Silly Comcast

FOLLOW-UP 5/8/10: I made it back to the Service Center to try to get yet another modem. However, after standing in line, the only thing that the lady behind the scary bullet-proof glass said was, "Those are the only types of modems that we have." I feel bad for all the other poor souls out there who have taken the advice from the service tech on the phone and tried to get a "new" modem from the Service Center. I wouldn't be surprised if they turn around and give my old, broken modem to the next sucker who goes in there, AFTER I emphasized the fact that it was old and it didn't work. I'm no Comcast customer care specialist or anything, but it just doesn't seem smart to hand out old, turned-in modems to people who need new ones. Did you ever stop to think about WHY the person was turning in the modem in the first place? Maybe that's too much to ask....

Despite all my efforts to fix the problem before Wednesday, we were left with no choice but to wait for the tech guy to come to the house for an appointment. I think he was sent straight from heaven. He arrived on time and he got the job done. He even checked out our wires and switched out the unnecessary splitters so our internet connection would be faster. Thank goodness for reliable technicians with real, brand-new modems.

Our modem is working like a charm. However, we have yet to get the wireless router and Vonage to work. Oh well. You can't hope for too much at once, I guess.

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Comcast wins the "that was dumb" award this week. Our internet has been cutting out several times a day for the past few weeks. I called tech service on Sunday and they said a tech couldn't come to the house until Wednesday morning to look at it. That was too long to wait, so I found a babysitter for the girls and went to the service center in the shady part of town to turn in our old modem for a new one since the tech lady on the phone said it was getting a weak signal.

I proudly came home with our "new" modem and Bobby got to work setting it up. After 45 minutes on the phone with Comcast trying to get the modem registered and working, we finally got an internet signal. I fired up Firefox and watched in dismay as google.com took more than 10 seconds to load, got stuck in middle of the Google sign, then finally finished loading. It was slower than dial-up!!!

It turns out that they gave us the same modem that we had FIVE years ago when we first signed up with Comcast! So we got an even older modem to replace the modem that they told us was too old. Go figure. Way to go, Comcast. That's what I call intelligent customer service. So guess what I'll be doing AGAIN today? The nice thing, I must note, is that we will be credited one month's billing fee for the inconvenience- now that's good customer service. If only the rest of Comcast could figure it out.

Now I will click on "Publish Post" and wait 10 minutes for the slower-than-heck internet to do it's work. Geez, I've become so dependent on fast internet....