Reasons That I Hate Comcast
Here are some of my complaints about Comcast. Some are just idiocity…some are proof that they suck.
- My Digital Voice Center password changes to the default for no reason. One second I can use my password, then 10 minutes later it’s set to the default.
- My A/C is still broken because of Comcast. It broke over the weekend, and the repair guys were supposed to come over on Tuesday to fix it. Comcast’s entire VOIP system was down, so the A/C guys couldn’t confirm the appointment and cancelled.
- My HD channels have had some pixelization each day for the past 22 months. During heavy usage times, it can be pixelated for hours at a time.
- My audio cuts out on all channels every so often. During heavy TV viewing times or days when the network is moody, it’ll happen every 30 seconds or so for hours at a time.
- I’ve had 7 techs and 4 DVR boxes over the course of several months, and none of them have really done anything to fix any problem.
- Every tech that has come out has promised to do something to fix the problem (like open a ticket with another group or test the mainline coming into the neighborhood), but not a single one has actually done it.
There has been an orange (now yellow) cable in my yard for 7 weeks now waiting for someone to bury it. The guys who bury the cable have missed five appointments, and all I can get is apologies and promises that it will be done by X date.Once I made Comcast get the cabling contractor on the phone, they had it done the next day. The wife said that she talked to the guy doing the burial, and he said that he had heard about it only 2 business days beforehand. He hates Comcast, too.- It took Comcast 21 months to escalate my problem to the next level.
It took 3 weeks for a technical supervisor to call me.I finally got a call from a supervisor today, and his attitude and plan-of-attack actually make me…confident that they’re going to do something. Well, it’s still Comcast, so we’ll see.I spoke too soon; the supervisor never called me back.- My trouble tickets are constantly being closed saying that the problem is resolved even though I’m still having those problems and no one has contacted me.
- The Digital Voice Center is supposed to keep track of my voicemails, incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. Everything errors out except for the voicemails. See “My trouble tickets are continuously being closed…” above.
Everything they have online is based on the original email address they gave when we first got Internet service from them. They misspelled our name and won’t let us change it to the proper spelling.A technician tried to find the email address associated with our account and couldn’t even find it.- When they installed Digital Voice, they sent over three guys when one would have sufficed. One guy just sat in my office chair for 2 hours while one was on the phone and the other worked.
- The installers of our Digital Voice left before fixing a problem where we have to dial a 1 or 0 before we can make local calls. They said to talk to people that they talk to when they’re done on their end (the people that the installer talks to to make sure everything is finished). These people said that was an installer issue, but they had already bolted. They put us on hold and called the installer and told them to come back. They never did. Still waiting and still have that problem. See “My trouble tickets are continuously being closed…” above.
- The DVR box continuously locks up, and all that tech support says is to reset the box. Worthless.
- The cable boxes lag. I’ve hit the button on the remote to pause a show only to see it play for 40 or more seconds before it finally pauses.
- OnDemand only works about 30% of the time. The rest of the time, I’m either waiting for a page to refresh or completely losing connectivity to the video server.
- Some techs that have come over tried to tell me that I should be using the yellow RCA for video to my TV. I guess they don’t notice the 50″ HDTV that they’re looking at is actually in HD.
- We were having problems with our Starz channels, and a tech come over to check it out. He discovered that the feed from the splitter to my living room was just sitting in the plug. The previous tech hadn’t even screwed it down. WTF!?!?!?
- Every time lightning strikes, we lose audio. We had DirectTV for about 5 years and never had as many weather-induced problems as we do with cable.
on July 22nd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
YES!!! I’m so (soooooooo) with you!
I spent 48 minutes on the phone with them the other night because I needed to change the email address they sent my billing alerts to. And these turnips insisted that I was trying to adjust my GMAIL settings on their site. …because I don’t know that I’d need to go to gmail to do that. I hate them, they are turnips.
on July 27th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I am a service tech for Shaw Cable in Canada and have a few comments.
Times of heavy usage will have no effect on your signal at all. Your TV signal, whether analog (lower channels) or digital (higher channels/HD) are broadcast via a radio signal. This signal is broadcast throughout the entire cable system at what should be a sufficient level for all TV’s to pick up. A good example is if you and every person in your city were to turn your radio on to the same station everyone would still get a clear signal. Just because the car next to you is listening to the same station as you does not mean there is less signal for you.
Now as for your pixelating, specifically at certain times of the day. This would mean that there is not enough signal reaching your cable box. Since we now know that there is enough signal broadcast to the street we can assume that the problem will be between the street and your cable box. Since you say that your HD channels are what are causing you problems we now know that it is your higher frequency channels that are affected. Higher channels crapping out are often: water in the lines, too many splitters/cheap radio shack splitters, or possible a short in the line. A good way to confirm this is to check your highest analog channels and see if they are snowy at all. I don’t know what kind of company Comcast is but they don’t sound like they’re too good with customer service. The only thing I can advise you to do on your own is to install a Drop Amp. This will boost your signal if it is too low. This does not always fix the problem but might be worth the try. Make sure that it is ‘two way capable.’ It could make the signal too high on your lower channels so could be a trade of one problem for another.
As for the shitty cable box; I can assume that you guys down there are using the same piece of shit Motorola 6416 HD PVR boxes. These problems you are stating sounds like problems within the box themselves and have nothing to do with the cable signal. These are problems all cable providers across North America are experiencing and are in constant communication with Motorola to send firmware updates out to your cable boxes. Unfortunately there is not much that you cable provider can do except to reset the box in hopes that it didn’t receive the last update. You can put the blame on these problems on Motorola.
Anyway, hope you have better luck in the future, it’s too bad you guys don’t have Shaw Cable down there. Truly an excellent company. Stocks up from $11 to 54 over the last eight years. Will split soon so now is a great time to invest!
on July 29th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Dude, you’re getting better tech support from readers of your blog than from the dozens of open tickets with comcast! That is comcastic!
on March 11th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
COMCAST SUCKS!!!!! $1200 A YEAR FOR “SERVICE” WHAT A TOTAL LOAD! MY SERVICE WORKS IN THE MORNING FAILS AROUND NOON AND COMES BACK AFTER SIX P.M. - SO AFTER BEING TREATED LIKE A GIANT A-HOLE OVER THE PHONE THEY TELL ME WE CAN SEND A TECH OUT - CAN SIT YOU AROUND AND WAIT FOR FIVE HOURS? ALL THIS FOR ONLY $1200 YEAR! WHAT A DEAL!! ACCT. 8497505300194397
on April 16th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I have problems with comcast’s non-net neutrality, but I’ve been pretty fortunate in my dealings with them and my TV and cable internet service. I believe these local pipes were initially laid down by Road Runner though, and then bought my comcast, so maybe that makes a difference? Anyways, just wanted to provide my side of things to balance the picture a bit. People tend to pile on with the negatives…