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Review by Immer See Profile

  • Location: Grovetown, Columbia, GA, USA
  • Cost: $130 per month (12 month contract)
The internet connection is reliable. HD Channels meet my needs.
Technical support, Customer service
If they are the only option in town, there is no choice but to lower your expectaions of service beyond an internet connection.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)

9/17/2014: We paid an electrician to re-stub the house and the install was corrected after another visit from COMCAST. We've had intermittent problems during the day. Yesterday all signal disappeared from the house (cable and internet). After a day of my wife dealing with telephone customer service (to no avail) we are finished with COMCAST. At one point when my wife asked for a way to lodge a formal complaint regarding the customer service, the tech gave my wife a bogus phone number to call. We will be moving to AT&T U-Verse this week.

I built a new house and had to switch back to Comcast. Their new Xfinity modem/router is a nice upgrade since the last time I was a customer. Their new cable boxes are also a solid upgrade in most features (I do miss the instant "last channel" button. Now I have to use a menu). The connection is more reliable, but the speeds during the day don't match what was advertised or what we are paying for.

The local Comcast also chops up a great deal of local advertising. I don't pay for advertisement, so I don't know if the 5~8 seconds of commercials that are being played and then swapped to a different commercial are billed at full price. It is a very common occurrence, so buyers beware. This comment was part of my original review, and remains. I see at least one commercial chopped to only 5~10 seconds each day. Again, I don't pay for advertisement, and I don't know if someone is getting a free 5 seconds or cheated out of 25, but as a viewer it is annoying.

The installation team, the wire burial team, and the telephone customer service teams are completely out of sync and horrible to try to work with to get a repair, troubleshooting, or to think through a problem with. We had one very nice tech come to the house to install wire and an extra grounding wire, only to have the burial team (2nd visit) remove the grounding wire, shorten the coax line, and bury a line that was never grounded. The next install guy (3rd visit) cut the buried line, laid completely new coax and chose a completely different approach to grounding the connection. All of which has yet to be buried (will require 1 possibly 2 more visits) and the telephone customer service is utterly useless. They only "add notes to the ticket" and argue against you when you ask for a supervisor, even going so far as pretending none is around. After waiting on the line for 20-40 minutes, that implies extremely long coffee/bathroom breaks, or a refusal to serve the customer. My vote is for the latter. If there was ANYONE else in my neighborhood... fIOS, WoW, ATT, we'd switch.

UPDATE: We have dumped COMCAST in favor of ATT U-verse and are exceedingly happy with service, particularly compared to COMCAST. We will not be looking back.

member for 14.2 years, 2429 visits, last login: 5.9 years ago
updated 8.9 years ago

netwerp
join:2010-12-10
Evans, GA

netwerp

Member

Comcast customer service

I know it's a pain, but try this and assert your position as a paying customer (you certainly pay enough!):

First, keep notes with date and time for each change. Write down the ID of the customer service person. Record the phone conversation if practical, but the notes are best. Note the times when you call, (you will be but on hold) the time when answered, the times when you are switched to another, (on hold again) each time you talk to a customer service person and when they put you on hold.

If there is resistance from the c.s. person, be assertive; it's better not to threaten. But if you feel you must threaten, let them know your options (and then follow through if necessary): you are recording all conversations (if so), you will report dissatisfaction to various agencies: (Grovetown if they control any franchise), County, State Attorney General, etc. You can also call their sales line and complain to them. Find a corporate link to the CEO, CFO, CTO; send him (them) email. Publish results here, facebook, twitter. Talk to or send email to state and national political representatives, senators.

Finally if you know someone personally who is empowered, tell them your dissatisfactions.

My experience with comcast: they don't pay attention to their online reporting system unless when it means they can charge you more money. I have filled out user requests to not phone me and not send me email when my kids push the bandwidth allocation over the limit. I don't care because the price is still competitive - until the bill reaches a certain limit and then I will research and consider my options.

It's not enough that comast is the largest ISP, they want to gobble up Time-Warner, too. Corporations tend to follow the morality of their founders, regardless of what they say. The founder of comcast is quoted as saying something to the effect that charging for cable TV is like taking candy from a baby. If that doesn't convince you then look up "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy" (try Wikipedia).