When Comcast activates the emergency alert system, Jim’s cable box snaps into action and tunes itself to QVC. The locked cable box refuses to tune to any other channel, so Jim is left wondering what emergency information he’s missing while staring at the latest deals on cubic zirconia bracelets.

Jim writes:

On Sunday we had severe thunderstorms here in Philly. During that time Comcast switched and locked their boxes to their EAS system. But instead of important messages, here in Philly we were forced to watch QVC. Guess we should be buying things in an emergency.

The box isn’t tuning itself to QVC so much as it’s tuning itself to channel 3, which happens to broadcast QVC. Somewhere down the pipe someone is supposed to switch to the programming to emergency notifications, and that isn’t happening. Asking Comcast to fix the problem will be as useful as shopping through QVC. Go straight over their head and instead file a complaint directly with the FCC.

FCC Consumer Complaints [FCC]

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