Worst Company In America: Comcast VS Capital One
A clueless cable giant? Or a fee-happy credit card company? Who shall taste your wrath?
It's #3 Comcast VS #14 Capital One:
This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.
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Comments:
Capital One: What used to be in your wallet!
Since I've personally been screwed by Comcast, I will have to vote for them.
(I was grandfathered into an older pricing plan from another company they took over for, and while THEY were trying to fix the problem, they made a temporary modem switch to see if that would fix it. OH WAIT - Equipment change means they can take me out of the old pricing plan and stick me in a new pricing plan. Oh sorry, once that is done we can't switch it back. Sorry, your screwed since there is nothing else in your area right now. Ha Ha Ha) I sure had a Comscrewyouic day.
I'm trying to think of something good to say about Comcast.
Hmm.
Oh well.
@coan_net: And what is worse - Comcast has been planning this for YEARS.
You see, my initials are M.A.C. - and if you rearrange the letters in COMCAST - you get COST MAC - See, COST MAC MORE MONEY!!!!! THOSE BASTARDS They have been planning this for years.
Everyone has a choice of using Capital One.
Not everyone has a choice of using Comcast or not.
Comcast wins for sure.
@Yankees368: 250 GB actually.
I can't really get too worked up about either company, but then I don't have a Capital One credit card (although their ads are sometimes kinda cute).
I've never had any trouble with Comcast, but have seen plenty of horror stories posted. They seem to be making a bit more of an effort to reach out. Part of it is simply lingering reputation too.
I voted for Capital One because they like to screw with peoples credit, and then if that person is forced to get Comcast for cable because of where they live, they could get bad rates when Comcast checks their credit score and thinks they're a bad consumer because Capital One screwed them up!
Plus Capital One is swallowing up some of the local banks around here and some convenient branches have now been shut down because of them.
@j-o-h-n: Cap One used to be in my wallet, until they tried to pull the rate game with me. Zero balance means I get to say f-you to them without penalty.
You don't need Comcast. FREE over the air TV is an alternative. It's free and no one will ruin your home. There's no contract to sign and the picture is much much clearer and better since over the air TV is not compressed like Comcast. I not only ditched Comcast, but I removed their coax line from my house. I don't want anything from Comcast touching my property!
I have no other choice but Comcast (no line of sight to either satellite company). They keep jacking up my rates every year, and I have to threaten cancellation before they will lower it. They also just "upgraded" (what a joke) where we now have to have a cable box on every TV if we want extended basic. And here's another bonus, the "free" boxes that they give you for your other tv's don't get the local HD channels. So, after my "upgrade", I have another stupid box on my other tv's, no HD (unless I want to pay them more $$ to rent a box), and another crappy remote. Screw Comcast.
Oh man, my brackets might be secure with this win..... *crosses fingers*
I HATE Cap One - stupid bastards! They could have had a loyal, paying customer but within five months they screwed up my payments so often that I yanked the card.
I loathe Comcast too, for their smugness about being the only game in town, but they haven't screwed me like the other ones.
@vastrightwing: For internet - I have no choice except for Comcast (and expensive Dish/Direct TV internet)
It would have been Comcast for me until this weekend. My car loan is through Cap One, unfortunately. I went through a natural disaster and called them to see if a payment can be deferred. Assholes refused to help.
Service labeling
I'm going to make the case that Comcast isn't even offering Internet service. Someone first needs to define just what Internet service means, because now it means whatever a provider says it means. Example, if the Internet is a switched web where data is directed via a router, then Comcast is not providing this service at all, but instead is providing a subset of the Internet by filtering/blocking traffic, slowing traffic, capping traffic and spoofing traffic. These were never part of the Internet specification and are being practiced today to "manage" networks. In my opinion, networks should not be managed using these methods: it's up to each end point (AKA customer) to decide how to manage their traffic. I manage my own traffic and block my own ports. I do not want anyone else doing this for me.
Imagine if the power company managed electricity like this: they monitor your power usage and cap your kilowatt usage to 100KW/Day, once you exceed that, a limiter device will trip and shut off your power until you reset it. You pay for 240 volt three phase power but sometimes the power is brought down to 220 volts so they can save energy. Then the power company notices that you have an unusually low power factor, so they start billing you an additional fee without telling you.
My idea of a properly managed network is to simply monitor bandwidth and route traffic as necessary to keep the flow moving. Denial of service attacks can be monitored and routing tables can be modified to stop attacks without affecting other traffic. High bandwidth users can be identified and sent notifications but to manage their pipe by spoofing and slowing packets is not the answer.
I might support buying a "managed" service as long as it is clearly spelled out how the network is being "managed". Data caps need to be clearly defined and you need to be able to monitor your usage to the byte. "Unlimited" should not be used if there is any kind of cap. This means that no provider can ever use the word unlimited unless they're referring to the bill you may receive. Any traffic shaping needs to be clearly identified and spoofing should all be pointed out. If you are going to sell a product, then label it properly!
