9/28/2006 It's not just me...

While it has, admittedly, been a while since I've had any problems with ComCast, others haven't been so fortunate. Here's some feedback from the past couple of weeks (These are actual feedback remarks as I received them. I have not corrected any spelling or grammatical errors in them so don't bother emailing me.):

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I have lived in Lansing, MI since April 2006 and I have experienced on average 2 complete outages per month.  I have had techs not show up on 3 different occasaions.  Then the automated message says there are specific problems in the Lansing, MI area.  I had Comcast in NJ for many years and have no problem.  Apparently they do not feel the need to service the midwest as much as they do the northeast.  If they spent half the money they spend trying to stop Verizon from competing with them on improving their services we might avoid this problem.  Keep up the good work with attacking this monopoly.  I am from NJ and was in the middle of watching an emotional 9/11 tribute when the latest outage happened here in Lansing, MI.  To top it off, they are dumb enough to ask you why you are calling from a cell phone when if they looked at your account they would since the internet is completely off, I can not use my IP phone line which I would rely upon in case of an emergency.

Jerry

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I order service Tuesday, left work early thye never showed up never called & couldn't find the tech nor a supervisor-Then Wed without telling me the schedule another Tech- I rush home to find him there working for over 4hours- at 10:30 NO CABLE  OH they offered me $20 rebate  WOW  They suck what is there complaint number or address?

shana

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I upgraded service on 09/17/06, made the appointment approx. a week & a half before that.  I was told that the installer would be there between 10 AM & 1PM, & that the installer will be ontime.  Well, I called at 1:30, & was told he'd be there at 2:15.  2:15 came & went, & called again.  I was told he'd be there at 4.  On the 2nd call, they ""graciously"" gave me a $40.00 credit.  I called again at 4PM, & was livid!!  I exploded on the ""supervisor""  she told me to call her back in 10 minutes.  I called for 1/2 an hour &  I guess she left for the day.  Well, the guy that showed up a 5:43PM arrived in only jeans & sneakers.  He looked like one of the Drug Dealers here in Baltimore City!  I fired off 3 emails, and finally got a phone number for a supervisor I guess at Comcast's head office in Center City Philadelphia.  I live in a 20 story apartment building in downtown Baltimore, & if I could i'd switch to sattelite television.  Comcast totally sucks!!!!

Daniel R.

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My life revolved aroound the TV Guide Channel.  Comcast took it away.  Now cable TV SUCKS ! ! !  Why in god's name would they fuc# with the information channel?

Anonymous

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6/25/2006 Did I say "No More Problems With ComCast"?

What was I thinking?!? We had one of our typical summer storms yesterday and - wouldn't you know it? - lost our cable, telephone and internet service. That was around 4 or 5 pm. At midnight, 3 or 4 ComCast trucks came down the alley. "How long until it's fixed?" I asked. "30 minutes" came the reply. "Hahahahahahaha" I responded.

Well, here it is about 12 hours later and it has just been restored.

Have I mentioned that "ComCast sucks" recently?

5/23/2006 No More Problems With ComCast

Can you believe it? I haven't had single problem with my ComCast service in over a month. Knock on wood...

4/13/2006 More Problems With ComCast

I was sitting around earlier watching “Good Eats” with Alton Brown on Food TV when all of a sudden I lost the signal. Most of my other channels appeared to be working but my daughter just notified me that The Disney Channel is out as well. A quick browsing through the channel lineup indicates that something is amiss at ComCast (again).

I called in to report the problem and was told “Sorry for the inconvenience. If you lose ALL your channels we might give you a credit.”

Excuse me? The 2 channels I was watching are not in service – that constitutes an “outage” as far as I am concerned. That’s like the phone company saying “We can’t connect you to the fire department right now. Call your mother and ask if you can borrow her hose. If your house burns down we might compensate you.”

It’s been over 2 hours and still no Food TV. My children are starving here. ComCast sucks.

3/1/2006 Guess Whose Internet Service Doesn’t Work?

It’s true. I got home from work yesterday and had no Cable light on my cable modem. I tried cycling the power on it a few times but no luck. The guy at ComCast tried to “ping” the modem but couldn’t so he scheduled a tech to come over today between 11 and 2. This cost me several hours of productive work last night and who knows how many it will cost me today, so let’s just use round numbers and figure it cost me $750 (so far.)

