How is this company still in business?
They are the largest broadcasting and cable company in the world by revenue, have bought NBC/Universal, Time Warner and many other giant media corporations with the money you give them. They have violated net neutrality practices and have the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service.
They spend millions of dollars annually on government relationships. They employ the spouses, sons and daughters of mayors, councilmen, commissioners, and other officials to assure its continued preferred market allocations.
In short, they run their business like mafia thugs.
Why anyone would continue to give them hundreds of dollars every month, thousands of dollars per year is beyond me.
From an ethical/moral standpoint, I would go dark rather than give them one red cent.
This is from a friend of a friends twitter/blog post.
http://staciehuckeba.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/an-open-letter-to-comcast-xfinity/
An Open Letter to Comcast / Xfinity
Hello,
My name is Stacie Huckeba I have been a customer of Comcast for over eight years.
I realize that it’s a dirty little secret and you don’t like to talk
about it, but c’mon, between just you and me, you can admit it.
Basically you have a monopoly on internet service, at least in terms of
speed. It’s ok, I like money too. Nobody is happier than me when I
deposit big fat checks. Sadly, I’m not quite as “connected” as you guys.
I’m a photographer and I think I’m really good, unfortunately, I live
in a town with a plethora of talented photographers so I can’t just sit
back and be lazy. I’ve sent emails to the Mayor, and Governor and even
my Senators and Congressmen asking that they put in regulations to make
sure I am the only photographer who can use professional and top of the
line equipment in town. Weird, they don’t get back to me. One of you
guys will have to tell me how you got them to do that for you. It would
be so awesome to deposit those big fat checks knowing that I had no
competition and could just be lazy, put out half-assed work and charge
whatever I wanted because I was the only one in town who could deliver
print ready work. God, I bet those feel so good going in the bank!
So, as much as I admire your business model, I am having some
trouble. Back in November, I realized that I was utilizing Hulu and
Netflix because of travel, work etc. far more than I was cable and I
never had a land line to begin with. I mean can you even buy a phone
that plugs into the wall anymore? I’m not sure.
I called to cancel my Triple Play Package and was talked into keeping
it because I was really saving all this money by having it all. On a
side note, I think it’s brilliant that the people who sell your services
are all super easy to work with, you never have to hold for more than a
second and you never have to get transferred. They can do everything
through one representative fast and efficiently. They are also open
seven days a week. While technical support and cancellation departments
are a minimum hold time of twenty minutes, you get transferred sometimes
5, 6, even 7 times and each and every time, you have to start from the
beginning with your name, address, account information and then tell the
whole story as to why you called over and over again, making the whole
process almost unbearable. And only having the option to talk to them
during normal business hours is genius. I mean, how great would it be to
have a person who booked all my shoots, (and there would be a lot,
since no one else in town could do them) happily just raking in the
money while I had another person who basically told all of my unhappy
clients to get bent? God, you guys are so good!
Anyway, back to my problem. I realized over the holidays last year
that I really was not using it and in late January, I called back and
asked for my account to be downgraded from the Triple Play (I had the
full package with the fastest download speed available. Again, your
sales team is tops!) to just the internet at the Performance Starter for
download speeds of up to 6 Mbps. I returned my cable box / DVR and
other equipment in early February.
I was really having no trouble whatsoever with my service and
actually had not really noticed a difference in my internet speeds
whatsoever. In late April, I received a delivery from UPS from Comcast.
When I opened it, there was a new cable box / DVR inside. I called about
it and you know how this goes already. I spent literally over three
hours on the phone in one of the most grueling, frustrating, infuriating
series of transfers, hang ups, and different representative pass-offs,
in history. It is a miracle I did not wind up curled in a corner talking
to spiders. But alas, I had a photo shoot with Jason Ringenberg and
some live chickens that day and had no choice but to get my head in the
game. (I know you think I’m making that up, but I’m not. It really
happened and I have the pictures to prove it.)
The cliff notes of that three hour transfer are this. You guys never
actually cancelled my services. I returned the equipment for no good
reason, I could have happily been enjoying the Real Housewives in my
spare time and didn’t even know it. After being told at least 6 times
that I had called the wrong department (I only have one number for you
guys and there is only one option for customer service so that always
confuses me. I bet that is also in the business model and it too is
quite brilliant). They finally conceded and issued me a credit for the
four months that I had still been paying for what was supposed to have
been cancelled all along.
