Yet More Proof That Comcast Could Mess Up a One Car Funeral

So last week I wrote of my experience with Comcast, and much to my surprise, I was contacted by them (see comment by anonymous). Apparently, they "twitter" their name to see who has reached their limit and is blogging about them (my guess...90 percent of their customers).

After checking to make sure it was legit, I did contact their "We Can Help" people who called me back three days later (gee, hope they didn't break a sweat rushing to help) to assure me that everything was now fine with my account since I had re-registered for automatic payments.

Okay...and since this was already done last week, you are helping me how exactly?

But, as long as the matter was cleared up, I was prepared to be forgiving.

And then they went and did it again. They sent me a paper bill and killed all the warm, fuzzy (all right--tepid and slightly hairy) feelings that were beginning to take root in my heart.

Now, mind you, this was not a bill for the account that I had been "helped" with. This was a bill for a second account we have in Tim's name. This account had been signed up for automatic payment and ecco bill for over a year. Hmmmm. So now they were trying to push me over the edge by screwing up both of our accounts. Good plan. Why not just wait until I am having a bad hair day also and attack my phone account as well?

After several deep breaths and a longing glance at the liquor cabinet, the red haze slowly began to clear from in front of my eyes, and I looked more closely at the bill. It wasn't actually a bill, but a statement saying that the amount owed was going to be paid by debiting my bank account, and thanking me for enrolling in the program.

Oh, really. Well that would be a neat trick since I hadn't ever enrolled in the debit program. I had signed up for automatic payment with my credit card, but I had never, ever given them my banking information.

Debating whether I should take a Valium before or after placing the call, I once again dialed a number that, regrettably, I know better than my own, and punched the appropriate number of buttons so that I might speak to an actual person. ( for anyone who is interested, the code is 1,2,1,1,4)

First question: Why are you sending me a paper statement?

Answer: We are doing it because of legal issues. People who signed up for the ecco bill are complaining that they (A.can't, B.won't, C.don't know how--pick one, the guy actually used all three) to access their bill online.

Question: So, even though I am signed up for the ecco bill, I will get a paper statement?

Answer: Yes, but don't worry, it's not just you. I get one too.

Oh, that makes me feel much better. And you're still calling it an "ecco bill"? Way to reduce the carbon footprint.

Second question: Why am I being told that I am signed up for the debit program? Because I have to tell you, that when you try to take money out of my account, you're going to find you have a major problem, since you don't have access to it.

Answer: Ummmmm.

Question: Can you access my account information? Because it should say that I am enrolled in the automatic payment program using my credit card.

Answer: Oh. Yeah. Well, actually it says you have not been enrolled in any program to pay, ever.

I mentally counted to ten, but it didn't help. I still wanted to explode, only I was ten seconds closer and more aggravated.

Question: Are you looking at my account now? Yes? Okay, do you see the payment history?

Answer: Oh, yes. I guess you were enrolled. Let me look into this. Can I put you on hold?

Sure. What's another hour or two between friends?

Several mind-numbingly boring minutes of listening to muzak later, he came back on the line and told me that I shouldn't worry about it because it was just the way they worded the letter. Even though it said debit, it really meant automatic payment.

Oh, okay. So maybe I shouldn't worry about the money I owe you either, because even though it says I owe it, maybe it really means that I have that as a credit? Yeah, I'm going to need a better explanation than that.

Another stint on hold.

And the final answer is: They just don't know why I was sent that statement, but I am definitely signed up for the automatic payment. Now. So everything will be okay. Now. And I won't get any more statements. Now.

Yea, and I'll believe that. For now. Until I get the next letter or call. In the meantime, I think I'll just investigate Direct TV.

Oh, and Comcast people who will be reading this? Please. Don't help. I can't waste any more time on the phone listening to Blue Bayou.

Green Is Not My Color

I have decided to become more green. I recycle, I bought those reusable tote bags at the grocery store, I pay bills online. And it is the last one that has come back to bite me.

About a year ago, I signed up for Comcast's automatic bill pay. Each month, they charge my credit card, and I don't have to do a thing. Easy and good for the environment, right?

Not with Comcast.

First, they said it would take a month or more to kick in, so I should pay the bill until that happened.

So you notify me when it happens? Nope.

I can check online and see when it happens? Nope.

I can't see when my bill is paid?

Well, yes, but only after the due date. You see, payment is due on the 19th, but we don't bill credit cards until the 23rd.

So I'm late every month?

Only technically, but it doesn't count since you have a grace period of ten days.

Okay, so basically what you are telling me is that I should pay until...what, I see a credit for a double payment, and then not worry about late fees? Yep.