Rather than complain about it, however, I created a little game where you, the home reader, can try to predict what ComCast will do to hose me today. Below, I’ve presented you with several options that ComCast can use to make my life miserable. See if you can predict which one it will be… (Note: You can pick more than one.)

HOW WILL COMCAST SUCK TODAY?

The facts: ComCast has scheduled a tech to come to my house today between 11 AM and 2 PM. The tech has my cell phone number to contact me if necessary.

The options:

1.     I’ll get home at 10:45 and there will a “Sorry we missed you” tag on my door.

2.     I’ll get a call from the tech at 10:00 telling me he’s there already. I’ll rush home and he’ll still be there.

3.     I’ll get a call from the tech at 10:00 telling me he’s there already. I’ll rush home but he’ll be gone.

4.     I’ll get home at 10:45. The tech will show up around 4:30 PM.

5.     I’ll get home at 10:45. The tech will won’t show up at all and they will reschedule for next Tuesday.

6.     I’ll get home at 10:45, the tech will show up at 11:00 but determine that he can’t fix the problem. He’ll refer it to maintenance and it won’t get fixed for 2 or 3 days.

7.     Some other unimaginable sucky thing.

Have fun playing HOW WILL COMCAST SUCK TODAY? To see the answer, click here.

2/25/2006 Get a Life …

Yes, yes. I know I said I’d re-do the site a couple of weeks ago but I have a job and a life. In the meantime, perhaps you’d like to read about something that ComCast does that doesn’t suck: promote itself.

Yes, it’s true…I actually LIKE ComCast’s TV commercials. They’re actually quite amusing and even somewhat entertaining. My personal favorites are the one where the girl orders the cappuccino and then immediately asks the guy what’s taking him so long and the one where the scrawny guy is lifting weights. He does one knee-bend out of camera and re-emerges as a buff body-builder. (I know, it sounds gay, but it’s pretty funny.)

There. Now get off my back until I can find my FrontPage CD. (If you know of any free site-building apps, feel free to email me.)

2/11/2006 New Feedback …

Hey,

I love your site! I like the idea of the journal of how much comcast cusks [sic]....then sometimes doesn't suck...then sucks again.

I understand how you may feel. Even though I have never had Comcast phone service before.

[I snipped the rest to protect this poster’s identity - Chuck]

Cheers

2/10/2006 A Minor Issue …

I’m hesitant to mention this but I’m going to anyway if only for ComCast’s benefit.

Yesterday I was walking into my usual lunch place when my cell phone rang. It was my good buddy Chad (from ComCast) wanting to know if my service had been restored. It turns out he read my account below (the one from January 30^th) and checked into ComCast’s records to see if had been resolved. He didn’t see any record of an outage being reported so he gave me a buzz. I explained that it was a “large” outage that affected a lot of people and I didn’t think that my wife opened a ticket since she was assured that it wasn’t necessary.

Well, today I mentioned Chad’s call to my wife and she told ME an interesting tale…

When the services went out, she called ComCast. They have different departments for Internet, Phone and Cable and she doesn’t know which one she was dealing with. In any event, she says the person she spoke to opened a trouble ticket for our account and scheduled a repairman to come out the next day. When the services came back up, she called back to tell them that everything was OK. At this time, she was told that THERE WAS NO OUTAGE REPORT for our account. “Are you SURE?” she asked. “Positive” they replied. “OK. Whatever.”

Well, wouldn’t you know it? The next day, there was a “Sorry we missed you!” card on our door when she returned home from some errands.

It would appear to me that ComCast could save themselves a lot of trouble if they would just get their act together.

As I said earlier, I’m just mentioning this for ComCast’s benefit. My service is still working without any apparent deficiencies and you will notice that I didn’t say “ComCast Sucks” once during this entire update. Oh. Wait…

2/9/2006 Everything is ComCastic Again …

Our last outage only lasted a few hours. Since then, there haven’t been any problems that I’m aware of. If this keeps up, I’m going to have to find something new to complain about. Feel free to email me some suggestions.

1/30/2006 I KNEW it Was Too Good to Last…

It rained today for about 5 minutes. Nothing big – just a little drizzle, really. It barely got the streets wet. But that was enough to knock out my sucky ComCast service. That’s correct: I have no phone, cable or Internet service at home because, apparently, it’s “damp” outside. My wife called ComCast (thank God for cell phones) and they said it had already been reported and they are working on it.

