Comcast Doesn't Care About Customers, Just Their Money
Written: Aug 26 '04
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Pros: Offered services are generally good
Cons: Customer Service is horrible, Bad Record Keeping, Unwilling to address, No credit for service outages
The Bottom Line: Comcast is the perfect example of an oversized monopolistic company that doesn’t care about the customers it serves
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| jps246's Full Review: Comcast |
Stay away from Comcast if you can…
I’m not usually this adamant about anything in the commercial world but after I dealt with the company providing digital cable, high-speed internet, and telephone in eastern Massachusetts, I was ready to stand on a roof top and yell out that this company sucked.
Services offered
I’ll start with what Comcast has to offer. They supply digital cable, high-speed internet access and telephone service to customers in the eastern Massachusetts region. There are several levels of service and various options can be packaged together to save some money. The best deal is to have all three services bundled, but you are not required to get all three.
Comcast is constantly offering various incentives to sign-up, such as free installation or reduced service rates for an introductory time period. It’s best to check frequently for the best kinds of offers before you sign up for the services.
How it all started…
Originally in Metrowest we had AT&T Broadband supplying cable, high-speed internet and telephone service. So after we moved into our apartment, I stayed home and met the tech guy who installed the digital cable, ran a high-speed internet line into the house and who changed over the phone from Verizon to AT&T. At that time I already had a cable modem, so he marked it down on his paperwork, made sure all the connections worked and he was on his way.
About a year later, AT&T Broadband was purchased by Comcast so our account was transferred. We continued to receive the same services (digital cable, high-speed internet and telephone) and never really had a problem with any of the services. Prices were like anywhere else with cable – we were paying somewhere around $100 a month for the cable and the internet together and another $30 or so for the telephone.
I did notice significant outages of the high-speed internet service, which could last for days at a time. The first time this happened, I called Comcast and they indicated that service was down in my area and that it would be for a few days. When I asked that my account be credited for these days of lost service, they refused, saying this wasn’t their policy.
By the time we were getting ready to move, I had my fill of Comcast – I was tired of the overpriced and spotty internet service, disappointed with their customer service, and put-off by the “we don’t care” attitude of the company in general.
The Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back…
So we decide to move and since we were moving west, we were leaving the Comcast service area and moving into another cable company’s area (keep this in the back of your mind).
The account was in my boyfriend’s name, so he called the main 800 number to let them know we would be ending service on April 30th and that all services, digital cable, high speed internet and telephone should be cancelled. He also gave them our new address so that the bill could be sent to the proper address.
It started with the new address, the customer service representatives couldn’t understand what we were trying to do, even after he told them several times that we were moving and he was giving them the new address for any remaining bills. All they kept telling us was “we don’t offer service in that area.”
When we finally got to canceling the services, they said to us “you’ll have to return the digital cable box and our cable modem.” No problem on the cable box, but it wasn’t their cable modem to start with so how could we return it? He argues with the representative for a while who tells him that they would need to see a receipt that we bought the modem because they have no record of not putting in a modem. He gave up and I called back this time. I asked them if they had the records of the installation from AT&T Broadband and I was told no, they didn’t have any of the records from the old company. I asked them if they found it odd that about 8 months ago I had called and asked for a new modem to be initialized because the original one that I was using had broken and I replaced it with a new one? They said they had a record of the switch, but that they still felt I had their modem.
I was told that I needed to produce receipts for the original modem, which had been purchased over 3 years before that point and had died and been thrown out. When I said that I didn’t have a receipt, the representative said “well I keep all my receipts.”
I was livid at this point and I had probably been on the phone for over an hour and spoken to several different representatives, each of which gave a slightly different story. I got the strong feeling that none of them knew much of anything and it was the goal of the company to screw people out of as much money as possible.
The worst, they simply wouldn’t believe me that I had my own modem. I gave them the the make and model numbers of them, I told them how the tech guy had noted it on his installation notes originally, but no matter what I said, their answer was “no, you have our modem and if you don’t return it, you have to pay $180 for it.”
Now $180 isn’t going to send me to the poor house, but I never had the modem and this was simply a way for Comcast to suck out more money from the two of us.
Finally I was told by another representative, “ok, we’ll take the modem off and send you the final bill.”
I was satisfied until the bill came a month later and there was a $180 charge for the cable modem on the bill. I called and got the same run-around and story that I got the first time. They didn’t have any proof that they didn’t give us a modem, so they were going to charge us for it.
This went on for 3 months until they threatened to turn it over to a collection agency. I gave up at this point, after getting nowhere for so long, I just sent them the check because I didn’t want our credit to start getting affected over this whole ordeal.
So…
I sent in the check and everything seemed okay – we hadn’t heard anything else and we never got any other bills.
That was until a few weeks ago, a good 4 ½ months since we moved out of the old apartment. I looked in the mail and there was a bill from Comcast for phone service that was almost $200. Apparently it had never been turned off when we had called back in the end of April.
So we were back on the phone and you know what the first thing they said to us was? “It says here that you owe us a cable modem.” I think we both lost it at that point and any pretense of being polite to these people was gone.
I pulled out the records from the whole ordeal earlier, along with the paid check for the modem I sent and we went at them.
We were told, after being told earlier that one call would suffice, that to cancel the Comcast services, you need to call each branch (cable, internet, telephone) to cancel the services.
Truth be told, I didn’t care at this point, but I knew that they weren’t getting any more money out of us. After about an hour of haggling on the phone we finally had the phone service terminated on April 30th and the charges since then removed.
My Thoughts
I’d have to think long and hard to find any company that has such horrible customer service as Comcast does. Their customer services representatives simply don’t know what they are talking about and lie to you – considering every time we got a different rep, we got a different story.
The services were okay – but I had problems with the internet access. It could be down for days and Comcast refused to credit the account for those days of no service. I can’t use it, so why am I paying for it?
The problem is when you’re in Comcast’s area, that’s the only deal in town – you can’t shop around for different cable companies so if you want digital cable or high-speed internet (that’s not DSL), you have to deal with Comcast and they seem to know that. At least with the phone service you can choose different main carriers (such as Verizon).
Comcast doesn’t care about you as a customer. They don’t make any effort to accommodate or even understand the problems you are having. They want your money plain and simple and aren’t even that polite about getting it. They will not believe you if there is a disagreement and their record keeping is awful (considering they didn’t have any records from AT&T online).
If I ever moved back to an area where Comcast provided service, I would not ever sign up again. I would go to Direct TV or another dish service and I’d probably get DSL for my internet because I will never again give Comcast any of my money.
The Final Take
Comcast is the perfect example of an oversized monopolistic company that doesn’t care about the customers it serves. All it wants is their money and it doesn’t really care what happens to them, as long as they get the money, even if that means cheating them out of it.
While the services are generally good, there are some issues, but more so than anything else, Comcast has no customer service, they have a customer disservice department.
Basically all I can say is that if it is possible to not have to deal with Comcast, don’t do it.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 130/month
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