You guys need to fix that part. Eventually, if a customer can hang on
long enough and not dig out their own eyes with a spoon from
frustration, you can usually get someone to go back through your records
and find where you did what you said you did and remedy the situation.
The customer wins that way. Not good for your plan. You need to make
that part harder. Well, except that you did get to kind of keep all of
my money. It’s not like you gave it back. So I guess it’s not a total
wash for you.
So sure enough, once that was fixed I noticed real quick that the
internet was way too slow and was not going to work for me, so I called
back. You know how this goes too. I called back and within moments I had
a representative on the line and he had me bumped up to the Blast
package with download speeds up to 50 Mbps in just a few minutes. Easy
breezy when you want to add on. It’s just so smart!
The problem is that my internet never did get faster. In fact, it got
slower. I used your Xfinity speed test off your website and sure
enough, I was barely getting 3 Mbps. I know better than to bother you
guys right away, so I set out and did all kinds of things to try and
remedy the situation. Clearing my cookies, changing my browser, running
diagnostics on my computer, sending refresh signals and of course the
first and main thing your representatives always push to fix the
problem. I unplugged and replugged the modem and router in a myriad of
combinations.
Sadly, the call had to be made. You know how this went too, don’t
you? I called, spent a half hour on the phone with 3 or 4
representatives and then got hung up on during a “transfer” (You know I
get you, and so you know that I know that sometimes “transfer” is code
for “click, bye bye”.) I’m tenacious though, so I called back and this
time spent an hour on the phone going through the same thing. I actually
finally got to a retention specialist who confided in me that really
the people that you talk to on the phone don’t ever really know what is
wrong because it could be 100 different things. It’s really just a
guess. He suggested I get a technician to my house. “Great idea. Let’s
do that”, I said. Well, of course he can’t do that. Nobody in the “the
customer has a problem department” can do everything like they can in
the “the customer wants to buy something department”. So back I went on
hold and I should have known, I got hung up on. God, that is so funny
how you do that! I absolutely love it!
But like I said, I’m kind of tenacious, so I called back yet a third
time but I went right to asking for a person to come out, so this time
it only took another half an hour. I mean, thirty minutes to schedule a
tech coming out is pretty good timing for knowing exactly what you need
and asking for it directly. I wish it was that way everywhere I called.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if it took thirty minutes every time you wanted
to order a pizza or make an appointment with your Veterinarian or
whatever. I could just sit around on my ass all day if every call took
thirty minutes. Hell, I wouldn’t even need to get dressed some days. I
could just sit here in my underpants eating cheese all damn day
listening to advertisements and bad music while I was on hold. Man, that
would be the life! You guys get me, you really, really get me.
As luck would have it, the only appointment you guys have is not for
six whole days! And while I have told you several times in this note
that I am all for being a lazy, until you tell me your secret about how
you got the government to shut down your competition, I have to work.
Jason Ringenberg has that Farmer Jason record coming out for Christmas
and he’s gonna need those chicken pictures. I can’t upload those bad
boys without proper internet and six days doesn’t really cut it for me
right now.
Lucky for me, my neighbors are cool and are letting me steal theirs
to get this out, but I can’t be using up all their data plan sending
chicken photos. They are musicians and can’t get the government to shut
down all the other musicians in town either. And we live in Nashville,
we have lots of musicians, so they really have to hustle to make ends
meet. I can’t ask them to up their data plan to accommodate me and some
chickens while I wait for a week for you to come out here. My
neighbors are assholes like that.
Look, I feel like we are friends. We understand each other, so I’m
asking you to do me a solid and just this once, maybe you can use your
pull to get someone out here before then. I wouldn’t normally ask, but
since you’ve got a few hundred bucks of mine that I don’t really owe you
anyway, maybe just this time you could bump me up in the line.
And since we are kinda friends and all, I’m gonna do you a solid too.
I think you guys are awesome and misunderstood so I’m gonna take this
whole letter and post it on my blog. I only get a few thousand views on
my blog when I post one, but maybe if a few people could see you the way
I see you they would quit talking trash and recognize you for the
brilliant and genius business moguls that you are.
Please, don’t thank me now, getting my internet back to speed before
Thursday will be thanks enough (wink wink. No pressure). See what I did
there. I might not be Comcast, but you aren’t the only ones with a plan!
Your friend,
Stacie