Do they have any idea when it might be fixed? No. ComCast sucks.

1/18/2006 Holy Cow! ComCast Sucks a Bit Less!

I was feeling a bit cranky this evening and figured I’d call my friends at ComCast to see if they had any suggestions on how to get my cable box to work in a reasonable fashion.

Well, wouldn’t you know it? I actually got hold of a guy (I think he said his name was “Utah” but I’m not sure) that actually knew what he was talking about. He had my cable box skipping through the channels one after the other in no time. (Well, as fast as the crappy Motorola boxes can skip through channels.) At least it doesn’t stop scanning after a channel or two.

He was also able to explain the DVI connector issue I reported earlier. Apparently, I need to change some of my configuration settings and it may or may not work – but it’s not ComCast’s fault. Seriously, this is my problem not theirs and I’ll let you know once I get it fixed.

He was also able to detect a cabling error I had made when connecting the TV. In my defense, the instructions they provided mentioned NOTHING about this being a “non-supported” configuration – but I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong. (If you’re keeping score at home it’s now, according to my count, Me: 137, ComCast: 2.)

You know, if ComCast would only hire more people like this then I might have to find something else to complain about!

1/16/2006 11-Year-Olds Agree: ComCast Sucks!

Now I remember why I had the old cable box in the laundry room: it SUCKED. For some reason, ComCast provides its customers with Motorola cable boxes. Now, I don’t know anything about cable box technology but I DO know that these things are pieces of crap. Unfortunately, I now have to use this thing because most of the new HD monitors (like the one I bought) are just that: MONITORS. They don’t have TV tuners built in so you have to have a DVD player, PC, or some other device to provide the input. If you want to watch TV, that means a cable box.

At first I was enamored by the plethora of programming my new Motorola cable box provided me but once I got tired of watching endless crappy movies on my free HBO and other “Premium” channels (see the 1/12/2006 update) I settled back into my normal routine of just watching Discovery and The Learning Channel. Since I only change a few channels at a time, I just use the UP and DOWN channel buttons to go from one channel to another. Well, wouldn’t you know it? These Motorola boxes don’t support that ‘feature’.

Try this: go to your TV and hold the up or down channel button. It blows through channels pretty quickly, right? Well, not on the crappy cable boxes ComCast gives you! Hold the up/down button (on the remote or the box – it doesn’t matter) and you’ll only move 2-3 channels per second and then it just locks up. Lovely. This is why I quit using my cable box years ago.

I called ComCast’s sucky Customer Service and they reset my box. (For what reason I have no idea – even THEY can’t be that stupid.) You’d be correct in assuming that it still sucks.

And that’s not the worst of it. I have lots of remote controls and they ALL have a range greater than 20 feet even when going through a sliding glass door. Guess which ONE of ALL OF THEM won’t even work reliably in the SAME ROOM as the cable box? Oops! I inadvertently gave it away. Yes, it’s the crappy Motorola remote.

I was trying to change channels today by manually entering the channel on the remote (instead of using the up/down buttons because we’ve already demonstrated that THEY don’t work) and my 11-year-old son commented “What’s with that thing? It doesn’t work.” I could sense the frustration in his voice and I gently told him “It’s OK, son, just let it out”

“Dad”, he replied, tears in his eyes, “THAT THING SUCKS!”

I have to agree with him. But I still had to ground him for a week for using inappropriate language.

1/12/2006 ComCast: We Suck 24/7!

Jesus Christ! You’d think there would be an end to it but there isn’t.  After – how many months as it been now? – without a noticeable credit on my bill, I finally called ComCast to ask them what was up. But, before I get into that, here’s a little side story:

My main TV took a dive last weekend so I went out and got a new HD LCD monitor. My old cable box was in the laundry room because it sucked and I hated to use it. It still said “MediaOne” on it so I figured it was time to upgrade it. On Monday, I went to the closest ComCast office and found it full of pissed-off Cubans. Yes, the lobby was full of irate people screaming in Spanish about how much ComCast sucks. Hmm, apparently ComCast sucks in EVERY demographic. At least it’s not just me.

