. . . would be the sound of my head slamming onto the desktop repeatedly.
Did you ever try to straighten out a mess with Comcast? It's impossible. Save yourself the umpteen hours on the phone with their lazy imbecile employees. They will stall and stall again and tell you there's no problem according to their records, and when you ask to speak to a supervisor, you are either put on hold for hours (literally) or transferred back to the main menu. I gather that the reason for this is the request for "a supervisor" cannot be filled because no one has ever performed well enough at Comcast to get promoted to that level. So the question just completely baffles them. Super-what? We ain't got no super watchoomacallits heah.
Don't bother visiting the business office, either. The trick they pull there is to be all nice and cooperative with you and immediately know how to resolve the problem. BUT they "can't do it right now because the business office is closed." They promise to do it first thing next day and call you to confirm. They take your phone number and write it on the copies of paperwork you have brought to them as evidence that there is, indeed a problem, and they wait until you are just barely over the threshold of the door on the way out before they toss your receipts and paperwork and phone number in the nearest trash can and head outside themselves for a smoke break.
Oh . . . did I neglect to say what the problem was? Hahaha. It's a good one as far as Comcast messes go. Guaranteed to eat up hours and hours and hours of my time and prolly take at least two or three days off my total lifespan if it doesn't give me a heart attack or a stroke and kill me directly right now while I'm on hold.*
Here 'tis - the story, not the heart attack: I was home Tuesday night last week when one of their white trucks pulled up and a guy gets out and knocks on the front door. Tells me he's got an order to disconnect because I'm two months behind on payments.
Very curious, as I pay by automatic deduction from my checking account and they have indeed deducted my payments those same two months and this is the arrangement me and Comcast have had for many years.
Even more curious that it would be only for the upstairs address, which basically has a line split off the main downstairs one, and provides just basic service for the tv up there. No box, no remote, nothing. And it's been that way for a whole lot longer than two months, and my bill statement identifies only the bottom address.
Curiousest yet . . . the name the disconnecter guy tells me the account is under? Not me. Or the previous tenant who left upstairs about 7 years ago. I insisted there was obviously something amiss and he insisted equally insistently that he was going to disconnect unless he got the payment but I shouldn't worry because if I'm telling the truth, I "can call the office tomorrow to straighten it out." Right. Obviously, he has satellite internet and is not a Comcast customer.
So I did insist on identification from the guy. But you know it was still very reluctantly that I wrote out that $120.13 check, right? Me and Comcast f*ck-ups go way back. This was starting to smell like a bad one. (And in case you're wondering why I didn't just let him disconnect, I'll explain that later.)
Sho'nuff, there I was an hour later on the phone with one of their stellar representatives who was insisting there's "no problem" on their end. My account is perfectly fine and dandy, although he can't find any record of the upstairs address. And forgive me for wondering, then, how someone else had an order to disconnect at that very address? Can I speak to a supervisor?
Bad question, Lynne. Bad question. Go back to the main menu. Do not pass go, do not get supervisor.
So Saturday consisted of a trip to the local office. And I'll be danged. Sho'nuff again, they figured out the problem right away! It wasn't 122 Elm Street we meant to disconnect - Whoopsie! It was 124 Maple Street where the deadbeat lives who didn't pay! But you, poor customer from 122 Elm Street, you can understand that, right? I mean, they sort of look the same, Elm and Maple, they're both trees, right? And use some of the same letters? And the house number wasn't far off either! Only two digits! Boy we did pretty good on that one, considering most of us had to fail a test to work here.
So anyway, I fall for the story that the business office is closed, they'll fix it Monday, call me to confirm, yada yada yada and I must have "Idiot" written all over my forehead, right? And I leave the office.
And here we are Monday night, no message from Comcast, no credit appearing on my account, and after 55 minutes on hold,* I am talking to a representative who tells me I "shoulda put a stop payment on dat check."
BAM . . . BAM . . . BAM . . . BAM. When I get done doing this BAMming, I'm filing a complaint with the NJ BPU. With them, I may stand a teensy weensy chance of getting the problem corrected in, oh, about 5 months or so, but it's a teensy weensy chance better than dealing with Comcast directly.
BAM BAM BAM . . .
Oh, right - why didn't I consider just letting him disconnect the line and sorting out the mess later? I could have. But in retrospect, I'm very glad I didn't. I would have my $120, but would that be worth the three or four months without tv or internet that it would take me to convince Comcast to restore my service because it had been disconnected? Do you think they'd believe it was disconnected? No way! They would have no record of a disconnect at 122 Elm Street! And of course yhey would continue to debit my account for the monthly payment. BAM . . . BAM . . . BAM . . . . and then I'd finally finally finally convince Comcast to restore my service and they'd set up an appointment for next month on a Tuesday between 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM and I'd take the day off work joyously anticipating the return of my internet service and by 6:05 PM when no one has come to do that I'm starting to fear the worst, and meanwhile, the deadbeat over at 124 Maple Street is having a pretty good day cuz Comcast just came by and hooked up his cable for free!
PS cuz I'm on a roll . . . why does Typepad spellcheck want to put a capital I on "internet"? That was so 1998.