  baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI
 ·Comcast
 ·magicjack.com
1 edit | Idiot Guys like this should go to jail. God forbid he disconnected someones phone that needed to call 911, just so he could make a comission on a sale.
Comcast security should launch a national plan to stop things like this. They have a bad enough image as it is. | |
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 |  ThrowDemsOutIf you can't convince 'em, confuse 'emPremium
join:2002-03-03
Mullica Hill, NJ
kudos:4 | Re: Idiot said by baineschile:Guys like this should go to jail. God forbid he disconnected someones phone that needed to call 911, just so he could make a comission on a sale. Comcast security should launch a national plan to stop things like this. They have a bad enough image as it is. The problem is that these contractors are given incentives to sign up new customers and not just perform maintenance for Comcast. So some contractors looking to boost their income break the rules and do really stupid things like this. If Comcast catches a contractor's employee doing this the contractor company should be terminated and not allowed to bid for Comcast business ever again.
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| | | | Re: Idiot said by ThrowDemsOut:The problem is that these contractors are given incentives to sign up new customers and not just perform maintenance for Comcast. So some contractors looking to boost their income break the rules and do really stupid things like this. If Comcast catches a contractor's employee doing this the contractor company should be terminated and not allowed to bid for Comcast business ever again. Maybe you should read the article. This involves Comcast employees too.
quote:
Comcast officials said Cao was innocently acting on their behalf and got caught up in a bad situation. A contractor was, indeed, acting against Comcast policy and cutting off service to Springfield Cable customers, Comcast officials said, but that contractor was fired when Comcast was made aware of the issue.
However, Cao was not part of the group that was cutting off service, Schnitker said. He was “innocently” performing a test on Danley’s cable box that interrupted service for about a minute, and he did not know that Danley was another cable company’s customer, Schnitker said.
This was a Comcast employee, not a contractor who are also allegedly responsible for other outages.
As I said, later in this thread, where I live, all 3 providers have different connection points so they would have to go into someone else's box to disconnect someone who is NOT their customer. | |
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| | | ThrowDemsOutIf you can't convince 'em, confuse 'emPremium
join:2002-03-03
Mullica Hill, NJ
kudos:4
3 edits | Re: Idiot said by moonpuppy: quote:
However, Cao was not part of the group that was cutting off service, Schnitker said. He was “innocently” performing a test on Danley’s cable box that interrupted service for about a minute, and he did not know that Danley was another cable company’s customer, Schnitker said.
This was a Comcast employee, not a contractor who are also allegedly responsible for other outages. No. They were contractors too. Just a different contractor.
She added that different contractors are currently performing audits across the Panhandle. They are only authorized to turn off service if they can verify that someone is stealing cable from Comcast, Schnitker said. And according to the police report photocopied here in this story, Cao is a contractor and not an employee:
»www.thecountypress.com/story_pdf···cast.pdf
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
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| | | | | | Re: Idiot STOP SPREADING FACTS !!!!
This is braodbandreports , we don't need facts to hate big companies.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" | |
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| | | |  N3OGHCertified GLG-20Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
kudos:1
 ·Verizon FiOS
| EPIC FAIL
Every couple of weeks, we get one of these stories here. Every company has people like this working for them.
At least every barrel (any group of humans of any kind) of apples is at least 5% rotten...
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Petty people are disproportionably corrupted by petty power… | |
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2 edits | said by baineschile:Guys like this should go to jail. God forbid he disconnected someones phone that needed to call 911, just so he could make a comission on a sale. Comcast security should launch a national plan to stop things like this. They have a bad enough image as it is. But yet....the asshats who ran billion dollar companies into the ground, destroying thousands and thousands of lives due to lost savings accounts and 401k's....should be let off the hook with multi-million dollar bonuses.
Yep...sounds about right....jail time for an idiot who disconnected a few cables lines....yet nothing happens to the fat cats.
Don't get me wrong...what he did was idiotic plain and simple...his termination is punishment enough..but jail time...give me a break.
