Comcasted

We awoke this morning to our cable TV signal showing a lot of noise, and the cable modem showing that we had no network connection to the outside world. I called Comcast, ran through their ‘we want you to add more services’ telephone obstacle course, to land at the headset of a customer service rep. His first tact was to blame it on my equipment. Excuse me, I said, but both both the TV box and the network modem are having connection issues, so you expect me to accept that two pieces of equipment in my house both went on the fritz at the same time? So he started putzing around, had me reset the two boxes, and still nothing worked. He tried to do a remote reset, but (surprise) our box did not receive his signal (hint: if the cable line is not working, a remote signal sent down the cable probably is likely to not work. But hey, that is the advanced class, and this customer service has not made it there, yet). A bit confused, and apparently under orders not to admit they had a problem, the CR rep puts me on hold. A couple of minutes later a woman comes on the line and acts as if I had just called in. She wants me to power cycle my equipment (didn’t the guy who passed me off tell me we had done this?), then it is time to start the sales pitch: she tells me that if they have to dispatch a technician to diagnose the problem that I might have to pay for their time, but I can add a service guarantee to my monthly fee and then I will not be charged. Huh? I decline and tell her I need it fixed, but she wants me to sit at home all day and wait for a technician, but then again I might have to pay if they send the technician out since I do not have the service guarantee. Sheesh. Poor old me, I have only been designing, building, and maintaining information networks for 3 or so decades, so I cannot possibly understand the complexities of their system and the fact that the problem must be in my house since no one else in my neighborhood has called to report a problem …. at 5:45 AM. So I have to resort to the old ‘fix it or I walk’ ultimatum, at which time she agrees to escalate the issue, but then again unless I have the service guarantee I might have to pay for the technician’s time.

I thought Comcast would have rid themselves of the AT&T service mentality and customer service reps when they bought the old AT&T cable division. Apparently not.

After finishing the call, and seeing The Wife out the door, I started to get ready to go to the office (can’t work from home if there is no network, but that was a non-issue since the money man who pays me wants us all in the office today). By the time I was dressed for work all the cable stuff in our home was working. Wonder if they are going to bill us for the technician’s time?