I’m Starting To Believe Comcast Doesn’t ACTUALLY Care About Me
One of the weirdest things I was stressed out about was not my decided lack of coffee mugs or my inability to properly assemble furniture, but the idea that I’d have to somehow get Teh Internetz into my new place. It’s not that I can’t make phone calls or decisions – if I ruled the world, I’d make texting illegal, and not just while driving, though it baffles me that people actually DO that, but because text conversations remind me of the notes I passed in high school, sitting in the back row with the Metal Heads. I’d prefer a phone call most days.
Anyway.
I was terrified of dealing with Comcast in the same way I loathe dealing with Jiffy Lube. Because I’m not smart enough properly know whether or not my air filter needs changing, for example, I’ll listen to them, have it done, and then realize that I’ve just dropped 40 bucks on some bullshit thing I don’t actually need, only to Rage Against (not, I should clarify, LOUNGE Against) The Machine, because being duped by the Jiffy Lube guys makes me want to taco punch both Captain and Tennile (which, frankly, is the way I feel most of the time) AT THE SAME TIME.
I figured that dealing with Comcast would be similar, our phone call something like:
Becky: “Hi, I need to set up new internet in my apartment.”
Comcast: “For that you’re going to need the Linux box modem coupled with Windows 92, plus a router box made by a Scandinavian company that starts with the letter C.”
Becky: “I just want the email box to make emails for me.”
Comcast (smelling a sucker): “Well, if I upgrade you, at a cost of 92,748,272 dollars a month, your “email box” will work.”
Becky: “Um.”
Comcast: “I’ll set you up with an appointment for next Tuesday between 1AM and 8PM.”
Becky: “Um, oooookay.”
I fretted awhile before I called them, first because I’d just gotten another NEW apartment number and wanted my keys to ensure I’d actually be living in aforementioned apartment rather than kindly hooking up the cable for another tenant, but by Tuesday of last week, I realized it was time – I’d be moving and I need an email box to do “work,” and Comcast, well, after my inability to make OR receive phone calls using AT&T’s network, was the best option, which made me die a little inside.
Besides, Comcast SAYS they care about me. ME!
I was delighted to see that I’d be able to do the whole thing online. Because while texting is bullshit, being able to take care of shit without the pressure salesperson is like a lil slice of heaven. I even managed to get all the way to the point where I was to chat with an online representative without needing a nap to continue.
Comcast Robot: “So you want to have XYZ set up in your new apartment at (address).”
Becky: “Yeppers.”
Comcast Robot: “You can’t.”
Becky: “…”
Comcast Robot: “The former tenant put his account on hold so he could keep his email address. We can’t hook up two lines to the same apartment.”
Becky: “Wait – he wants a COMCAST email? What about GMAIL? It’s FREE! Shit, I’ll give him one of my zillion addresses.”
Comcast Robot: “You’re going to have to go to the business office and show them a copy of the lease proving you live there now.”
Becky: “Um. Why can’t I scan it and email it to you?”
Comcast Robot: “Good Day.”
I closed the chat window, fuming. I still had a boatload of packing, not to mention a couple of saved videos of cats playing the piano to watch. I decidedly did NOT need to be driving an hour to show Comcast that I, in fact, was the new tenant. Instead of throwing things around or kicking the box fan, I put on my “fuck shit up” pants and drove over to the apartment complex.
When I informed the lady at the desk that I was, in fact, going to need thirty-seven types of proof that I’d be living here, she goggled at me, which was approximately the same response I got whenever from the rest of the world. “Woah,” she said. “That’s nuts. I’ve worked here 7 years and NEVER seen anything like it.”
I nodded, unhappily, clutching a ream of papers on official letterheads that all claimed that I was, in fact, going to be moving into the apartment on October 1.
Driving out to Comcast’s business center was fine, excepting the whole, “this road is closed” thing going on in front of their business office. I ignored all signs, crossed my fingers and drove on it anyway – I needed my email box to work. The woman behind the counter was nice enough, I guess, although she said maybe ten words to me the entire time, including the fateful, “do you want me to set this up for you?”
“Nope,” I replied breezily. “I’ll do it online.”
And like that, I sealed my fate.
Back home an hour later, I tried, once again, to order Comcast online. The conversation was identical to the first, and ended with, “let me look into this and call you back,” which, of course, never happened. Robots, man, they’re unreliable.
The following day, between packing and trying to find my keys, I decided it was time to put an end to the bullshit and call Comcast for the 8,373 time, hoping this time I’d actually manage to find the one person who had more than two brain cells knocking around their skull.
A funny thing happened.
I did.
After dealing with Comcast for three days, I finally found someone with properly firing synapses. Quickly she disconnected the previous account and set me up with my own account, even managing to get me an install on Saturday, the day I’d rented the U-Haul and planned to finish moving. She was so kind that I actually began crying on the phone with her, which got HER crying, and we both ended up a soupy mess, which these days, not as uncommon as I’d like.
And now, I have a working email box.
Those damn cat videos have been waiting.
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I haz a guest poster here talking about making your own cleaning products. Which, of course, scares the shitnuts out of me.
My hubby and I have decided that Comcast “Is of the devil” but we must makes the deals with the devil to have Trueblood, the Octonauts, and Facebook. They don’t respond to sacrificing virgins for placation, either. Or Goats.
Bwahahahahaha! It’s a DAMN shame they don’t take goats. Got a few of those lying around.
You did better with comcast than I did with the people that turned on my gas (eventually). You must be more charming than I. And I bet you don’t throw around the words, “I can tell by your lack of useful help that you’re union”. I could learn a lot from you.
