between 9 and 11." Which, as you might guess, pisses me off.
When I finally get a live person, I rant about how the guy I talked to the night before told me one day and timeslot and actually scheduled me for a different day and timeslot. I pointed out the fact that I took off work to be there, that my wife critically needs connectivity by 7 AM the next morning, and that if they can't have me up and running by that evening, they are losing my business permanently. The rep goes into overdrive and submits an escalated request for a service call to be filled immediately -- specifically defined to me as between 4:30 and 6:30, and all but begs me to tell her that if they get me connected that I won't cancel my account. I refuse to promise anything, explaining that given my recent experience with Comcast technicians, I'm expecting the Titanic to dock in New York City sooner than I will get satisfactory results. I may have also used the phrase "can't find their own asses with their hands tied behind their backs" in expressing my opinion on Comcast support. Anyway, she submits the request, I get a new ticket number, and I thank her for both her time and her willingness to listen to me rant. It is now 10 minutes of 4; I sit back to wait for my (new) tech appointment.
Two hours later, the only person who has shown up is Helen, for her weekly crash at our place. 45 minutes later and we're out of the appointment window, and Helen and I debate whether I should even bother calling them back. I didn't even get a phone call saying "we can't make it, can we reschedule?", after all, let alone the 30-minute warning call saying they're coming.
7:30, Peggy gets home from work, and still no sign of life from Comcast.
At 8 PM, an hour and a half after the second appointment window passed, we head out for dinner at a local Benihana's for my birthday.
At 9 PM, during our dinner, I get a call on my cell phone from Comcast to reschedule an "emergency technician visit" back to Friday morning. I ask the person on the other end what they hell they're talking about. Apparently, when they blew me off on the 4:30-6:30 appointment, some kind of third appointment was triggered without consulting me about scheduling. (Or maybe they just didn't give a damn about the time slot, and came hours late without warning us.) I didn't quite find out whether someone had actually gone out to the house after we left, or if they just couldn't get someone out to the house despite the apparent seriousness of the matter, but the upshot was they wanted to know if they could send someone out the next morning in order to fulfill my demand that they fix it the night before. I told them no, because when no one had shown up when they said, the point had become moot. Once it was impossible to get service for Friday morning, my wife would have to go in physically to her job, resulting in a) elimination of the need for a Net connection by Friday 7 AM, and b) the absence of anyone to let them in, sign off on service, etc.
The rep was quite frantic at this point, though calm and quiet about it. Apparently, an expressed intent to cancel one's account gets a lot more attention than six years of patient and repeated complaints about poor service, and she desperately wanted to rectify the situation. I agreed to a service appointment on Sunday between 3 and 5 PM, but I made it clear that I expected to be shafted again.
If at that time they actually do fix our connection, well, that just means we have Net access until we set up arrangements with Verizon. If they don't, well, no loss that we aren't already suffering.
But the upshot here is that I will continue to be only intermittently present for the foreseeable future.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Anyway, so I take an afternoon off from work (which I can ill afford) and sit around the house from 1 PM on. No tech shows up. 3:30 I call Comcast, and the automated system that picks up the phone says "We see that you are scheduled for a technician tomorrow between 9 and 11." Which, as you might guess, pisses me off.
When I finally get a live person, I rant about how the guy I talked to the night before told me one day and timeslot and actually scheduled me for a different day and timeslot. I pointed out the fact that I took off work to be there, that my wife critically needs connectivity by 7 AM the next morning, and that if they can't have me up and running by that evening, they are losing my business permanently. The rep goes into overdrive and submits an escalated request for a service call to be filled immediately -- specifically defined to me as between 4:30 and 6:30, and all but begs me to tell her that if they get me connected that I won't cancel my account. I refuse to promise anything, explaining that given my recent experience with Comcast technicians, I'm expecting the Titanic to dock in New York City sooner than I will get satisfactory results. I may have also used the phrase "can't find their own asses with their hands tied behind their backs" in expressing my opinion on Comcast support. Anyway, she submits the request, I get a new ticket number, and I thank her for both her time and her willingness to listen to me rant. It is now 10 minutes of 4; I sit back to wait for my (new) tech appointment.
Two hours later, the only person who has shown up is Helen, for her weekly crash at our place. 45 minutes later and we're out of the appointment window, and Helen and I debate whether I should even bother calling them back. I didn't even get a phone call saying "we can't make it, can we reschedule?", after all, let alone the 30-minute warning call saying they're coming.
7:30, Peggy gets home from work, and still no sign of life from Comcast.
At 8 PM, an hour and a half after the second appointment window passed, we head out for dinner at a local Benihana's for my birthday.
At 9 PM, during our dinner, I get a call on my cell phone from Comcast to reschedule an "emergency technician visit" back to Friday morning. I ask the person on the other end what they hell they're talking about. Apparently, when they blew me off on the 4:30-6:30 appointment, some kind of third appointment was triggered without consulting me about scheduling. (Or maybe they just didn't give a damn about the time slot, and came hours late without warning us.) I didn't quite find out whether someone had actually gone out to the house after we left, or if they just couldn't get someone out to the house despite the apparent seriousness of the matter, but the upshot was they wanted to know if they could send someone out the next morning in order to fulfill my demand that they fix it the night before. I told them no, because when no one had shown up when they said, the point had become moot. Once it was impossible to get service for Friday morning, my wife would have to go in physically to her job, resulting in a) elimination of the need for a Net connection by Friday 7 AM, and b) the absence of anyone to let them in, sign off on service, etc.
The rep was quite frantic at this point, though calm and quiet about it. Apparently, an expressed intent to cancel one's account gets a lot more attention than six years of patient and repeated complaints about poor service, and she desperately wanted to rectify the situation. I agreed to a service appointment on Sunday between 3 and 5 PM, but I made it clear that I expected to be shafted again.
If at that time they actually do fix our connection, well, that just means we have Net access until we set up arrangements with Verizon. If they don't, well, no loss that we aren't already suffering.
But the upshot here is that I will continue to be only intermittently present for the foreseeable future.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.