<Note: I posted this in the Comcast forums tonight. I’m posting this here as a warning to anybody who would do business with Comcast. It is a follow up to here>
When I started this year, I had two HD-DVR boxes with high-speed internet provided by CenturyLink. My contract with CenturyLink went up, and I went back to Comcast for internet. My first mistake. I went to Best Buy, and bought a cable modem. Took it home, and that's when the fun began. I had to order high-speed internet. The first time I called, I got the offshore call center, and I got some rep who could barely speak English. She tried to upsell me to the Triple Play package, and then berated me to the point that I had to hang up when I said no. Let that sink in, I call in to order more services (to pay Comcast more money), and Comcast's greed at upselling me drove my away. Eventually I was able to make another call, and got someone who wasn't offshore and I was able to order internet. But there were suspicions about that call, too (because the rep had somehow found a 'promotion' for me. I've been around the block long enough to know that no Comcast rep will voluntarily 'take care of me'....
So, I have high-speed internet, 2 hd-dvrs and tv service. I'm still suspicious that shenanigans were played with my account, and so I head to the Federal Way, WA. cable store, and I speak with the rep there. He pulls up my account, says that everything is kosher iwth my account. Then he starts into the high-pressure sales pitch, and I finally bite. I get the Xfinity X1 operating system and home phone service. And I explicitly made sure that I wasn't under contract, and he said I could return the equipment if I didn't like it.....
I got the X1 boxes set up, and I immediately realize that I have no DVR on my box. I can set my box to record, but it goes to the other box. And I have no access to my recordings. As for the home phone service, I'm immidiately beset by collection calls for the previous holder of my phone number. I could live without the DVR in my room, but I decided to cancel my phone service. So when I returned my hd-dvr boxes, I also returned my voice/internet modem. I set up the modem that bought with my own money, and went to the Federal Way, WA. cable store again. The rep who helped me made it pretty clear that I wasn't welcome there. He took my equipment, but refused to cancel the phone service. Basically, he said I have to call the offshore call center, and put up with another high-pressure sales pitch.
So, I reached out to @comcastcares on twitter, and they said they'd fix it. I was even offered a free premium channel service (which I declined for reasons of personal ethics). This was back in May. I was also told that I was on Triple Play with a contract, which wasn't true. So, I didn't think anything of this. Until this weekend when I realized that I was still paying for the voice/data modem rental. So another trip to Federal Way, WA. cable store, and this time I took back my X1 box w/o the dvr....
So today, I told the rep at the store that I was still paying for a modem that I had returned in May. He looks into it. I asked about my box, and I asked for a box with a dvr in it. I have privacy issues. I don't want what I record being available to everone in the house (basically, when I set a recoding, it was sent to the box in the living room, and wasn't available to my box). I was told that I could only use an X1 box now, and a 'master' box was available for $20.00 a month extra. So I got one. Only problem was that my TV only has 1 hdmi port, which is being used by my Blu-Ray player, I needed a box with component output (basically the 5 rca plug cable). Idiot clerk tried explaining to me that I could use the video output (which specifically said 'sd video'). He then said that I could use the hdmi 'input' on the box and daisy chain the components. Not the case. The hdmi input doesn't work. I can't program the voice remote for my tv. But that's not the worse part. The worse part is when I told the clerk about still being charged for voice/data modem that I returned in May, all he did was disconnect the modem that I was using! So, I come home to no internet service!
Once again I had to make another call. This time I specifically asked for somebody not offshore based, and I was ignored. Most of what he said I couldn't understand (if Comcast is going to outsource it's call center, you could at least make sure English is spoken...). I ended up pulling out my laptop and activating it myself.
And I apparently still have home phone service, despite all my efforts to cancel it....
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