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What did I miss? I didn't see a "why" in there. Is there further reading somewhere? That being said, my experience with Comcast has been REALLY GOOD. I don'

by dpcan 17y ago

What did I miss? I didn't see a "why" in there. Is there further reading somewhere? That being said, my experience with Comcast has been REALLY GOOD. I don't understand the hate. Is it their policies maybe? Policies that just don't affect me I guess. The bandwidth cap... I'm a super heavy Internet user. Vidoes, audio all day, MLB TV, etc. I barely even break 40-50GB per month according to their system. Then there's the service. I had a problem with one channel not showing HD correctly. They gave me Starz for a year for free, then they sent someone out THAT DAY, they gave me a new DVR and a new remote, checked all connections, crawled up the pole in the back of the house and checked the connections up there, and stayed until everything tested out perfectly. When we first started with their IP phone service, we had problems with connections. They replaced our router within a day and it worked perfectly after that. I'm sorry, but I couldn't expect better service from a company. Maybe it's that they have a lot of crappy old hardware that needs upgraded (apparently), but that aside, I don't understand why they got the golden poop award.

justinph 17y ago
I think it has to do with the fact that they: + are a huge monopoly + want to filter and tier the internet and have done so in the past + move into markets with low prices, then inflate them once they take over + don't want to be seen as a utility, even though they are + have horrible customer service if anything goes wrong + scare the crap out of people with the whole NBC merger thing
- Retric 17y ago
  Just to give people an idea what "have horrible customer service" means, I called comcast saying my remote was broken and they said they only way to pick another one up was in person. That's right they where unable to mail me a new remote even if I was willing to pay for the shipping.
  - MrFoof 17y ago
    I can top this. I'll try to keep it down to a summary. I was moving from one unit in my building to another. I had confirmation on the phone that service would remain on in both units for a month. Tech shows up, no work order, doesn't identify himself, disconnects the old unit, doesn't connect the new one, leaves. I call and complain. Next day they go out and connect the new unit. They say they will not reconnect the old unit, but they will gladly bill me for the month anyways. The day after that, they disco it again. This is confirmed because I have no signal at my patch panel. I call. They say it's obviously my modem. They claimed they tried to send it a new bootfile, and it failed. I asked them what my serial number was because I had no signal to my apartment. For if they could connect through the power of magic, they can tell me my serial number. Awkward silence. I ask to escalate to her super. I get her super. He tells me to buy a new modem. I entertain the idea and do so. I call back. Liar rep gets me, recognizes its me. Hangs up. At this point I start bitching on Twitter. Within 2 minutes I get a response, and a number to call. I call back. Get a VP of customer service. He apologizes for everything, and authorizes a truck roll for the next day. He can't explain why I was lied to by a technician and two customer service reps, nor why it took me bemoaning my situation to the internet to get a shred of service. I still got billed for both units. And I took 3 days off from work. However, I have no other serious alternative in Boston until mayor Menino and Verizon kiss and make up.
  - matwood 17y ago
    I have one even better. Comcast is actually a big group of companies split up by state. I was told multiple times that each state does not share data, accounting etc... I got to this point because when I moved from one state to another I had to close out my account in one state and open in another state. During the move I happened to accidentally double pay my final bill. Now, any reasonable company would just credit me my overpayment on my new service (in the same company right?). Nope, everyone kept telling me it was impossible. I'd either talk to someone from my old state or my new state, but neither could see any data from the other. After 3 months of this they mailed me a check. Just so happens my mailman is horrible (completely different story, but this happens all time) and somehow managed to tear the numbers on the bottom of the check so I couldn't deposit it ugh. Once again on the phone with comcast telling me I'd have to wait for them to cancel the check before mailing me a new one and still telling me it's impossible to credit the account. After 10 days I called back and the CSR acted like I had never called. So they started the process over again. This went on for over a month. Finally last month (nearly 7 months after the original overpayment) they CREDITED my new account! Something I was told over and over was completely impossible across states. EDIT I wanted to add that actual internet and cable service from comcast has been fine, and the people on the phone were generally nice.
samd 17y ago
It was decided by voters in a March Madness style tournament. Comcast beat out Ticketmaster in the final round. Here's the bracket: http://consumerist.com/2010/04/meet-your-worst-company-in-america-final-four-for-2010.html http://consumerist.com/2010/04/meet-your-worst-company-in-am... It's obviously biased toward consumer oriented businesses. As far as I know Comcast hasn't killed anyone like health insurance companies or squandered billions of dollars like AIG.
- ImFatYoureFat 17y ago
  Given this, it seem as if it is more a ranking of public opinion rather than customer satisfaction, although i'm sure there is plenty of over lap. But there are probably quite a few outliers. I would doubt that many of the people who voted on this had ever used cash4gold. Same is probably true for apple since it usual retains pretty strong positive brand loyalty. On a separate note, it seems strange that there was more negativity directed at Bank of America than Citi. Maybe this is just because more people are customers of BoA than Citi.
  - tseabrooks 17y ago
    As a loyal consumerist reader (but someone who didn't participate in the worst company vote) - At a quick glance glance it looks as if the companies that tended to do the worst were companies you'll find a large number of popular articles about on consumerist. Consumerist has had it out for cash4gold for awhile now (with good reason) and they run a large number of BofA articles and this goes doubly for Comcast. I suppose it's only to be expected that the readers of Consumerist would vote in the companies that the consumerist runs the most negative (though not unfairly so) articles about.
lmkg 17y ago
Comcast had the worst American Customer Satisfaction Index rating in the country in 2004 and 2007 (note that compares against government agencies such as the IRS and DMV as well). From the horror stories I've heard, your experience would appear to be an outlier. Lots of slow service, lots of failing to fix problems, lots of extraneous charges. Granted, cable companies in general are pretty bad with that[1], but statistically, Comcast seems to be perceived as worse. Note, for example, that the "bandwidth cap" you mention was not originally a stated policy--they just stopped service with no explanation. Anecdotally, back when I played MMO's, whenever someone got disconnected and didn't come back for several hours, their first words upon reconnecting where always "fuck comcast." I'm not sure I heard any other company mentioned in similar circumstances. This came from quite a few players. Not enough to be statistically valid, maybe around 10, but enough to raise a red flag for me. Comcast is also the company I associate most with anti-net-neutrality initiatives. They've admited to hiring a rent-a-mob to crowd out net neutrality advocates from an FCC hearing on the subject, and they don't just throttle torrents, but go so far as to insert false data in order to break connections. [1] My roommate canceled Time Warner cable when we switched to AT&T. TW sent us bills for another four months, despite my roommate re-canceling every month. The last few warned that if we didn't pay they would discontinue service, so the problem eventually corrected itself.
- isleyaardvark 17y ago
  I have Time Warner and can only dream of having a connection stable enough to even think about playing an MMO. I don't even know if this comment will go through, since just a moment ago my roommate asked "Did the internet go out for you, too?"
amalcon 17y ago
They're the only entity I know of that can get away with charging you to cancel a service. They're one of the few I'm aware of that can "give" you a mandatory "upgrade", requiring you to physically go to one of their locations to exchange hardware in order to retain the same service you've always had.

