The mechanic at your local garage might also be savvy enough to fix your furnace, but you probably wouldn’t expect the furnace company to send her out to your house to do a recall-related repair. So why is Samsung sending out Dish Network techs to fix defective Samsung washing machines? And why is Dish okay with techs using this opportunity to upsell satellite TV service? [More]
technicians
Couple Sues Cox After Cable Guy Kills Their Son
By 10.5.11
An Arizona family is suing Cox cable company after one of the cable companies’ outsourced technicians executed their son in a botched break-in. That ex-contractor is now sitting on death row. [More]
Charter To Customer With Five Failed Service Calls: "You Haven't Bugged Us Enough To Resolve Your Problem"
By 9.21.10
Charter tells it like it is: the problem with Eric’s incorrectly installed Internet service is that he hasn’t been trying hard enough to fix it. Here’s a copy of an email that Eric tried to send to Charter’s CEO last week, but it bounced back. Maybe someone at Charter can read it here? [More]
Computer Techs Are Still Pervs
By 7.31.09
Best Buy will face stiff competition if it ever tries to penetrate the UK market, as this hidden camera investigation into peeping tom computer repair shops reveals.
Please Do Not Expose Your Genitals To The Comcast Guy
By 4.19.09
A [Howell, Michigan] man was ordered to stand trial on charges he exposed his genitals to a computer technician trying to fix his slow Internet service.
Comcast Will Pay You $500 If They Break Your $2000 TV
By 3.12.09
Comcast’s new service agreement (PDF) has some curious details buried in the fine print. Here’s the short version: “customer equipment” includes your computer and TV set, and if Comcast somehow damages or breaks any customer equipment through “gross negligence or willful misconduct,” they will pay you up to $500, no more. “This shall be your sole and exclusive remedy relating to such activity.”
Comcast Fixes Customer's Modem Problem After Stinky Installer Man Disappears
By 3.5.09
Earlier today, Jessica wrote to us about her Comcast horror story: there was something that smelled terrible, and the smell was coming from inside her apartment! He also hooked up her replacement modem incorrectly, so it still didn’t work, then said he’d be right back and drove off forever. Luckily, she was able to steal enough wifi to send an email to Comcast, and as of now the problem has been resolved.
Dell Takes Four Months To Replace Broken Trackpad
By 2.7.09
The trackpad on Jim’s Dell laptop hasn’t worked since September despite a new motherboard, new hard drive, and four replacement trackpads. One Dell technician managed to dent the laptop’s speaker grill. Another, dispatched to replace the hard drive, brought a drive that was slower than the model in Jim’s laptop. Dell promised to send the speedier drive, but instead they sent a box labeled “hard drive” containing only a screwdriver.
Is This Computer Water Damaged? Circuit City Says Yes
By 9.25.08
Robert bought an extended warranty from Circuit City, but they won’t honor it to repair his broken computer because they claim it has water damage. Robert writes, “As God is my witness, this computer has never seen water,” and he sent us the photos Circuit City sent him.
Apple: MacBooks Can't Handle GarageBand
By 9.13.08
Two Apple customer service representatives told reader Mark to blame his MacBook’s four hard drive crashes on GarageBand, professional-grade software that his puny consumer-grade laptop ‘can’t handle.’ Every MacBook comes with GarageBand pre-loaded as part of Apple’s iLife suite.
Powerpoint By Pissed Comcast Employee Reveals They Know Exactly How Much They Suck
By 6.20.08
It’s no secret to Consumerist readers that Comcast’s outsourced techs are often late, rude and incompetent, and that calling customer service is more akin to improving dialogue in a Beckett play, but as this exclusively obtained powerpoint made by a Comcast employee shows, it’s no secret to the cable company either. (I know the damn thing wasn’t officially created by Comcast corp. C’mon, give us more credit than that. It’s pretty obvious that it’s too funny to be official. I just meant to describe how it was created by a Comcast employee and passed around to other Comcast employees and came from inside Comcast. I realize now that “internal” makes it sound official, and that wasn’t my intention. I apologize for the confusion.) Watch and/or download the powerpoint, inside…
55 Support Tickets Later And Your Verizon FiOS TV Service Still Doesn't Work
By 2.9.08
Andrew writes: “I had been a satisfied customer of Verizon for several years – I have had phone service with them since the days of Bell Atlantic and have had their fiber-optic internet service (FiOS) since March 2005. In March 2007, I decided to switch cable providers and signed up for Verizon’s FiOS TV service as it was cheaper than Comcast and supposedly provided superior picture quality. As the saying goes, “you get what you pay for.”
10 Confessions Of A Circuit City FireDog Technician
By 2.1.08
A FireDog Technician writes in with the following confessions.
Time Warner Offers $30 Credit To Apologize For Hammering Through Wall, Drilling Through Floor
By 10.7.07
A Time Warner installation tech searching for a cable line hammered several holes in reader Christos’ wall, and then drilled a few more in his floor. When the random destruction failed to produce the wire, the tech crept downstairs and split Christos’ neighbor’s line. Now Christos can only watch the channel selected on his neighbor’s cable box.
Verizon CSR Gives Fake "Callback" Number That Rings A Dating Hotline
By 8.7.07
Ariel’s phone and DSL inexplicably stopped working and Verizon told her that it would cost her $91 to have it fixed. She agreed and reluctantly took a day off work to wait for the Verizon tech, who, shockingly, never showed.
Comcast Leaves Customer Without Forty-Eight Channels
By 3.3.07
Comcast has left reader Laura without forty-eight channels since early February. Laura has replaced four cable boxes, and spoken with several technicians. Each one suggests the same diagnosis.
Shockingly, it is not a problem with the line or the box. It is a problem with the coding coming in through the line. The technician tells us that our line is showing both Adelphia codes and Comcast codes coming through it. When both sets of codes hit the box, the box shuts down.
Diagnosing the problem is not the same as fixing the problem. Though aware of the issue, Comcast has not offered a solution. Laura is still without forty-eight channels. Comcast is still billing her for full service.
Geek Squad City Unveiled, With Fabio
By 11.2.06
This is a Multivu PR newsreel about the unveiling of Best Buy’s Geek Squad new central headquarters. Geek Squad City sounds awesome. By all appearances, the video is an upload of the footage supplied to TV news stations that helps them from having to do any reporting of their own.
