Reader “Mr. Pants” writes us with the story of why he canceled Comcast. It’s all the reasons that everyone cancels Comcast wrapped up into one spiffy complaint letter.

Comcast:

• keeps billing him for his old service after he’s moved.
• can’t fix his crappy reception.
• is stingy with service credits.
• misses scheduled appointments.
• is overpriced.

  Mr. Pants writes:

  So I had Comcast.

  Had.

  It went like this. Back in February26-March1ish, my wife and I moved into our new home. I called Comcast and asked them to move my service. They told me, “No problem!” and we agreed on a date and time-block. I had taken all of my equipment from the apartment with me (Digital Cable box and Cable Modem). The cable technician showed up at 5:15pm, even though they told me that he’d be there between noon and five. Okay, no big deal, so you can’t get here within a 5 or 6 hour timeblock. Just give me my interwebs.

  Fast forward 3 months. I had been paying my bill online using the same email address and password I originally created when I first opened my Comcast account 2 years prior. Suddenly my service is terminated. No TV, no www. Okay. What the heck right? I call Comcast, and they tell me, “Well you’re overdue by ~$300.00” That’s odd, I think to myself. But you know, maybe I just missed some of the bills and forgot to log in and pay them. So I tell them I’d login and pay the bill, since they charge you a service fee to give a credit card to a person over the phone. The person on the phone kindly transfers me to the tech support department, and they turn my internets back on for 48 hours pending payment. I log in, and note that I’m current, but it will allow me to pay next months bill which is only around $110.

  Great. Weird but fine whatever. 48 hours later, my cable goes back out again. Seriously WTF. So I call Comcast again. “Guys what the hell is going on. I KNOW I’m current.” They do some checking. And here’s where it gets interesting.

  “Sir, which account are you inquiring about? I have two listed under your name. Location A (Apartment) and Location H (House)….”

  Okay what the heck. I ask her, “Lady. I had you move my service, and I had a Comcast truck out in front of my house. Why is my apartment still active?”

  “So you no longer live there?”

  “No, my wife and I moved. Hence the service transfer.”

  “Okay sir, let me close your account here… It looks like it’s all set. Now the matter of the H account. It appears you haven’t paid the bill for this account since it was created in March.”

  “Are you KIDDING ME?? I asked you guys to MOVE my service, and you opened a new account in my name? Isn’t that identity theft? And do you not send someone to disconnect the old account when someone moves? And why am I still able to make payments online to that account? And why did you have to open a new account? Couldn’t you just change my address?”

  “Sir I can’t access that old account to check anything, it’s closed.”

  “Please get a manager on the phone right now.” So I sit on hold for around 15 minutes, all the while pacing around my house. I was Mr. Furious. Except I look like Wash from Firefly. So Mr. Furious with Wash’s face. No no I have it. Wash in Knocked-Up when he says, “Tight!” to the main character chick. His face is all mad looking.

  Finally the “Floor Manager” gets on the phone. I politely say, “Look, I know you’re just doing your job, and the screwup is in the system some where but here’s what happened….” And I proceed to explain what’s just transpired over the course of the last 3 months, up to and including the last 45 minutes on the phone with Comcast.

  She says, “Sir I’m very sorry about all of this, I’m accessing your old account now, and I’ll credit your new account with all of the payments you’ve made since you opened the new account.”

  “Hold up there professor. I didn’t open that account. You guys did. We need to be clear on this.”

  “Yes that’s right sir, sorry for the confusion. So I’ve credited your account with all of the payments you’ve made, which should take care of any problems you were having, and your balance is now ~$78.92.”

  I said, “Wow that’s interesting. My old account was current, but my new account is somehow over seventy dollars in the red?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “No seriously, listen to what I’m saying. My OLD account was current?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “My new account, that I didn’t create and have no login information for, is somehow over seventy dollars in the red?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And you’re the manager on duty?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Is there a manager’s manager on duty?” This was Friday of the Memorial day weekend. So she informed me that no there wouldn’t be a manager on site until Tuesday. I told her that I was extremely upset and that I would like a courtesy call on Tuesday. I told her the phone number on my account was my cell phone and that they could call me any time.