by dpcan 17y ago

justinph 17y ago

I think it has to do with the fact that they: + are a huge monopoly + want to filter and tier the internet and have done so in the past + move into markets with low prices, then inflate them once they take over + don't want to be seen as a utility, even though they are + have horrible customer service if anything goes wrong + scare the crap out of people with the whole NBC merger thing

Retric 17y ago
Just to give people an idea what "have horrible customer service" means, I called comcast saying my remote was broken and they said they only way to pick another one up was in person. That's right they where unable to mail me a new remote even if I was willing to pay for the shipping.
- MrFoof 17y ago
  I can top this. I'll try to keep it down to a summary. I was moving from one unit in my building to another. I had confirmation on the phone that service would remain on in both units for a month. Tech shows up, no work order, doesn't identify himself, disconnects the old unit, doesn't connect the new one, leaves. I call and complain. Next day they go out and connect the new unit. They say they will not reconnect the old unit, but they will gladly bill me for the month anyways. The day after that, they disco it again. This is confirmed because I have no signal at my patch panel. I call. They say it's obviously my modem. They claimed they tried to send it a new bootfile, and it failed. I asked them what my serial number was because I had no signal to my apartment. For if they could connect through the power of magic, they can tell me my serial number. Awkward silence. I ask to escalate to her super. I get her super. He tells me to buy a new modem. I entertain the idea and do so. I call back. Liar rep gets me, recognizes its me. Hangs up. At this point I start bitching on Twitter. Within 2 minutes I get a response, and a number to call. I call back. Get a VP of customer service. He apologizes for everything, and authorizes a truck roll for the next day. He can't explain why I was lied to by a technician and two customer service reps, nor why it took me bemoaning my situation to the internet to get a shred of service. I still got billed for both units. And I took 3 days off from work. However, I have no other serious alternative in Boston until mayor Menino and Verizon kiss and make up.
- matwood 17y ago
  I have one even better. Comcast is actually a big group of companies split up by state. I was told multiple times that each state does not share data, accounting etc... I got to this point because when I moved from one state to another I had to close out my account in one state and open in another state. During the move I happened to accidentally double pay my final bill. Now, any reasonable company would just credit me my overpayment on my new service (in the same company right?). Nope, everyone kept telling me it was impossible. I'd either talk to someone from my old state or my new state, but neither could see any data from the other. After 3 months of this they mailed me a check. Just so happens my mailman is horrible (completely different story, but this happens all time) and somehow managed to tear the numbers on the bottom of the check so I couldn't deposit it ugh. Once again on the phone with comcast telling me I'd have to wait for them to cancel the check before mailing me a new one and still telling me it's impossible to credit the account. After 10 days I called back and the CSR acted like I had never called. So they started the process over again. This went on for over a month. Finally last month (nearly 7 months after the original overpayment) they CREDITED my new account! Something I was told over and over was completely impossible across states. EDIT I wanted to add that actual internet and cable service from comcast has been fine, and the people on the phone were generally nice.