All right, and your name again? Just so I know what to call the voodoo doll I will be sticking pins in.

But finally, the day came when billing and payments caught up with each other. Ahhh. for once, someone at Comcast knew what they were talking about. Sort of. And yet, not really, because I was still receiving a paper statement each month. So how exactly was this being green?

Once again, I got online and found out that they were now offering an "Ecco bill" option where you could choose not to receive the paper statement.

So I signed up and had a few months of living the dream of being green.

Until the other day when I got a call from Comcast telling me they were going to shut off service for non-payment.

Excuse me? If I wasn't paying why was I seeing a charge on my credit card statement? What was that, a donation to the Comcast TGIF party fund?

Maybe there was a problem with my card, the woman in the billing department at Comcast suggested. Nope

Had I changed any info on the account lately? Nope.

Did I forget to update my account info when my old credit card expired? Nope.

Well then, why wasn't my bill paid?

Gee, I don't know. This is a real puzzler. If only I could speak to someone in the billing department at Comcast, maybe we could figure this out. Oh, wait a minute. You work in the billing department at Comcast. You have all my credit card info. You people choose when to bill me (or not as the case may be). I don't get to choose when you bill me, it is just supposed to happen every month. Automatically. Hence the "automatic payment option" on your website.

Oh, yes. I get what you are saying, she finally admitted. We bill your credit card, so there is no reason why this shouldn't have been paid last month.

Hey, you graduated top of your class from Harvard, didn't you?

After the Hallelujah chorus from the heavenly choir died down, we got a supervisor involved who came up with an explanation--sort of.

Comcast recently switched to a third-party billing system, and apparently, I got caught in a "glitch" where it was only going to bill me every other month.

Oh, so what you're saying is that Comcast, not satisfied that they were screwing people's lives up enough with their total disregard for any customer service whatsoever had decided to get help in that department by bringing in another totally inept organization. Good call.

And the best part? This new organization goes by the name "Smart Zone". Ha!!!

So, how do you fix this, I inquired.

"Well, we don't," she said. "You do."

I do? I do? I do? And just how am I supposed to do that? Write a check every month, perhaps? Or maybe I should just call these "smart" people every month and remind them to charge my card?

"Oh no," she said, obviously missing the sarcasm dripping from each syllable. "Just go online and sign up again for the automatic bill payment each month. That should fix it."

Should? You don't know how to fix it? You're guessing here? And how do I know if this will work?

Will you notify me? Nope.

Will I be able to see it online? Nope

I can't see if my bill is being paid? Well.....

Okay, and your name again...

Kermit was right. It's not easy being green.

Comcast: The Final (?) Chapter

Throughout the last six months of dealing with Comcast regarding my parents' TV and computer, my sister (anonymous in the comments), has not been able to understand my frustration---until now.

With my parents due home from Florida a few weeks ago, I called Comcast and set up a time for them to go over to the house and reinstate the cable. Pat agreed to give up her Saturday morning and wait for them. Hehehe. The joke was finally on her.

The guy arrived with the necessary boxes, but after one look at the cable running through the house, he refused to hook them up. Something about all of the lines, wires and cables having been installed by Edison. He wanted permission to run new cable.

Now, in his defense, he probably thought it was a reasonable request. After all, the new digital age is coming, and we must all be prepared or we will be left behind in the dust of analog with the dinosaurs and first generation ipods. However, he did not fully comprehend the situation here.

First of all, the cellar is a cellar. Not a basement, not a rec room. A cellar. My father is the only one brave enough to venture down there. The rest of us are sure that there are things living down there that don't suffer the light of day well and are just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to wander down and then....lunchtime, and the milk companies have a new face to put on their cartons.

Secondly, the attic is...well, let's just say that Disneyland this isn't. Although, being near the woods, there have been occasions when mice, squirrels, bats and other assorted critters have been caught scampering around, but they are not animated and generally don't sing and pass out balloons and candy.

As for the rest of the house, it is about two hundred years old, and who knows what (or who) he would have found lurking in the walls. Anything is possible. (Jimmy Hoffa?!? ) The only thing we are certain about is an intricate tangle of wires, cables and coils from my father's attempts to modernize the place over the years. He, and he alone understands this complex system that would have NASA engineers admitting defeat and heading for the nearest bar.

Taking all of this into consideration, my sister refused to take responsibility for the fallout that would occur if she said yes.

She tried instead to reason with the man. She worked with computers for a living, she said. She was used to running cable, she said. All he had to do was leave the boxes, she said. She would take care of the rest, she said.

He said no, and left.

With her dander up, she hightailed it down to the cable company to see if she could sweet talk them out of the boxes with the promise of letting someone swing by at some future date if necessary. She couldn't.

