Comcast has suspended my internet access... sort of...
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- Daniel Hienzsch
- Sr. Rocketeer
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What I just dropped in the mail... if anyone is curious, Verizon FiOS, Dish Network and DirectTV are all alternatives...
Daniel Hienzsch
Comcast Customer
June 10, 2007
Mr. Brian L. Roberts
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Comcast Corporation
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
Dear Mr. Roberts:
It is with great displeasure that I find myself forced to write to you today. At 8:15 this morning, I went to my computer to do some work and found my every effort to obtain internet access, internet access for which I have paid, blocked with a requirement to accept the “COMCAST AGREEMENT FOR RESIDENTIAL SERVICES”. No matter what website I attempt to visit, this page is displayed instead. This is not only frustrating, as I pay a very high amount of money monthly in order to access this service, but a very direct invasion of my privacy.
Imagine if you were to open up your mail, and inside every envelope was a little slip of paper saying that you must accept the United States Postal Services Terms of Service in order to receive the mail that was inside that envelope.
However, this privacy infringement is not the direct scope of this letter. The point I wish to make is this; Comcast has unfairly interrupted my fully paid “High Speed Internet” service and provided me with limited means to resolve this issue. I have now called your customer service number (800-COMCAST) which directed me to technical services. I have called technical services (877-534-1191) over 40 times now and am constantly directed to an overflow call center. I finally gave in and agreed to Comcast’s Residential Services Agreement under duress, but was unable to proceed since my zip code is not considered eligible for service. The only avenue made open to me at that point was to begin a “chat session” with a service representative. When I opened this chat window, I was told I was 834 in queue. Over an hour has passed and now I am merely 513 in queue.
I am thoroughly astonished and disappointed at both Comcast’s lack of resources to handle my service interruption as well as the poor implementation of what I have to imagine is a service cutover from Time Warner. It is therefore unsurprising to me that when I went to the Comcast website to determine who should receive this letter, I discovered that there were no executives listed in a customer advocacy position of any sort. In fact, the word “Customer” exists no where on that entire page. Of course, Comcast’s Vice President of Governmental Affairs is listed, which I can only assume is either the Comcast Washington D.C. lobbyist, or your liaison to whoever lobbies on your behalf in Washington D.C. I suppose that further indicates to me where Comcast’s customer base lies in terms of priority.
It is extraordinarily frustrating to have to deal with this on a Sunday morning, and I believe Comcast is 100% responsible for having wasted my time today. When I return to work on Monday, I will immediately begin looking for a competitor to whom I hope to be able to transfer my service in the very near future, as well as begin advocating in every possible responsible forum that I can find, that every Comcast customer do the same.
I am now 459 in queue.
Daniel Hienzsch - Carving Canyons, Taking Trips, Cracking the Ton: www.motoescapism.com
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- GollumX
- Elite Rocketeer
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- damn! i feel your pain daniel. that sort of issue makes one sick.
- Say no to Internet Explorer 6.
twitter.com/mark_up
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- James Spencer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
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- I feel your pain Daniel, I have been in a "war" with my ISP for month after month after month.
- James Spencer / Developer & Support / Hull, UK
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- Robert D. Wagers
- Elite Rocketeer
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- Full-Time Cancer Fighter!
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I had a friend that lives in Troy, Michigan. He was a Comcast Customer and was paying an arm and a leg for 5mb service. He would constantly loose his connection, have to reboot his computer, exchange cable modems, experience high-traffic bottle-necks (slow downs) and numerous other problems related to the poor quality of Comcast.
It took me a month of convincing him, but I finally got him to switch to 3mb DSL.
He is EXTREMELY happier with the dedicated bandwidth of DSL. Not only is it about $20 cheaper for him each month, but he has no drops in service and never experiences slow-downs due to high traffic periods.
Comcast spends so much money on Lobbyist, Government Legislation and TV commercials they only havve to pass that expense onto their customers. They seem so frightened by the influx of the DishTV market and DSL, they must see their days as numbered.
Wage - "Everyone has to get knocked-down every once-in-a-while, otherwise you'll never learn how to get-back-up!
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A quote attributed to my Grandpa Wagers
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- Bob Ateah
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I feel your pain Daniel.
I live out in the boonies (in Canada) and we only have access to 56K here - because I've helped my isp a lot solve problems that they couldn't solve I was permitted to have their WISP service installed as a trial. So I do have broadband (1mb), however the service is more like 1/2 mb and my connection drops about every hour or more often. I often have stupid high pings too. No amount of asking for tech support has helped and this has been going on for a year now. Needless to say that my online gaming career is over, meh.
If I had any other choice, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Best of luck to you resolving your problem.
Cheers! - The member formerly known as Roland Deschain
After your question is solved, please Edit your original post and choose the Solved message icon, thank you!
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- Daniel Hienzsch
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 195
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After waiting 3 hours for their technician to join the chat session that I was required to initiate... let me say that again...
3 HOURS
Well... let's just go to the transcript (each message was separated by about 1 second)...
- Shaun > Hello Daniel_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Shaun. Please give me one moment to review your information.
- Shaun > Thank-you again for contacting Comcast.
- Shaun > Analyst has closed chat and left the room
- Carving Canyons, Taking Trips, Cracking the Ton: www.motoescapism.com
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- GollumX
- Elite Rocketeer
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beep beep the beep'n beep! beep beep beep [bodily cavity] beep beep!
.. bout time you close your session and leave the comcast room as well i reckon. find another isp. - Say no to Internet Explorer 6.
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- Daniel Chapman
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As Arnold would say
"Get to da choppa"
Time to change man. -
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- Andy Miller
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- Web Kahuna
- Any update on this Daniel? You have any clue why this happened? I also have comcast, and the idea that my access could suddenly be stopped is a little frightenig to say the least..
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- Daniel Hienzsch
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 195
- Thanks: 0
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It seems to be somewhat complicated... I used to live in Playa Del Rey, CA which was Comcast, however that market was switched to Time Warner Cable for some reason. Then I moved from Playa Del Rey to Lakewood, CA (just about 20 miles south), where Time Warner Cable has the local monopoly. At least they USED to have the monopoly, because it seems that they just switched ownership of this market (without informing their customers), from Time Warner to Comcast.
If you have ever tried to use T-Mobile hotspot internet access, or wireless in a hotel in the US, you have experienced essentially the same thing as Comcast pulled. They hijack all DNS requests and rediect them to their "Accept our Terms and Conditions or you get no internet access" form. Comcast did this, redirecting all my browser port 80 and 443 requests to their T&C page where I had to agree to it by clicking the "I agree" and putting in my zip code. However, since the market change hasn't been finalized / consummated / completed / whatever the lingo is, my zip code didn't actually register as being valid, so they wouldn't let me past that screen and forced me into a chat session with a customer service rep. That's where I found myself 800-and-some-odd in queue. Trying to do an end run around that and go directly to their technical support was no good since apparently 1,000s of other new comcast customer's were getting screwed in exactly the same way and flooding their call center.
I finally called Time Warner and asked their tech group what was up and they had me do a complete network shut down and reboot in order: you know the drill... unplug everything... plug in cable modem, wait 30 seconds, plug in router, wait 30 seconds, boot workstation, wait 30 seconds, boot Vonage box, wait 30 seconds. That seems to have resolved it. I imagine all I wound up doing was authorizing my cable modem with their network again.
I'm just figuring out now how to ensure my TiVo will work with Verizon's FiOS TV and I will be moving over to that. Fiber to the house man... can't beat it. - Carving Canyons, Taking Trips, Cracking the Ton: www.motoescapism.com
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