Frugal Friday Week 40

In Week 37, I shared how I planned to dump my Verizon land line and move to Comcast’s Voice service. So far, that’s not happened. So this week, it’s a Dear Comcast Letter –

Dear Comcast,
At first it seemed simple. I called and your sales guy told me $14 would get me Comcast Voice. I agreed, and a few days after, a technician came.
Nice guy, set up the VOIP modem, dial tone, but my phone number wasn’t ported from Verizon. I could dial out, but calls wouldn’t come in. He moved the wire back to the Verizon copper, spent some time with your customer service, and told me the issue was with my Verizon account.
It seems that a few weeks prior, I made a change to my account on line, and while Verizon ignored it, it put my account into a limbo status. So I spent the next hour with Verizon and they told me they would release the number within a few days.
I called Comcast back and awaited the next tech’s visit. The number still wasn’t released, and it was round two with both Verizon, and then Comcast. You told me to give it a week and then call your porting department to be sure the number was released and to set up another tech visit.
This is when the fun started. The porting department saw nothing, no order at all. Said I needed to talk to sales to set up the order. Sales is when it all went downhill. I told the gal I was looking to get the triple play (I already had Comcast TV and Internet) and that the first guy promised me it was $14 more than I paid now. Sales gal insisted I listed to a pitch for a security system, and told me to calm down. Rule number one for customer service – never say “calm down.” Never. She then told me phone would cost me $50 more than I paid now. As I started to tell her that I’m 2 visits and a half dozen calls into this, she abruptly tells me she’s transferring me to customer retention. Funny, I never said I was planning to leave, I was trying to get more service, and pay the price I was promised.
Another person answers and after letting me explain my situation, apologizes. He is a technician, and will transfer me. The final representative said the first salesman made a mistake, and instead of just adding phone also bumped up my TV selection. Somehow it took 15 minutes to figure this out. The actual triple play along with the adder for two cable cards for my TiVos will cost a total $12 more than I pay now. A bit less than I was expecting, but with far more aggravation than I’d ever imagine. The install was promised for this coming week. I figure it’s 50/50 whether this will be the end of it.

To be fair, when it’s going well, cable doesn’t bother me. There was a vocal minority that objected to data caps, a 250GB monthly limit. I think the most I ever hit in a month was 100GB. What’s remarkable is the confusion that occurs for what should be a simple issue. The good news is they are now going to waive the service call fee. The bad news is I was never expecting to pay a fee in the first place.

Have you ever had an ongoing issue with your phone or cable company? How did it end?

Edit – What are the odds? I wrote this article last night and today I get an online article from Advisor One – Top 10 Most Disliked U.S. Companies: 2013. Sure enough, Comcast was on the list. Funny though, so was American Airlines. They were my airline of choice and I a million miler with American. I’d say that in 30 years of flying, I had two issues that really caused me grief. Two issues in 30 years isn’t bad.