samd 17y ago

It was decided by voters in a March Madness style tournament. Comcast beat out Ticketmaster in the final round. Here's the bracket: http://consumerist.com/2010/04/meet-your-worst-company-in-america-final-four-for-2010.html http://consumerist.com/2010/04/meet-your-worst-company-in-am... It's obviously biased toward consumer oriented businesses. As far as I know Comcast hasn't killed anyone like health insurance companies or squandered billions of dollars like AIG.

ImFatYoureFat 17y ago
Given this, it seem as if it is more a ranking of public opinion rather than customer satisfaction, although i'm sure there is plenty of over lap. But there are probably quite a few outliers. I would doubt that many of the people who voted on this had ever used cash4gold. Same is probably true for apple since it usual retains pretty strong positive brand loyalty. On a separate note, it seems strange that there was more negativity directed at Bank of America than Citi. Maybe this is just because more people are customers of BoA than Citi.
- tseabrooks 17y ago
  As a loyal consumerist reader (but someone who didn't participate in the worst company vote) - At a quick glance glance it looks as if the companies that tended to do the worst were companies you'll find a large number of popular articles about on consumerist. Consumerist has had it out for cash4gold for awhile now (with good reason) and they run a large number of BofA articles and this goes doubly for Comcast. I suppose it's only to be expected that the readers of Consumerist would vote in the companies that the consumerist runs the most negative (though not unfairly so) articles about.

lmkg 17y ago

Comcast had the worst American Customer Satisfaction Index rating in the country in 2004 and 2007 (note that compares against government agencies such as the IRS and DMV as well). From the horror stories I've heard, your experience would appear to be an outlier. Lots of slow service, lots of failing to fix problems, lots of extraneous charges. Granted, cable companies in general are pretty bad with that[1], but statistically, Comcast seems to be perceived as worse. Note, for example, that the "bandwidth cap" you mention was not originally a stated policy--they just stopped service with no explanation. Anecdotally, back when I played MMO's, whenever someone got disconnected and didn't come back for several hours, their first words upon reconnecting where always "fuck comcast." I'm not sure I heard any other company mentioned in similar circumstances. This came from quite a few players. Not enough to be statistically valid, maybe around 10, but enough to raise a red flag for me. Comcast is also the company I associate most with anti-net-neutrality initiatives. They've admited to hiring a rent-a-mob to crowd out net neutrality advocates from an FCC hearing on the subject, and they don't just throttle torrents, but go so far as to insert false data in order to break connections. [1] My roommate canceled Time Warner cable when we switched to AT&T. TW sent us bills for another four months, despite my roommate re-canceling every month. The last few warned that if we didn't pay they would discontinue service, so the problem eventually corrected itself.

isleyaardvark 17y ago
I have Time Warner and can only dream of having a connection stable enough to even think about playing an MMO. I don't even know if this comment will go through, since just a moment ago my roommate asked "Did the internet go out for you, too?"

amalcon 17y ago

They're the only entity I know of that can get away with charging you to cancel a service. They're one of the few I'm aware of that can "give" you a mandatory "upgrade", requiring you to physically go to one of their locations to exchange hardware in order to retain the same service you've always had.