Dear Senator John McCain,

You probably don’t remember me.  Eight years ago as you mounted the Straight Talk Express during the Republican Primary, I sent you a couple bucks because I thought you were poised to be a great leader.  Clinton was wrapping up his time in office and I felt you were the best candidate to follow him.  Times were good, weren’t they?  I was a college student at the time – just a blank slate of a freshman excited to vote in my first presidential primary. (more…)

Dear Comcast,

Here’s an idea.  Don’t stand up your customers.  Don’t send out technicians that have no idea what to do.  Don’t send out technicians without the proper equipment.

If you tell a customer that you will be at their residence on a specific date in a specific time frame, show up.  If your technician is delayed, don’t wait for your customer to call you.  Call your customer and let them know that the technician is running late.

Oh, and here’s a great one – if your customer’s land line is part of the reason the technician is needed, use the alternate number to reach your customer.  It’s on the account.  It’s been given to your phone operators several times.  SEVERAL times.  Call the alternate number.

A quick breakdown of the past couple of months:

- In August, I called to set up moving my account to my new apartment.  An appointment was set up in early September for a technician to come to the new apartment and make sure everything was working.  I gave the reprasentative on the phone my cell phone number and made sure to be at home during the scheduled time.  That technician never showed and never contacted me.  Luckily enough, the cable and internet worked perfectly fine when I hooked up my old equipment at the new address.

- A few days later, both the internet and cable stopped working.  The signal was shut off.  I called and was told a technician would need to come out.  The phone rep verified my cell phone as the contact number.  I sat patiently during the scheduled time only to be stood up again.  I called and was told I would need to reschedule.  The phone rep gave me a new date, time window, and verified my contact number as my cell phone number.  The phone rep also transferred me to a cable rep who sent a signal to my cable box and reactivated it.  Sadly, that helpful rep was not able to do the same with my cable modem.

- On the day of the rescheduled appointment, I sat in my apartment and waited.  After the first 2.5 hours of the 3 hour window went by with no technician, I called Comcast.  They told me they had to talk to dispatch and found out that there was some issue that delayed the technician.  Again, I had to reschedule.  The phone rep again confirmed my cell phone was the best contact number.

- It was my fourth scheduled appointment with a Comcast technician.  I was not going to wait 2.5 hours to call.  I called at the start of the window to verify that the technician would make it during the alotted time window.  I was assured that the technician would make it.  When the window had passed, I called again to ask the whereabouts of the technician.  The phone rep contacted dispatch and passed along that a technician was running late but would make it that day.  The technician arrived over an hour after the scheduled window and set to work.  I tried to explain the situation (I moved and I needed my cable modem set up), but he insisted he was here for a trouble call.  He checked all of the signals and told me I had a bad modem.  He brought in a new modem and said that would fix the problem.  He hooked it up to his hand-held tester and said it worked.  I hooked it up to my laptop and it worked.  The technician left and I set to work hooking up my wireless router.  The signal was gone.  I tried restarting everything and soon the lights on my cable modem began blinking.  I knew this was a problem.

- I called Comcast immediately and was told another technician would have to come out.  We set up the time and I again verified my cell phone as the contact info.  Why do I keep mentioning my cell phone?  Because I had still had yet to receive a reminder call (Comcast S.O.P.) or a call from a technician.  They all had been calling the land line number that did not work.  This was late September – a month after setting up the original move appointment – and we still did not have internet or a working land line.  The technician showed up during the scheduled time window, but did not call.  I just happened to notice the Comcast truck and had to meet the technician outside.  Apparently the number he was given was the land line.  He checked all of the signals and decided it was another bad cable modem.  He hooked up a brand new modem and still had blinking lights.  He said a line technician would have to check the wiring within 48 hours.  We were supposed to have everything working when we returned from our honeymoon.  Shockingly, it did not.  We returned from our honeymoon and had no internet or land line.

- I call Comcast one more time and explain everything.  The original move, the missed appointments, the first technician that replaced the working modem, the second techinician that replaced the modem again and set up a wire technician, and what am I told to do?  Restart my modem.  That’s the answer.  I told the phone rep that the second technician had not connected the new modem to my account, but the phone rep ignored me and angrily told me to again restart the modem.  I complied and tried to explain the situation again, only to be told that I was wrong.  Another technician would have to come out.

- The night before the appointment I received my first reminder call.  I had hope.  We also had a new problem – our cable box was freezing up.  The picture was still working, but we couldn’t change the channel or get anything on the remote or on the box to work.  We had to unplug the cable box every 5 to 10 minutes just to change the channel.  I called Comcast to report the new problem and was told the technician could also address the cable box issue.  A half hour into the scheduled time window, the technician called and said he was on his way.  I was ecstatic.  He showed up and told me he was here to replace my cable modem.  I told him the modem wasn’t broken and he did some investigating.  He realized – surprisingly – that I was right.  The last technician that came out hooked up the new box but didn’t associate it with my account.  The lineman fixed the line issue, but my modem wasn’t activated.  He activated the modem and the signal came through.  Success!  With a new sense of hope, I asked him about the additional cable box problem.  He had nothing on his trouble ticket about a cable box problem.  Did the phone rep simply lie to me?  Interesting.

- We drove to the Comcast office and exchanged our cable box in person and it looks like we are officially operating effectively – almost two months after setting up the original move appointment.  I’m keeping my eye on the new AT&T coverage area because as soon as their cable service is available, I think it will be time for a change.  There’s just no sense in the Comcast approach to customer service.