Tag Archives: Customer Service

Comcast Sucks: The Worst Company Ever

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Today I was going to write a high-minded post. Maybe tips on how to stop drinking. Elaborating on how I have video-making “writers block” or whatever you’d call it. Or a post on why I don’t want to go full-time at UPS. So maybe these aren’t amazing mind blowing posts, but they’re better than this one.

I have my laptop open and ready to go but I’m writing this on my phone. Why? Our internet is down. Why? Fuck if I know. Everything is plugged in correctly, the modem and router’s LEDs are all lit up, except for the ‘internet’ light on the router. Why? I don’t know, but I’m blaming this on Comcast.

Fuck Comcast.

There are few no companies I hate more than Comcast and I’m going to put all my hatred of the company into this post. Say it again with me, fuck Comcast.

First off, cable TV should be dead by now. It’s not a viable business plan. I haven’t watched TV in years, literal years, and I couldn’t be happier. There’s YouTube and streaming services and almost anything you want or need to watch can be found there. Local news? Internet. You don’t need to watch the news. The same is true with weather, just look that shit up. My local news stations even have video clips online if you must watch them. Local news is probably a bad example because you could get a fucking antenna and watch it for free anyways. But the rest of the 300 channels I pay for every month? I watch none of them.

TV is also insulting when you realize they still have commercials everywhere. Like the stations don’t realize that cable is basically dead and still try to cram ads down your throat. That’s a great idea and people will totally be fine with that and not migrate to streaming services. Sarcasm obviously.

We only have cable because my mother in law loves to binge watch MSNBC. I think she also watches shitty Hallmark movies but from what I’ve heard the TV is always on MSNBC. That’s seriously the only reason we still have cable; she loves the news. We’re paying to watch like four channels at most.

She’s also the reason we use Comcast for our land line phone. Yes. Land line. In case you don’t know, these are phones that are wired to your house just like was standard in 1992. She has a cell phone, but has some fear that people who need to contact her at the house number won’t be able to if we get rid of it. Nevermind transferring the number. Nevermind telling people your new number. Let’s just keep the landline. I’m not really bitching about her but bitching about how Comcast is somehow relying on shit like this to stay in business. Like their entire business model is preying on people who are set in their ways and won’t change anytime soon.

More bitching about Comcast: bundles.

Hang on. Our internet is back on. Let me migrate from my phone to an actual computer and keyboard. Fucking Comcast internet, fucking piece of shit…!

Ah, that’s better. But where the hell was I? Fucking Comcast breaking my concentration and shit. Oh yeah, bundles! We only need Comcast for internet really, at least that’s the primary reason. As I’ve said, the phone and cable can fuck right off (if my MIL didn’t love them so much), but we need internet. Internet is basically like electricity and gas now, it’s a utility. But when you call and ask Comcast for internet, they do some voodoo shit on you. “Ah, yes sir, we can get you internet. In fact we can get you the Comcast Triple Play with Xfinity™ XD Bullshit for only $79.99 for the first twelve months! Only for you sir! You see internet by itself is like $60 per month, so for $19.99 more you can get cable and TV!”

“Okay, whatever.” And then you forget about it. You got your phone, internet, and cable all for cheap as shit and are saving money. Then the ‘introductory period’ is passed and your bill skyrockets up to $170 per month: only a 112% increase, totally not a big deal. They even raise the price slowly over a few months so you don’t get spooked. $20 here and there and that’s not too bad until it settles near $200. It’s some shady shit.

My point is Comcast bundles this shit to make it harder for you to leave. It’s bullshit too. Let’s say we did want to cancel our landline phone; then we’d probably be in the Comcast Double Play Xfinity™ XD plan and it’d probably still cost like $150 for some reason. It’s almost not worth the effort to try, and that’s coming from someone who is super fucking cheap and loves saving money.

Let’s also acknowledge how stupid Xfinity™ sounds. Xfinity™. It’s like they tried to create a fancy sounding word, the -finity in Xfinity coming from the amazing word and concept infinity and plopping an X at the front because X is by far the most unique letter of the alphabet — but damn does it sound stupid. It reminds me of when Verizon purchased Yahoo and renamed the company Oath. Seriously. Oath.

And let’s talk about when you do try to lower your bill. Some people have success in calling Comcast threatening to cancel their service and can sometimes get back into the introductory plan. But this takes effort and talking on the phone and I haven’t had luck with it. I usually try to be nice — “Times are tough and is there any way I can lower my bill?” — but they call my shit each time. They know I’m a passive little bitch who doesn’t like confrontation, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they troll through my internet history (like what I’m writing now) to know my weaknesses. (Maybe that’s a bit over-the-top paranoid, but it’s Comcast: you never know!) We went to slower internet last year and I shaved off like $20. Sure, money saved, but it doesn’t feel as successful as locking in that $79.99 for another year.

Another fun fact: you can upgrade your plan on their website — it’s really easy! — but you cannot downgrade it. Anytime you want to downgrade you have to call Comcast’s customer service. Because they know most people don’t want to fuck around with calling them and talking to someone on the other side of the world. Of course Comcast has outsourced all customer service to foreign countries — it makes sense business-wise — but sometimes it’s pretty fuck hard to understand what they’re saying. I’m not hating on people that have difficulty speaking English here, but you know Comcast is aware this makes calling customer service slightly more of a pain-in-the-ass than it already is.

