Oh Comcast, you give me a headache!

I thought I would give Comcast a second chance. I thought I could forgive and forget. But, oh how they just want all my money by inaccurate billing. Oh how they love to waste my time by making me talk to people who don't have a clue how to do their jobs.

After using AT&T's Basic DSL for a few years I was ready for a faster speed - however that wasn't offered in my area by AT&T. Cable Internet was the only other choice in my area. I have had bad experiences with Comcast in the past but with a lack of choice what was I going to do? I tried to subscribe to their service online. I was trying to sign up for their up to 12 Mbps for 19.99 for 6 months but I didn't want to pay almost $50 to have it "installed" when all you do is plug wires into a modem. I can certainly do that myself. So I did what any normal human being would do and I called Comcast. The lady I spoke with said I could get that service of Cable Internet for a year and the install fee was $100 but she would waive it.

Imagine my surprise today when I received my first bill from Comcast and it was for $110! What? They charged me $50 for the install fee and then $28.96 for a connect fee. I was also charged for a modem yet I have my own. And then there are Cable TV fees too. Um, I don't have cable TV, didn't ask for it, and don't have a way of getting it. When I called Comcast tonight the first guy was confused at my bill because it showed I ordered Cable TV. But, I didn't order TV. So he transferred me to a person in disconnect who could get that off of my bill. She was awesome and removed all of the fees, removed the cable TV billing, and reset my internet billing to $19.99 a month for 12 months through some black magic. Apparently it was a promotion they were running that I caught the end of. So how did the Cable TV get on my account? Turns out someone tweaked my account on July 3rd and when they added Cable TV it took away all my discounts. How nice of that person, eh?

You thought I was done, didn't you? No, there is the technical side of things to talk about. The guy arrived and installed my cable on July 3rd. But - he didn't test the cable to see if it worked on my computer before he left. So I had to call in to have someone help me get it working.

On Tuesday my personal modem arrived so I called Comcast to get it set up. The first guy I spoke with didn't have a clue what he was doing. He kept telling me the MAC address I gave him was wrong. How could it be wrong? It's on the modem and the box! I asked him to transfer me to someone else. He said the only way I could talk to someone else was to hang up and call back in. Are you kidding me? So I call back. And this time a woman has no clue what I'm talking about. You want to set up your own modem? Yes, I do. Let me look that up. Okay I enter in your info and in 3-5 days you can call us back to activate it.

I happen to twitter and since I was frustrated I complained about my experience with Comcast. Imagine my surprise when Bonnie from Comcast quickly replied to my Twitter Tweet and came to my rescue. She took care of everything - we did it via email and Twitter and then I had my own modem set up and running. There were no 3-5 days required. She was awesome.

So while Comcast has done some really stupid things they also have some great people. But, overall I still have to rate them as poor because a company should be good to begin with and not just have people to save their butts when in trouble.