It all began when Karen paid her Comcast bill online. Maybe that’s what caused her issue, or maybe it wasn’t–all she knows is that when she tried to log in to her account after the payment posted, she got kicked back to the login screen. That’s how two weeks of what she called “Xfinity Hades” began.

She tried everything that you’re supposed to when you have login trouble: tried different devices, cleared the cookies in her Web browser, and tried different browsers. When she called Comcast, things somehow got worse. “[I] called Comcast and the agent said he would have to ‘temporarily disable your account’ and reset the password. Before I could scream ‘no’, he did that.” That transaction just got her a new password that didn’t work either. No!

Now she could send e-mails but not view her account or access her secondary e-mail accounts. She couldn’t change the passwords for them, either. When she called in for more help, the ever-helpful agents told her that the issue was her computer, or maybe her home Internet connection. “All Comcast wants to do is send a refresh signal to my modem (what?) and tell me to use a different browser,” she wrote to us at the time. “They can’t grasp that this is happening on ANY device or PC.” She had even tried using neighbors’ computers and Internet connections. It didn’t change anything. Finally, a third agent understood what she was saying and filed a ticket, saying that it would be resolved in three business days. Six business days later, she called Comcast back to check. “The ticket was closed because we fixed your issue” was the reply from Kabletown. Karen says that she ended up in the hospital emergency department being checked out for “stress-related heart problems.”

Like many of our stories, we learned about her problem when she e-mailed our tipline. We wrote back, and received an “account not available” message. Uh oh.

We picked up the phone as if it were 1994 or something and asked whether we could pass her information on to the Comcast Cares team of executive customer service ninjas. They were able to fix her account quickly, but did she really need to escalate? What the heck happened to her account, anyway?

“Their new slogan is ‘Dream Big.’ Should be … ‘Dream ON’,” she wrote to Consumerist after her account was fixed (and we could send her e-mail again.)

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.