@vastrightwing: I live in a high rise condo. We can only get high speed internet through Comcast, who provides the basic cable in our building.
@larrymac: IMO, Capital One is one the less terrible financial companies in this thing and I have a general hatred of Comcast so while I don't think they'll take it all, they get my vote this round.
@coan_net: I had pretty much the same experience, except that while they bumped my rate up they were advertising for NEW customers on promotional pricing that was about one-half the amount they charged me. Good-bye!
Some day we'll find out what happened to all the competitors in cabletelevision underworld. Where's the competition, there isn't any!
@coan_net: The second our city got a viable alternative to comcast internet, we jumped on it (thank you citywide wifi). Of course, after we called to cancel, they forgot to stop billing us. My vote is comcast.
This is a really hard one.
Monthly caps, the push for "tiered" internet levels, etc make Comcast foul in my book.
But Capital One keeps "denying" my charges, when I'm NOWHERE near my cap. Once when I literally had NO charges awaiting payment.
@nbs2: I can actually explain how Comcast is winning.
Look at it like this:
Capital One is a Credit Card company. They are optional. Any mailings I get from them are promptly sent to the shredder.
On the other hand, Comcast is a Cable / TelCo / Phone company. Now on its own this is not that bad - but coupled with shit customer service, terrible technicians, frequent outages of all services at once (including phone - pray you don't have an emergency), and the fact that they hold a monopoly over a significant portion of America and it is suddenly not unreasonable that Comcast is winning.
@axiomatic: And hence is exactly why I just voted for Concrap.
I've been screwed over by both but once upon a time when I was young, naive and very busy, Capital One tried to let THEIR mistake in not posting a payment effect my credit. Capital One gets it this time!
I'm glad I closed their sleazy ass card account 3 years ago!
1. Comcast never did a credit check on me; did they on you?
2. How exactly does Capital One "screw with people's credit"? They long since ended their previous practice of not reporting credit limits.
I would vote for Comcast, but because I don't pay the bill in my house for Comcast, so I'm going to have to stick my vote with Capital One.
When I turned eighteen I applied for a Capital One card to start building credit. Between graduating high school and getting ready to go off to college, I forgot that I had applied for said card until one day I decided to pull up my free (the actual free one) credit report and saw that, not only did I have a Capital One card, but someone had been using it and not paying the bill. I quickly called to tell them that I was not in possession of the card and that I wanted the account closed. I went back and forth with them trying to explain that I had never once in my life used the card because I never received it until I was informed that 'they would take care of it' and then promptly hung up on. Six months later, I got a call from a collection agent saying they wanted to collect on the debt I owed to Capital One, so obviously it was never taken care of. Screw Capital One.
Capital One raised my rates. They are allowed to do so. I'm not obligated to keep the card, but I choose to.
Comcast didn't show for an installation appointment, but I was luckily able to get DirecTV.
As much as I hate Capital One, I know that Comcast has a monopoly in many places, so I voted for Comcast.
@nbs2: It's very easy. I don't have a Capital One card, but I do use Comcast and just a day ago my damn internet kept crapping out while I was on Final Fantasy XI. Nothing earns my scorn more than causing a party wipe in a skill up grind.
Easy call. Comcast has a monopoly; you can always use a different credit card company if you don't like Capital One.
Comcast ripped me off. After I got hooked up for the Double Play service, I got a mysterious $10 overage on my bill and charged for a phone installation I never requested. I called CS, they said they'd take them off. The mysterious $10 charge remained. I called to have it taken off again, it never was.
I refused to pay the overage by paying the bill $10 shorter than charged. Sometime later they cut off my service. I went to the downtown office to pay the bill, they said they'd take it off. It wasn't, and I received a nasty note telling me to pay up.
I was enraged, but my girlfriend stepped in to pay that month's service, unnecessary overage and all.
It was only $10, but I still want our money back. What should I do?
@vladthepaler: Yep that's exactly it, monopolies are far more wrong than just another credit card provider.
@HFC: In Portland we had to get digital boxes for cable by .. well, today, actually. Anyway, I set them up for my parents, and I had to call FOUR times to activate them. "Simple", my ass.
BINGO!
I don't know why so many people voted for Capital One. There are far worse CC companies out there. Don't like Capital One's fees? You can go somewhere else. NOT SO if you're like the thousands out there that are trapped in a Comcast-controlled monopoly area.
My choice for Internet and TV, for example is Qwest or NOTHING. The sadder part about my situation is that Qwest will soon be outsourcing their TV service to DirecTV, but since our building doesn't face south, they can't install a satellite dish here, so my choice for TV will be NOTHING.
Hooray for capitalism!
Comcast is the Devil.
How is Comcast winning? They don't have a monthly cap!