As for someone needing to call 911...how do you know the people affected were using voip? | |
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| | baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI | Re: Idiot Its not for sure, but a possibility. | |
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| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: Idiot It's not possibility. Springfield cable doesn't sell internet or phone service over their system. | |
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"lack of broadband or other compelling digital services" | |
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| | | | | That's why god made cell phones!!! Now Shut Up Bainsechile!!! You must be a Manager for a cable company or something. | |
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|  cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:5
·Frontier FiOS
| said by baineschile:God forbid he disconnected someones phone that needed to call 911, just so he could make a comission on a sale. If you would have bothered to read the entire summary, you would have seen the last sentence that said that Springfield doesn't offer data services so disconnecting a 911 call wouldn't have even been possible. | |
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| mekaleka
join:2003-01-15
Palm Beach Gardens, FL | rofl..."Comcast security"...you funny man. | |
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|  tvtekR.I.P Dad 1940-2010Premium
join:2004-03-07
Concord, CA | Re: 1980s prices in 2000s They get 58 channels? Sign me up!.... | |
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| | | no fox news, no tbs, no HSI, and they have a lot of old network names. | |
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| | tvtekR.I.P Dad 1940-2010Premium
join:2004-03-07
Concord, CA Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: 1980s prices in 2000s said by dragoner :no fox news, no tbs, no HSI, and they have a lot of old network names. They have TBS it is listed as its original over the air call letters as WTBS from Atlanta. (CH *62/54 WTBS)
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What a kid I got. I told him about the birds and the bees then he told me about the butcher and my wife!
"Rodney Dangerfield" | |
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| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Still, $29 per month for expanded basic cable isn't bad at all. | |
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| | xlimitx
join:2001-12-31
Wilkes Barre, PA | Yeah, where's my TNN channel? =) | |
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|  goober22Resident Duh-Huh Member
join:2001-12-28
Panama City, FL | That is their intent - to be a low-cost basic provider. I live in Panama City and Springfield is a suburb city here. They started the cable company years ago (about the time digital cable was rolling out) as a low cost option to its residence. They have no intention of being a full service provider.
We also have Knology as well as Comcast providing tv and ATT (Bellsouth) currently with DSL as well.
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|  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | Just shows you how bad the big boys are raping us!
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
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Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
| Testing someone else's cable box If I read this correctly, the Comcast "technician" disconnected the another provider's service to the other provider's cable box to test it. And as a further insult to everyone's intelligence says the the "technician" didn't know Danley was another cable company's customer. Does Comcast not have addresses for their customers?
Hint to the "technician", learn how to read addresses from work orders and match them to house numbers.
What a moron. | |
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| | | Re: Testing someone else's cable box said by Austinloop:If I read this correctly, the Comcast "technician" disconnected the another provider's service to the other provider's cable box to test it. And as a further insult to everyone's intelligence says the the "technician" didn't know Danley was another cable company's customer. Does Comcast not have addresses for their customers? Hint to the "technician", learn how to read addresses from work orders and match them to house numbers. What a moron. Around here, the 2 cable companies (yes, we have 2) and Verizon FIOS have different boxes and connection points. There is no confusing them. | |
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| | | If you have actually seen a Comcast work order and tried to match it to the connections you find in the field, you wouldn't be saying this. In the areas I've seen, even if all the "work" that you find in the field was done by Comcast (without help from people stealing service, "fixing" things they dug up while installing a fence, etc) the records in Comcast's system don't match what exists at least 20% of the time. The same reward structure that motivated this contractor to do unauthorized discos rewards shortcuts that undermine the accuracy of Comcast's records. One of the major outputs of area audits (where a team systematically inspects all the cable boxes in a service area) is corrections to the database although the financial motivation is catching unbilled services (so also due to Comcast errors). As a last resort, it was sometimes decided to simply disconnect everybody (1 - 4 lines in suburban areas) on a given box and sort it out when people called in!
I'm not suggesting that what this contractor did was OK but pointing out that your assumptions about the accuracy of Comcast records isn't supported by my first-hand knowledge.
By the way, this problem with outside plant records isn't limited to Comcast or cable companies. At one time GTE's telco records were only 50% accurate and it was SOP to dispatch a truck to discover the "ground truth" before creating a work order for the customer's service order. | |
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·AT&T U-Verse
| Re: Testing someone else's cable box I supervised a crew of outside technicians in the telephone business for service from DS0 thru DS3. I don't ever recall one of my technicians disconnecting another company's service to test the "cable box". That must be some really lax supervision and really lax technicians, if they can be called technicians. Rule One was always know where you supposed to be. Rule Two was know what you were doing. Obviously both rules were not followed. | |
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| | | nonymousPremium
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ Reviews:
·Callcentric
| Re: Testing someone else's cable box said by Austinloop:I supervised a crew of outside technicians in the telephone business for service from DS0 thru DS3. I don't ever recall one of my technicians disconnecting another company's service to test the "cable box". That must be some really lax supervision and really lax technicians, if they can be called technicians. Rule One was always know where you supposed to be. Rule Two was know what you were doing. Obviously both rules were not followed. Sure. Those high cap business class lines where I worked took priority. The techs if nothing was spare and a fix took to long would borrow, ok steal a good pots pair leaving that customer out of service. Then a pots tech would be stuck with fixing something. That pots pair may be the companies own customer or resell customer.
