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[Charlie Zureki]

 Ok... one of the top 10 rated worst Companies in the US ...for LACK of customer service, has almost pushed me over the edge.

Comcast...YOU SUCK! Your Service Reps SUCK!  Your Modulators SUCK! Your Technical staff SUCK! Your Phone & Internet response system SUCKS! ....

 Now, for the back story...
A month ago, I get a letter stating that Comcast will soon be sending ALL of their program channels via digital signals. (we currently have Analog for most channels and Digital for premium channels)

In order to continue with "uninterrupted" service, we (customers) will be sent new boxes to replace the existing boxes.

Following their directions, I installed and programmed each box. I then called the service number they listed, to "activate" these new boxes.

 I gave the Service Rep the S/N's and she proceeded to authorize these boxes... but....the system could not "see" them.

 Now...the Rep tells me that I'll have to wait four days for a Service Rep to visit...

What the hell?  I told her that the problem is not on my end...it's in their system.  Apparently, she's not very experienced with the Company, and she kept insisting that I had "installed" the boxes wrong.

After numerous calls to different departments, No one seems to know how to fix this glitch.

So..I then reinstalled the "old" boxes...but they wouldn't now work because the system identifiers had been changed.

Finally, after about two more hours on the phone, they got one of my Digital boxes working for one TV screen.

I would have given up much earlier...but, Hockey season is NOT over yet, and I can't get any of the games broadcast via air!

Rotten Comcast bastards! Done ranting!

Hammer

 





 

[Mac Kerr]

Charlie, for what it's worth, CableVision is an equally odorous company to deal with, but they don't let you install your own digital cable box. The digital boxes are much more sensitive to what else is on the line.

You mention having a couple of boxes, if you have splitters in line to get signal to them that may be the problem. When the installer came out with my digital box he brought all new splitters. His weighed about 5 times as much as mine. The system worked with his, not with mine. Having lots of HD channels, and a DVR built in is cool, but I got fewer dropouts with the analog box.

Mac

[Andy Peters]

Mac Kerr wrote on Sat, 22 May 2010 13:25

Charlie, for what it's worth, CableVision is an equally odorous company to deal with, but they don't let you install your own digital cable box.

Cablevision is much worse than Comcast, because the son of the Cablevision owner has destroyed the New York Knickerbocker basketball franchise.

-a

[Ryan Lantzy]

The entire CATV industry is filled with crappy providers.

Perfect example, here we have a smaller provider that I think is big in Florida and a few places along the east coast called Atlantic Broadband.  A friend of mine has a Tivo HD DVR that accepts a cable card to get the encrypted QAM channels.  First it took them a solid two weeks or more to get it working properly.  Now, every month on a certain day the Cable card stops working like clockwork.  He has to call the help desk and they send a technician out.  

Not to mention that the FCC has labeled the whole Cable Card experiment a total failure.

[Tony Martin]

LOL........it is SO nice to hear all this stuff.
You see, my day job (or afternoon-job actually) is customer-service-specialist for a major U.S. cable provider.
A joke amongst myself and my colleagues is that "We suck less than the competition".
We actually got that from a customer who had left our company, tried the 3 other alternatives in his area, then was back with us within 9 months of having left in the first place.
He came back bitching and complaining about how much our company sucks. When asked "Why did you come back if we're so bad", his reply was "You suck less than they do".

That about sums up my feelings about the cable industry in general.
It ain't about "who's best", it's become about "who sucks least".

[Ian Coughlin]

Mac and Andy, gotta disagree with you two and defend my Cablevision!  I have had Cablevision (iO) and its Internet (OOL) since day one, over 10 years.  Then I added OV (there phone service)when it came out.  Over those 10 years i can recall only a few service outages (cable tv, Internet, and phone) and service was restored within an hour or a cable modem reset.  Customer support is A+ if you know who to ask for (a level 2 tech) and you've already performed all the common sense trouble shooting steps that a level 1 tech would have walked you thru.  

I have 6 HD boxes, 2HD DVRs, 2 phone lines, and BOOST (30/5), HD picture is crystal clear, OnDemand works pretty quick, phone sounds great, and I never had a speed test come in less than 20Mbs DL or 5Mbs UL.  Two lines come into the house to a centralized wiring closet, line one hits a powered 8 way splitter, and line 2 goes to a passive 4 way splitter and the cable modem.  I also have ULTRA (100/15) at my office and my average is 80/15 (the router (cisco800 series) they give you for static IP limits the DL thruput).

I belong to a tech forum and the majority of the problems complained about by Cablevision customers turn out to be one inside there house!

Comcast isn't dubbed ComCRAP for no reason. There's been tons of horror stories but thats also relevant to the size of the company compared to Cablevision.

[Andy Zimmerman]

Gotta love tech support - some minimum wage flunky reading from a script always makes my day. My big hassle was with our internet - kept dropping out. Tech support says problem must be in my computer. Which one, I ask - 3 desktops, 2 laptops, 3 netbooks, 2 VOIP systems - all quit working at the same time. I humor her - in the end she sends a tech out with a new DSL modem - a Siemens modem/router. Oh boy. The company I work for has lots of Siemens products - most do not work as well as advertised. My high expectations for the router were not in vain - it dropped the wireless connection constantly. At least I still have my old router.



Our motto in maintenance

[Craig Hauber]

I do a lot of installs and other than the primarily audio end of the business I've been doing many sports bars.   To me, I think Time-Warner is the worst followed closely by Cox Communications.

It's just easier for a commercial customer to go with DirecTV.  Unfortunately you often still need at least 1 cable box for local channels and it seems that many clients have chosen to use cable Internet so you still can't get away from having to deal with crappy cable-co's

[Bob Leonard]

I look at the list of people responding to the Charlie so far and shake my head. I thought every one of you were some of the brightest bulbs on the tree, but you disappoint me because you still have fucking cable service.

DTV was less than a month old when I had it installed and I have never had a major issue other than a single box that failed. I have multiple rooms, digital recording, on demand, and every channel, premium channel, HD channel and service possible for $105 per month.

When I went high def they came to the house ON TIME, replaced my dish, every inch of cable in the house, every receiver in the house, cleaned up, thanked me and took out the trash for $0, nada, zip.

When I had a problem after the 80mph winds that came through with one of the recent storms they came out the next morning, adjusted the dish, added a brace and thanked me again.

When I added a receiver I called, was on hold less then ten minutes, and they had the receiver on line in less than ten minutes.

And why did I go the DTV route? Because cable sucks in the Boston area also. And finally, Verizon has been pushing hard lately with sales reps up and down the street selling their fiber solutions. They knock on the door, I tell them I have DTV, they leave. And Comcast is by far the worst of the bunch.

[Gerry Seymour]

Agreed about TWC's service. Our regional office recently moved, and TWC couldn't give a window any narrower than "2 to 14 days" for the service to be available in the new office. Even when I had a rep go find a manager and tell them we'd stay with them if they could match the time it would take AT&T to get phone and DSL installed (5 days, including the mandatory 5-day delay for porting the numbers), they said there was no possible way to do it any sooner than 7 days.

I was stunned, and they didn't seem to understand why.