  Over a week passed and I did not hear from Comcast. I finally called back and talked to a gentleman that informed me that the $70+ was for the transfer of service or something. Possibly the new account activation. In any case, I was livid.

  I told him to rot in hell and that there was no way that I would pay that after I was already paying them over $1200/yr for their service, and that if they couldn’t handle a change of address, they didn’t deserve my money. Of course, this is after I had to re-explain my situation to the poor guy, which probably took a good 10 minutes.

  He apologized and had the charges dropped from my account.

  I was pretty pissed, but we had our services, and everything seemed on the up and up. I felt like Comcast should have given me some token of their appreciation for me not stabbing someone through the phone for all of the bullshit, but whatever. So they’re a shitty company. I had my service.

  Fast-forward a month. Our digital cable starts getting pretty flaky. The screen is getting blurry (pixelated?) and the sound keeps cutting out. I call Comcast. They tell me there is a known outage in the area and that they’d have it fixed. I ask them if they’re going to credit my account since the service outage is effecting my consumption of said service. They claim that it won’t be a problem. A week goes by, I call back. Same conversation. A week goes by, I call back. Same conversation.

  Finally the 4th or 5th week that I call and complain that our digital cable is screwy they tell me that there are no reported issues in the area. They schedule a tech for service. He comes out and replaces our digital cable box. Comcast offers to credit me for the time I called to the time the technician was on-site. The latest call mind you. A whopping $17 credit.

  Wow. I call again and complain. They tell me that I could call as soon as I have a service issue. I told them that I did, and that the CS personnel need to do a better job tracking who’s calling.

  A week goes by and my digital cable is screwy again. I call. A tech comes out the next day. He shows up at 3:15 after I asked for them to come between 5 and 7pm. He calls me on my cell phone. Great. Luckily I was running errands in the area so I could stop home. He turns on the cable box, and low and behold everything is working perfectly. He says, “There must have been a service outage in the area.” He tightens my coax connections and notes that it was a possible area outage on his call sheet.

  Great.

  Next. Fricking. Day. My digital cable is pretty much out. Blurry, pixelated. Just ask Zach is so messed up I can’t understand a word he’s saying, but luckily I’ve seen the ad enough to know that it’s about Rain-Fade on the dish.

  Last nerve is reaching critical mass.

  I call Comcast again. Explain to them that I’m extremely upset. They say that they can schedule a tech to come out. Fine, but put me in touch with your billing department, I want to ask about my service and what I can do to save some money.

  So then I talk to billing. I ask what would it take to step down one internet package? I’m paying $45/mo. for 6mb. I don’t really NEED 6mb, and I’ve played games and downloaded stuff on my parents 3mb DSL that they only pay just over $20/mo. for.

  She tells me that they have a $24.99 package, but it’s only 768k up/down.

  Holy shit. That’s highway robbery. I politely tell her that internet bandwidth, while awesome, is kindof like McDonalds. It’s yummy and will fill you up, but over a certain amount you won’t notice it anymore and you feel shitty regardless of how much more you eat.

  Then she says she could save me money by putting me in a Digital Cable package with more stuff for only $80/mo for 6 months. Well holy crap what is it after 6 months? “The regular cost of 119.95 sir.” Oh. So then I’d be at around $170/mo instead of my $120?

  “Well… Yeah I guess you would..” She replies.

  So I ask her if I can just cancel my TV and keep my internet. She tells me that if I do that my internet service will go up by $15/mo. because I don’t have any television services.

  OMG are you serious? $60/mo. for this?

  “Bag it. Cancel it all. I am so sick and tired of you guys.”

  “We’re sorry to see you go sir.”

  NOT. SORRY. ENOUGH. Obviously.

  So I have no internet. The DSL equipment should be here this week. I will be back online as soon as I have a dial-tone. And on the bright side, DirectTV has the Big-Ten network. Finally I can watch UofM games again should my wife and I decide to get TV service of some sort. In any case, we don’t pay money to have people treat us like this. Too many people do, and I don’t think they realize there’s a shiny new world of alternatives out there.

  They will though.

  (Photo:Tyler Durden’s Imaginary Friend)

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