I’d say my biggest gripe about Comcast is how they lord over their customers and business. They act like you don’t have any other choice, and if you do find a better deal you can fuck right off, they don’t actually care about their customers or keeping them, only tossing out introductory deals at the very last moment before someone leaves. They’re abusive as fuck. Introductory prices, bundles, all of this shit to gaslight you into thinking you’re getting a good deal and then they fuck you. Hard. In the ass. You could probably find a few videos about Comcast in the BDSM section of Pornhub. And if you don’t like being violently sodomized you can find another provider except there is no other ISP in the area! Oh, poor customers, we’re sorry but we’re going to have to raise your bill another $20 because reasons.

***

I signed up for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service a few months ago. Service isn’t offered in our area yet but the email stated “mid-2021.” I happily paid the $100 deposit and will happily pay the $500 for the antenna when service is available. Hell, I’ll happily pay the $100 per month for the service too. Why? Because it’s SpaceX. They’re innovating. They’re doing some crazy shit in rocketry. They land rockets! They’re literally trying to get humans to Mars! This is some cool shit and I’d love to dump money into them rather than Comcast because Comcast is such a shitty company. What’s Comcast’s lofty goals? Fleece their customers as much as they can for as long as they can before they wise up and jump ship. Like my personal economics don’t even matter here — I’ll take the more expensive internet option just because Fuck Comcast. I seriously fantasize about the day when I get Starlink internet and can call Comcast and tell them to go fuck themselves. Sure we’ll have to figure out what to do about cable and phone — maybe Comshit can get us a cheaper deal on those two — but even this will be a victory.

From the seething hatred in the bottom of my blackened and dead heart and soul, with all the rage and latent anger that has slowly built up over the years:

FUCK COMCAST.

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ATMs Suck: Cash Deposits

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I’m a fan of automation. Some people bitch and complain about our increasingly technical world, but I revel in it. With every leap in technology there seems to be fewer people for me to actually have to talk to. I don’t give a shit about talking to a “real” person because I’m deftly scared of talking to people. Talk to a computer? Okay. They won’t think my voice sounds funny or something. I can’t wait for the day that I can order a fucking Big Mac by pushing buttons on a kiosk. Thank you Redbox, Netflix, and Amazon for making it possible to not interact with other humans. It probably doesn’t come as any surprise that I love ATMs because they finally accept cash deposits!

For awhile they would only take deposits for checks. If some asshole wrote you a check you could stop at the ATM and toss it into your account without talking to anyone. This also helped you circumvent bank business hours which was handy. They never accepted cash though. If someone paid you cash in a drug deal, changing their oil, or whatever you’d have to spend it or manually haul it to the fucking bank, once again talking to people, fucking around with deposit slips and your exploded pen, and dealing with 9-5 hours on weekdays. Fuck that shit: Banks Suck. This is part of the reason I hate dealing with cash.

Another fun fact: I’m in charge of my parents’ cell phone account. We have a deal where I pay the bill monthly and they repay me for their share. It’s a good system. They can be late and I won’t blow their phone up or charge them late fees and interest. Anyways, they pay me in cash, so every month I have to haul the cash manually somewhere. Checks would be nice because you can deposit those on your phone! You can deposit checks while you take a shit if you want. But nope because they use cash. Cash has to be taken to the bank…until recently.

The ATMs finally accept cash deposits! You pull up and feed the ATM your cash like it’s a hungry beast and, bam, you have cash in your bank account. It’s rather easy and Chase ATMs are all over the place so I can conveniently toss money into my account on my way home whenever or wherever I want. And it always works flawlessly. I count the cash beforehand, deposit it, and the screen always counts the correct amount. This was the case until it wasn’t.

I went to the ATM yesterday in a shady part of town around 11 p.m. I had $264 to deposit from phone payments and drug deals (just kidding FBI!). I did the usual stuff: insert card, enter PIN, select “deposit,” and insert the cash. Then the machine just froze up. It had the little circly icon that means the thing was “processing something” and it just kept doing it. Then the screen went black and, holy fuck, a command prompt window came up followed by a Windows loading screen like you’d see on a PC or laptop. And my money was still in the machine…

This was the fear always in the back of my mind: I gave the ATM cash — cold, hard cash — and it just shits out mid-transaction. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Call the cops? Call the bank? Drive off and hope that maybe it accepted it? Eventually I thought that calling the bank would be the best course of action.

Then the automation that I loved backfired. You see Chase doesn’t like to pay people to talk to you, so it’s a pain in the ass to figure out how to talk to a person. Automation doesn’t give the option “if the ATM ate your cash deposit, press 5!” so how do I talk to a person about that? I was a little shaken up at the time making it even harder to think logically. Eventually I just smashed “0” on my phone and wouldn’t you know it, but that did the trick. I talked to a real person.

It being 11 p.m. Central Time, I was talking to someone (probably) halfway around the planet. That’s fine with me, but motherfucker, accents are a pain to deal with. I found myself saying “uh, yes?” after what I could guess was a question. One time the dude even said “I credited your account for the $254 that you deposited” and I corrected him that it was really $264. I check my account today and only $254 was credited. Mother fucker. He was nice enough though and seemed to have fixed my main problem at least for now.

That’s it. ATMs suck because of random glitchy shit like this. I still love the bastards though because it’s way more convenient than talking to a person between the hours of 9-5 ON WEEKDAYS. And will I quit doing cash ATM deposits? Hell no. They’ve worked 98% of the time and I’m not going to change my habits because of one incident. Because then the terrorists win.

That doesn’t mean they don’t suck though. Fuck ATMs. I mean I’ll still use them but thanks to a damn ATM my Friday turned into an anxiety-fest from hell. Thanks ATMs. You Suck.