Bwahahahaha. I so thought it. I SO thought it. I wanted to nut punch everyone.
And the sad part is that sounds almost painless compared to the three weeks that I waited for Time Warner to hook up mine…. I sent in a request online, the soonest one is a week after I move in. I’m waiting on the day I requested they arrive, they don’t. I call. They say I don’t have an appointment, didn’t I respond to the confirmation email? What confirmation email? It got stuck in my spam filter and I didn’t see it. They make me a new appointment for me, but the soonest thing they have is a week and a half away. I take it. That day comes, nobody shows up… I’m sitting on my stoop waiting, and I call them AGAIN. The guy at call center is nice and says he’ll investigate what’s up and call me back. Ten minutes pass, and he calls back and is all, “Do you have call waiting?” and I’m like, “What?” and he’s like, “I walked down to the dept that dispatches the tech guys and had them call the guy who was assigned to you and he said that he called you like 5 minutes ago to say he was there but you didn’t answer so he moved on, and that was the same time you were on the phone with me.” and I’m like, “Yes, I have call waiting… and DUDE! That tech is a liar because I’ve been sitting on my stoop the whole time. He wouldn’t have called me if he were here, he would have SEEN me.” and he’s all like, “That sucks. I can offer to reschedule you…” and he reschedules me two days later…. and the same thing happens AGAIN….. only instead I get a bitchy lady who’s making it out like it’s my fault that their techs can’t do their job right, and I get rescheduled to the following Monday when FINALLY someone shows up and I get Internet.
OMFG. Girl. You’re amazing for not losing it and going all apeshit on their asses. I kinda want to on your behalf.
Its always nice to get someone who actually has brains, AND sympathy.
Congrats on the apartment, and the internet!!! Should be a banner month.
Here’s hoping! So far, it’s been good. Hard, but good.
I’m Starting To Believe Comcast Doesn’t ACTUALLY Care About Me http://t.co/CZz7zMCT
Could you please come set Windstream straight for us? They suck worse than comcast.
I will HAPPILY do this!
I bet you made her day. Her job must suck!!
Can you imagine working for that company? It’s GOT to be hell.
This brings back my RAGE at that fucking POS company! I had no internet for nearly a month because of those fuckers. I got the same story “the previous inhabitants didn’t disconnect blah blah blah.” Later I found out that you just can’t do it online. I talked to them online 3 times and on the phone at least twice, plus they visited my house…finally I called to cancel and they had it working the next day.
It’s fucking ridiculous that the only way to get anything from a fucking cable company is to threaten to cancel!!!
Anyway, I have my internet now. It’s not the fastest or most reliable. I’ll probably still cancel. Fuckers.
Fucking Comcast, man. Fucking Comcast. Fuckers.
You, me, and everyone else I know. We all have CC horror stories! I can’t wait for the day when high speed internet is everywhere – and affordable.
Bwahahahaha! You know, everyone I’ve met has a similar story about them. I wish I had another option, y’know?
I feel all of you Pranksters’ pain. I have stories of my own to tell when I moved from one city to a city 80 miles away. You would have thought I moved to the moon instead of the capital of the state. But here is my lol for the day. 10 years ago we were not all so dependent on the internet that we were lost without it. If mine is down for a day or two I feel cut off from the world. Amazing how fast the world can change. I’m thankful the Internet allows me to be friends with Aunt Becky and the pranksters.
Isn’t that weird? I remember those days too. Like, “I have no internet. SO?”
One day I shall tell you a story about GCI, and its literal monopoly on my my new-home state. How it holds us over a barrel, and laughs sinisterly as we struggle and weep. And my secret theory that a part of Alaska’s oft-discussed suicide rate is actually being augmented by the GCI Help Center Hotline.
But not yet; I still have years of trauma therapy to go through before I’ll be ready to talk about it. 😛
Bwahaha. I think I need therapy after dealing with Comcast THEN Sprint. *shudders* Last week, man. It was a fucking disaster.
RT @mommywantsvodka: I’m Starting To Believe Comcast Doesn’t ACTUALLY Care About Me http://t.co/Vk4pH16b
My Word…
After reading the post and the responses, I think I’ll keep my dial-up.
Bwahaha. Best idea yet.
I use CenturyLink (qwest in other states) because its cheap enough and decently fast. I didn’t want to shell out 99 bucks for something I can do myself so I just had them send my “email box” and installed that bitch myself. My pricing will go up in three months but for now I spend 35 a month. Well worth it since I really never leave the damn house!
This sounds like my dealings with charter. I had to make eleventy billion phone calls over the course of three weeks. It still took me crying and alternately yelling before they came out and turned on my phone and Internet.
When I have to call Comcast I call and hang up until I get a non-douche. PNW Comcast employees are actually pretty chill, maybe you should just move here.
If I were a paranoid person I’d think they literally train them to be as unhelpful as possible to wear you down like when claiming with insurance. It’s a conspiracy I tells ya! Crap, my tin foil hat just fell off.
Ok, but who is Andy?
I had a similar epiphany almost two years ago when the power went out at my home in northern California. Just the power in our house was out — no one else in the neighborhood was without power. my parents weren’t home, so i had to deal with it. The payment is automatically deducted from my parents’ checking account, and the lowest balance their account ever has is roughly five thousand dollars, and they have overdraft protection to boot. It’s not like PG&E didn’t receive a payment. Anyway, I eventually had no choice but to come to the conclusion that PG&E did not care about me personally. It was a most cruel realization.