I have also seen where I worked them borrow house cable pairs the same way. The company I worked for was or pretends to be broke and forced productivity and speed. Cheating happened. | |
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| | | | This is a bigger issue in MDUs, where there's lots of apartment runs coming together in the wiring closet, where the labels indicating the apartments may be missing or lost, and where building residents pry the door open and "help themselves" to service and typically disrupt the signal to at least one other unit in the building.
When my company does an audit, they disconnect the lines to units who do not have service. If the labels have been "accidentally switched" or the cables "rearranged" by a service thief, the wrong sub may be cut off. So an honest paying customer get interrupted until the tech can return to the unit and reconnect them.
Some buildings have repeated problems, and I've suggested installing an IP camera with remote monitoring software (can move them to different locations as needed). Catch them on camera performing the theft, and have the police invite them for an overnight visit to the "grey-bar motel."
That being said, the Comcastic story fails the common sense test at multiple points. Cheaters will get caught eventually, the punishment is likely to be minor and ultimately just amount to loss of employment (and embarrassment).
NetLarry | |
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| | | Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA | Re: Testing someone else's cable box I'd rather have Comcast go all-digital all-encryption in MDUs with repeat theft problems. It makes it less troublesome for apartment cabling maintenance. | |
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| | | Devil's Advocate Here:
Perhaps, and im stretching here, the other contractor's guys going around doing the disco to get sales perhaps caused some little old lady to come out see what was going on, when she sees the guy arrested a few houses down, and starts to yell at him. And he, being the nice guy he is, after explaining that he don't work for that company, but wanting to be nice/polite/helpful offers to take a look to see if its something simple he can resolve. Thus prompting the Comcast reasoning that was given.
I know i've been in situations when i was working for DirecTV where the previous installer had unhooked TWC lines for a customer, and i get called out to try and fix it. And having limited knowledge on how their systems work (however more than most in my office, thus why i was sent) would normally be required to give the Corp Response of, thats not stuff, we cant touch it, ect... So perhaps he was just trying to be helpful, thinking that if she sees that comcast workers are nice she'll switch to us. | |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | human and corporate rights abuses Release the innocent man. He and Comcast are exercising their free market rights! Stop Communism! | |
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| | | Re: human and corporate rights abuses uh ok? missing the sarcasim tag so here i'll go... how is this communism? how is it free market rights to tamper with a competetor? | |
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| | | said by patcat88:Release the innocent man. He and Comcast are exercising their free market rights! Stop Communism! I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning... | |
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| | | | Re: human and corporate rights abuses I heard this contractor worked for ACORN. I'm waiting for this story to be reported on Fox News. j/k | |
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| | fios watch this will be the next fios commercial with the cable and fios guy *lol* | |
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|  SLDPremium
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA
1 edit | Re: fios Never LOL at your own joke.
LOL! | |
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| | | | Re: fios why, im not allowed to laugh at the thought of that smuug fios guy making fun of the cable guy doing this? :P | |
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approval from:
jmmilner 
StarFish267
| Auditing Every once in a while Comcast will hire scores of Contract contract companies with hundreds of techs to go out and perform audits. Each morning each tech is given a list of costomers for a given block of streets. The lists have info regarding the type of service each of those customers has. It's the tech's job to go out, climb the pole or open the pedistal and verify the customer's line is or is not hooked up. People not on the list get dissconected. People with basic service get a filter installed, etc... The tech is NOT required to go to the customer's house but may have to enter back yards to climb a pole, etc... Using their list they work their way down the street.
In another scenario called "tone and tag" a tech goes to a custmer's house and disconnects the connection. A toner is put on the line and the tech goes to the main connection. If necessary ALL the connections at the "tap" are disconnnect and the tech read the tone. Then line is tagged with the house number and the connection is restored.
The point is, there is a lot of opportunity for tech's to pull stunts like the one Cao did in the article. Hell I came one day and my DirecTV was out. I went out to my box and yep.. sure enough, an auditor had been there. He cut the cable tie off the latch, went in the box, verified I had high speed internet only and cut all my satellite lines going into the house.