Apparently, the phone lines work faster than her car, and the guy had already called in and told them the whole story. Oh, and the next appointment available was almost a week away. She was not happy.

But, (and here is the part that makes me happy), in order to deal with all of this, she had given her name and number as the contact person, thereby making her the account holder(good to know that regardless of who pays the bills, anyone wandering in off the street can just appropriate an account by giving their name and number, but that's another blog). And now she was stuck dealing with them and I was out of it!

Pat spent pretty much the rest of the day, if not the weekend dealing with the situation, racking up the hours online and on hold. After feeling my pain for only a fraction of the time, we consulted my parents and here was the outcome(I wasn't completely out of it, unfortunately):
they switched to Direct TV and Verizon for the computer and....Pat got the calls from Comcast wanting to know why she had discontinued the service (and you can be sure that that question elicited a really charming response).

She will also get all future solicitations via mail and phone from Comcast begging her to return. Oh, and I've decided to give her name and number to both Direct TV and Verizon too, just for good measure. Hehehe.

Cable and Internet and E-mail, Oh My!

My parents have recently decided to give the whole retirement thing a shot, and are renting a place for the winter in Florida. Kind of like a test run (my sister, brother and I are making book on whether this little experiment will end in murder, suicide or divorce. Right now, the smart money is saying divorce by the middle of December, although we can't rule out the possibility of death completely.)

One of the many details that needed to be taken care of prior to the move was their cable/internet. Since the condo they are staying in comes with cable, my mother contacted Comcast and suspended their service at home, not realizing that while she wouldn't need cable, she would still need the internet service to get her e-mail.

Since it seemed like it would just be easier to take care of this myself than explain it to her for the 100th time, I offered to call Comcast and get it straightened out. Big mistake.

Here is how it went:
I dialed the 800 number, pressed 1 for English, pressed 2 for internet, pressed 2 again, listened to a commercial, listened to another pitch regarding billing, listened to them give me the number to call to reach them (duh! How could I be listening to this message unless I had just dialed that number?), entered my phone number, finally got a real person on the line, told them what I needed to do and...

They told me that my call had gone to the office of the state I was calling from. What I needed to do was call the office in Pennsylvania and talk to them, since that is where my parent's had the cable service. And so they transfered my call...back to the main 800 number.

I pressed 1 for English, pressed 2 for internet, pressed 2 again, listened to a commercial, listened to....well, you get the picture, except this time, I entered my parent's phone number and spoke with someone in Pennsylvania who told me that they could not help me, because what I needed to to was call the office in Florida and talk with them since that is where my parent's needed the service. And so they transfered my call...back to the 800 number.

I pressed 1 for English, pressed 2 for internet, pressed 2 again...but when I had to enter the number, I was in trouble. I didn't have a phone number for them in Florida, but the PA guy said I could just punch in the zip code which I did have. Turns out that was not an option. (Perhaps he was just trying to get rid of me?). Anyway, ten minutes later, I ended up back in Virginia.

I tried reasoning with the operator(after I had pressed 1, 2,2 and so on...again). They were all the same company. Surely, they must have the number for the office down in Florida. Maybe they could even (dare I suggest it?!) transfer me directly to that office and bypass the 800 number?

Apparently not. Their advice? Get a Florida phone book, pick any number at random from the city they lived in and enter that to talk to the Florida office (Naturally, I had to point out that if I had a Florida phone book, I would just look up the number for the local Comcast office. FYI, the operator's don't appreciate either irony or sarcasm.) Anyway, back I went to 1-800- you are screwed.

Eventually, somewhere around hour two, I did manage to reach the Florida office, and, after punching and listening to the same thing for the eighty-second time, they told me that I would have to set up a new account since the old account was in a different state, then call PA and have them release her e-mail address, then call Florida back and have them assign the address to the Florida account. (I was beginning to realize why people went to satellite TV, got a hotmail account, and sat at Starbuck's with their laptops where the wireless is free). I guess nobody told these people that THEY ALL WORK FOR THE SAME COMPANY!!!!! Oh, and by the way, we would have to go through the whole process again in the spring. Charming.

Anyway, two days and two thousand hours spent on the phone with Comcast in FLorida and Pennsylvania later, the Comcast guy showed up to install the cable modem in the condo (and almost got himself pitched into the ocean from a fourth floor balcony by my father who didn't quite get the difference between internet modem and wireless modem), my mother got a hotmail account (courtesy of my sister and her ability to control my mother's computer by remote control), and I unplugged my phone and began looking up sanitariums that didn't have cable, internet or e-mail addresses.