After an hour of standing in line I was able to swap my old cable box for a new one with a DVI output. OOPS! I meant to say “With a DVI CONNECTOR on the back.” It doesn’t work. Only the RGB output works. (Which is fine by me but it’s now the principle of the thing.)

I called Customer Service and spoke with some lady that sounded like she was older than my mother. She expressed surprise that I even got ANY HD channels since I only have the most basic cable subscription. I assured her that I had all kinds of HD channels – just not DVI output.

It was at this point that I realized that ComCast SUCKS SO MUCH that if you have INTERNET access through them then you AUTOMATICALLY get  A WHOLE BUNCH OF CHANNELS that other people PAY FOR at NO CHARGE! Yes, it’s true: I pay for basic cable and, yet, I get every HBO, CineMax, ShowTime, etc. The only things I don’t get are the Pay-per-view and subscription sports channels. While this might seem like a good thing, I must add that I tried to watch all of these channels for the past week and couldn’t find anything on any of them worth watching. I swear, at one point EVERY ONE OF THEM was showing “Spider Man 2.” It’s a Pyrrhic victory.

Anyway, back to my original complaint: They have no idea if the DVI output is supported at all and, if it is, then I probably have to pay for it. Dumb-asses.

I then quizzed them on my non-existent credit. Fur started flying as they claimed I had already been sufficiently credited for my time without service and I asked to speak to a supervisor. She wasn’t too helpful (Her name was Kathy and she kept calling me “Mr. Hutchinson” – which is NOT my name.) I now await a call from HER supervisor (she says she has 14 of them!) at some point tomorrow morning.

So now we know what ComCast’s problem is: Too many supervisors.

I’ll keep you posted.

1/5/2006 Enough already!

First, we start with some given assumptions:

1.     ComCast sucks.

2.     Because ComCast sucks, they won’t automatically give you credit when you are without service because…

3.     …they suck and have no way to tell when you are OUT OF SERVICE!

4.     You have to call and tell them you are out of service and then ask to be credited for the time you were without service.

Now, taking these tautological truths into account, we may logically assume the following:

1.     You call ComCast on, say, Monday and report your service as being “out”.

2.     They then tell you that it will be 10-12 days before a technician can come to check it out.

3.     You then complain A LITTLE but NOT SO MUCH that they agree to send a guy out tomorrow! You just want to bitch enough that they note that you DID, in fact, report your service as being out.

4.     The morning of the appointment, you call them and tell them that your service had magically restored itself and they can cancel the service call BUT…

5.     …YOU WANT CREDIT FOR THE 10 DAYS YOU HAD NO SERVICE!!!

Repeat this process as needed to receive FREE COMCAST SERVICE!

Honestly, I rule.

 

11/28/2005 ComCast Sucks (Except for Chad Marsh – who should have his pay DOUBLED!)

 Preface

They say that people don’t like to change since change induces stress in humans. By nature, most people would prefer to live out their lives under whatever views they have of the world without having those views challenged. I find myself now in the midst of such a crisis as my faith in what sucks and what does not has come into question in recent weeks…

Not since my high school days in the 1970’s have I encountered anything that sucks quite as much as disco music did back then. The mind-dulling rhythms and non-existent musical ability of the majority of pop groups from that era left me indelibly scarred for the majority of my formative years. Yes, disco officially sucked. Majorly.

The next 30 or so years of my life have been spent in peaceful bliss knowing that never again would I have to see another lousy movie like Saturday Night Fever or listen to another crappy song by the Bee Gees. My apologies to Neil Rogers but I just don’t like the Bee Gees. Nights on Broadway was OK - but the rest sucked. K.C. and the Sunshine Band tops my list of reasons that most people should not be allowed to reproduce lest they inadvertently infest the world with their musically inept spawn.

Unfortunately, I am now in the unenviable position of having to reevaluate my lifelong disdain of disco music as the one thing in my life that sucked above all else. After many sleepless nights I have finally reached the inevitable conclusion that there is something that sucks more than disco music and that something is: ComCast.

Now, that’s just my own personal opinion but it’s an opinion shared by many of my fellow Floridians. I mean, seriously, how can one company attain such previously unheard of levels of suckitude? Well, read on and you’ll learn how ComCast has been able to suck in previously unheard of ways.

Note: At the bottom of this page I’ve created a fun “Humor” section that you can print out and use to amuse yourself the next time your ComCast service goes out.

