Reader K. wants to let us know that our tips for writing an effective complaint letter helped her solve her parents battle with Comcast. For months they’d been complaining about faulty internet service — only to be told they had the best signal they could get. Turns out, however, that their cable had never been installed properly. Whoops!

K. writes:

I’ve been lurking on your site for about a year now and would like to thank you for the ongoing advice on how to write an effective complaint letter. I was visiting my senior citizen parents who have Comcast service — other cable options are being blocked and I usuallly only have time to solve one problem each visit.

Comcast is in the midst of a digital upgrade in their area. The tech person came four hours after the window given for the service call for the required upgrade, fiddled with the TVs, disabled the cable and left, saying that he needed more boxes and would be returning at 9 the next morning.

The next day, they got a call at 1pm saying that he was on his way and of course he never showed up.

By the time I arrived for my Dad’s birthday, everyone was very angry at having to stay at home for hours on end and NOT have cable service to boot.

On Sunday, after a couple of talks with surly CS workers who insisted there was nothing they could do (and finding out that my parents had been overcharged for a year for converter boxes), I went to Consumerist and composed a short letter (not an EECB, but to We_Can_Help@Comcast.com) saying that we needed service visit the next day, a credit for listed overcharges and credit for the four days they were without service.

Shortly thereafter, I received an email from someone with a name (fancy that), who said that she was looking into it. A competent tech person arrived today, who also discovered that their internet connection had never been installed properly (they had been calling about internet problems for months only to be told that it they had the best signal they could get).

We are still working on the overcharges, but at least they have service. if I had not been a reader of your site, I’m convinced we would have been caught in the endless loop of uncaring CS reps and waiting for disappearing tech people, ending in termination of service and endless calls from my parents about how to fix the cable issue.

Worst Company in America, indeed. They will be getting another cable provider by the time I visit this summer.

Thanks!

You are quite welcome, K.

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