I was pissed so I drove the two blocks and went to the Comcast office and DEMANDED to speak to the field manager. I told him what happened and to keep his stupid contractors away from MY satellite connections. They are supposed to only check the line from the street, not to the house. He gulped because it was obvious I knew what I was talking about and gave me 60 days free internet service. | |
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|  badtripI heart the East BayPremium
join:2004-03-20
Albany, CA | Re: Auditing You kept Comcast's service after that? Jeez, I jettisoned them for much, much less! | |
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| | | said by Ioweyou :
He gulped because it was obvious I knew what I was talking about and gave me 60 days free internet service.
you also should of foreced him to pay the cost to have direct tv come out and fix it and send the bill to comcast | |
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| | comcast does not need to unhook that to sell as sprigfield c comcast does not need to unhook that to sell as sprigfield cable lacks rsn over flow, HD , digital cable, (hbo, max , show, movie) plex channels, maybe channels you get on comast and or sat. | |
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| | | Re: Couldn't tell which was theirs? Yeah, this doesn't make any sense at all. Comcast's tap would be either above or below the other service providers tap. And it's normally universal (above or below) for the entire city. Also, I seriously doubt both providers use identical house tags, connects, etc.. | |
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| |  toddbs98
join:2000-07-08
North Little Rock, AR | Re: Couldn't tell which was theirs? The cable box on the outside of my house says property of Comcast cable seems like that would be an easy way to tell if it was their customer or not.
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Patriots always speak of dying for their country never killing for it. Bertrand Russell
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| | FLORIDA TAG Deserves the FLORIDA TAG. Then the COMCASTIC...
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|  Simba7
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT | Re: FLORIDA TAG Don't you mean COMCAUSTIC? | |
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·Charter
| said by cableties:Deserves the FLORIDA TAG. Then the COMCASTIC... All evil comes from or heads to Florida at some point. | |
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| | Sad I'v heard of other companies doing the same thing to Fios companies. You will hear of TimeWarner Field Tech rolling up to Fiber home dissconnecting them and driving away. Its redeclious. | |
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|  John97Over The Hills And Far AwayPremium
join:2000-11-14
Southampton, PA | Re: Sad That would be a good reason to get your ONT mounted inside the house. Nothing to disconnect, unless they want to cut the fiber cable. 
I got almost 250lbs of dogs on patrol in my back yard where my ONT is located, so I think I am safe.
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So put me on a highway, and show me a sign.
And take it to the limit one more time... | |
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| | | Re: Springfield Cable customers are happy, not being gouged. said by Mr Matt: If they want to view premium channels they can rent a descrambling converter for $1.95 per month Do you even need the converter if you have a cable-ready set? Aren't they just using traps (either negative or positive) on the pole/pedestal? | |
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| | Springfield, Florida cable co. yeah the lineup of that municipally owned cable co. does stink, but hey i wish i could get ESPN in a package that cost only $31 per month.... | |
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| | Learn from your mistakes? Nope doesn't happen at crummycast. They still hire dimwitts. If you call for service or happen to see one of their vans or trucks, dont turn your back from them.... | |
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Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| illegal act It's simply illegal for an unauthorized person to disconnect/tamper utility wires (possibly a high class misdemeanor or felony). Not a smart move, the 'employee' can now face jailtime & fines for such a stupid thing. I don't care how desperate the guy was for the job (no doubt there was some quota pressure going on here). Maybe you should have gone back to Comcast and yell at them for not offering a sweeter deal than the competition.. being deceptive can only get you so far.. having the real deal works much better.
How about 50/50 megabits for $50 when they take phone & video at their regular rates? That would get their attention. | |
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| | Only Comcast here Comcast is the only cable company here, only other option would be a DISH, hmm no thanks. | |
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| | They are still there? I thought they have gotten bought out by Knology by now, but then they would have to pretty much rebuild the entire area, so maybe not. There is some old cable running thru that area.. | |
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3 edits | .. Damn, internet is not cooperating.
Anyway, before I accidentally edited this post I think Comcast needs to stop giving referral bonuses to field installers. This should stop the behavior. Comcast seems to go all out with their own internal employees to win a customer because the pay out is a lot. | |
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Does this guy have stupid written all across his forehead? So stupid of him to do such a thing. This is the last thing Comcast needs there technician's to do seeing is how Comcast already has a bad image. When Comcast placed the 250 gigabyte monthly cap and throttling on the HSI service that is what drove me to cancel my Comcast service and sign up for Clearwire WiMAX internet service.
Couldn't tell which was theirs?
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Springfield Cable customers are happy, not being gouged.
Maybe Springfield customers are satisfied with their service and do not want to be gouged. Being forced to rent digital subscriber terminals at outrageous prices if they want the extended channel lineup may irritate some people. If they want to view premium channels they can rent a descrambling converter for $1.95 per month rather than $6.95 for a digital box from Comcast. On the other hand some customers may only want their television sets to light up and make noise.
