Tag: comcast

Comcast saga, take 3

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Well, they showed up on time tonight, and with the digital DVR receiver. They had it hooked up and working on the second TV in seven minutes. And now I’m all squared away. I should forget about my hassles and the terrible customer support, right? Wrong. This afternoon I was reading all kinds of complaints about Comcast online and found some good suggestions for getting my complaints addressed, so I will be pursuing some of those measures just as soon as I have some free time.

But at least all of the equipment is here now, 10 days after initial installation, and everything is working.

Comcast Saga, continued

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So they still haven’t shown up. I’ve been on the phone 2 more times. I finally told them to forget it tonight, seeing as how I am supposed to be in bed in 10 minutes so that I can get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

We are rescheduled for delivery next Wednesday between 5 – 8 PM. I chose next Wednesday because I wanted an evening time and because it interferes the least with my schedule (I could have had someone come by as early as Friday). Also, I need some time to cool off.

In the meantime, I’m getting a $20 credit and I expect to hear from a customer service manager sometime soon.

The Comcast Saga

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I’ve repeated myself a lot today and so please excuse the compactness that following. I’m just trying to bring everyone up-to-speed with a minimum of frustration to myself.

To recap:

  1. I canceled my DirecTV service and signed up with Comcast last week.
  2. Comcast came out Saturday morning to set me up. All went well, except they didn’t have the digital DVR in stock, so they would have to come back later on in the week.
  3. Monday morning I called to arrange a time for Comcast to come out to deliver and install my DVR receiver. They checked the stock and then scheduled a technician to come out on Wednesday (today) between 2 and 5 PM.

Today’s events:

  1. Just before I left work at 11 AM, I got a call from the Comcast tech asking if he could come out now. I told him I wouldn’t be home for a little while. He then asked why he was coming, and I explained. He told me that they didn’t have any DVR receivers in stock. I nearly hit the ceiling, but he said he’d check with the warehouse and call me back.
  2. At about noon, I called Comcast and explained the whole history. I was told they they were auditing the warehouse and I would get a call back. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Very soon,” they told me.
  3. At 4:45 I called to tell them no one has showed up yet. They said they couldn’t do anything until after 5 PM.
  4. At 5:15 I called again. This time, they checked with dispatch. I was told that the tech would be here “very soon”; he was running late from another job.

It’s now 6:10 PM and I haven’t heard from the tech, the warehouse, or customer service as to when this guy is actually going to show up. Meanwhile, since last night, I’ve received 2 phone calls from Comcast reminding me of my appointment today, one automated call, and one voicemail from a real person. I’ve held up my part of the bargain. I can’t say the same for Comcast.

To be continued…

Writing and wrapup

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I did a little bit of work on “If By Reason of Strength…” this evening, about 350 words or so. The pace of the story is moving a bit slowly, but at this point, I’m just trying to get the story out. I can tighten it up once I’ve got the first draft written. I got about halfway through part 3, of the 6 parts I’ve got outlined so far. I’ve still got more outlining to do, but I wanted to get in some writing tonight, especially since I didn’t manage to get any done last night.

I did pretty good today. 5 meals (so far–I’m still due for my evening snack!) and it was just as tough eating about every three hours today as it was yesterday. But I did it. I’ve had 1.5 liters of water so far, but I’m still due to have a little more before bed (9:30 tonight). I did my workout and I stuck to my plan. Two days in a row now. I’m feeling pretty good, but 2 days out of 209 is barely noticeable. I’ve got a long way to go.

I am going up to New York the weekend before Christmas to hang out with jen_ashlock and jkashlock. They are heading to L.A. on Christmas Eve and I will head back down here that same evening. I’m going up there early on the 22nd. I imagine the Acela will be pretty crowded that day, but it gives me the opportunity to put my Amtrak Guest Rewards Select membership to the test. I can use one of my passes to Club Acela and sit in the lounge before getting on the train. It also means I can board the train early and avoid the rush. I’m heading back up to New York two weeks later for vickyandnorm‘s boys and girls wedding shower.

I had a good day at work today. I spent most of the day writing perl scripts to process and transform data from Excel spreadsheets into a fairly sophisticated SQL database. I turned a corner on it today and things are looking good. I’m giving a briefing on this project to some senior directors on Thursday, and then another briefing next Tuesday at an “all hands” staff meeting. I like days like this when it really feels like I am making progress.

Dad’s birthday is coming up on Sunday. I got him a present that I think he’ll really enjoy. I just checked and it should be delivered to their house tomorrow. It’s a few days early, but that just means he can get a head start. (And when he reads this tonight, at least he’ll only have to be curious for 24 hours or so.)

I’m working from home tomorrow afternoon because Comcast is delivering my Digital DVR receiver which they couldn’t deliver and setup last Saturday. They will be here between 2 and 5 PM and so I’m leaving the office at noon. It means I don’t have to pack my lunch tomorrow, just a morning snack. It also means that I’ll have to go to the gym in Greenbelt tomorrow evening to do my cardio workout. I’m up at 5:30 tomorrow morning, which means I’m supposed to be in bed by 9:30 tonight, but its creeping up on 8 PM and I’m already tired so I might not make it to 9:30.

And my body is pretty sore. That’s pretty typical after not working out for a few weeks and then starting up again. I expect tomorrow will be the worst of it.

Final chapter in the DirecTV saga

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This morning, I decided to cancel DirecTV without having them try to fix the problem. There were two reasons for this. First, I’m not convinced they would be able to figure it out in one visit. Second, was a matter of cost. Third, was how the problem has dragged on all summer.

I mentioned how Comcast had an offer for current satellite customers. The offer was: cable, internet and phone service for $99/month, plus HBO and Starz service for a year, plus a DVR and DVR service for one year. This morning, I called Comcast and asked some more questions. I don’t need home phone service so I asked them how much the offer would be, per month without the phone service but with the cable, internet and the rest of the package. My monthly bill would be $83. Now my DirecTV monthly bill is $72 and so at first glance, this doesn’t seem like a great deal. However…

I am also paying $57/month for Verizon. About $30 of that is for DSL and the remaining amount are the minimum fees required to maintain a phone line for the DSL. But if I get internet through Comcast, I no longer need these services. Looking at it this way, I currently pay $130/month for cable/internet services. Switching to Comcast, that will drop to $83/month, a savings of $47/month or $564/year!

Since I already have Tivo, I can put the DVR they are giving me on the TV in the bedroom and that means I can record shows on different station, if I so choose. I also asked about what my bill will look like after one year has passed and the offer has ended, assuming I keep the same services I have with DirecTV right now. I was told that the bill will be around $100/month, which is still a savings of $360/year from what I am currently paying. Finally, I checked to make sure that I could still get the MLB package so I could watch baseball games. That’s no problem.

So I made the switch. The Comcast people are coming to my house tomorrow morning between 8 – 11 AM to get everything set up. I canceled my DirecTV service call for tomorrow and I also called to cancel my DirecTV service, which now ends on December 8. They were very nice on the phone and offered me discounts on my service to stay as a customer. But discounts won’t solve my technical problems so I thanked them for the offer, but declined. I have to call Verizon and cancel my phone and DSL service, and I will do that as soon as I am certain that I have Internet access through my cable modem.

I am hopeful that this concludes the months-long saga of my reception problems and I’m looking forward to not having to worry about this problem anymore.