The Truth

To tell the truth, it’s killing me to bad-mouth ComCast because I really believe that Cable TV and Cable modems are better/more convenient than DSL and satellite dishes. I had a satellite dish a few years ago but dumped it because it sucked in its own way. Of course, being better only counts if it works and right now the cable isn’t working so DSL/Satellite is the only other option.

I’m waiting for someone from ComCast to convince me* not to switch to BellSouth for my local phone and Internet service and DirectTV for my television.

*By “convince me” I mean call me and tell me that they’re going to give me six months of free cable, telephone and Internet service as compensation for pissing me off so badly. Barring that, I’m switching to Bell South and DirectTV just as soon as I get my phone service back.

Why Am I Upset?

We had a few hurricanes in Florida this year. That’s nothing new. What was new, however, was the amount of disruption to our daily lives these storms caused. While it pales in comparison to what happened in New Orleans and other communities along the gulf coast, damage to neglected power poles and other infrastructure in South Florida resulted in gas stations losing power for days and extended interruptions in services like telephone, Internet and cable TV.

I’ve lived in Miami since 1960 and I know what to expect when a hurricane comes through. Being a somewhat reasonable person, I even have a generator to power my important appliances like the refrigerators, computers, TVs and fans when the power goes out. Does ComCast have a similar backup/emergency preparedness plan? Apparently not. Because they suck.

Even though I had a generator to power my home after hurricane Wilma, I still had no telephone, Internet or cable service for over two weeks after the storm. Heck, I even got my electricity back before my cable. After the cable was finally restored, my Internet service kept dropping out every few minutes. I tried to live with it figuring that it would clear itself up after a while. I was wrong. It just got worse.

At ComCast, Sucking Is Job One

I finally broke down and called ComCast and they sent a guy out (relatively quickly and on time – to their credit) to check my service. When he arrived I explained my situation to him. He checked out my computer and noted that the Internet was working just fine. I told him “Yeah – it’s working NOW. Just wait 5-10 minutes and it WON’T be!”

Apparently, “Wait” is not in their vocabulary. He said something about “ask for a credit after it comes back” and took off. That sucked.

A few days later, I lost ALL my service. Telephone? Out. Cable TV? Not! Internet? I don’t think so. Note that there was NO bad weather on this day – it just died. I called their customer service number on my cell phone and was told the soonest they could check it out would be in 8 days.

EIGHT DAYS!?!  I have no cable TV, telephone or Internet! You SUCK!

I asked for a supervisor and then a manager. They all had the same story.

 The Real Reason I’m So Pissed Off

My main complaint is not that I’m out of service but that they can’t tell me why I’m sitting here with no communication with the outside world other than my cell phone and the newspaper.

WHY NOT!?! THEY HAVE AN ENORMOUS HI-TECH DIGITAL NETWORK AND YET THEY CAN’T TELL WHY SOMEONE DOESN’T HAVE SERVICE??? I have electric power, my cable is still attached to the pole out in the alley and there’s enough electronic crap on the side of my house to land a man on the moon but they don’t know why I’m out of service?!? Dumbasses.

That SUCKS in a whole new way!

I should not even have to call them to report an outage. They should know before I do when I lose service.

Yes, it’s true: COMCAST SUCKS MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD! EVER.

 

Some Background Information About How ComCast Came To Suck So Much

It’s hard to imagine the circumstances that resulted in a company that is a public utility being so unable to provide even a moderate level of acceptable customer service. Personally, I think it’s something that just happened gradually over time.

It didn’t used to suck. Well, I mean it didn’t suck when my cable and Internet was provided by Dynamic Cablevision and it didn’t suck when AT&T bought Dynamic. It wasn’t until ComCast bought out AT&T that the sucking started.

ComCast proceeded to “upgrade” the network to “all digital” and set up some high-tech call centers for the Customer Service Representatives to handle customers’ phone calls. This is when I believe the sucking became irreversible.

I obtained an inside look at the custom keyboards used by the ComCast Customer Service Representatives. Here’s a close-up view of the key they use the most when a customer calls in a complaint:

Admittedly, they HAVE tried to improve their customer service. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out too well because they, well, suck. As an example, here’s the email they sent me last year for Valentine’s Day in a futile attempt to be “consumer friendly”:

 

I think this pretty much sums up their sucky attitude towards the consumer in a nutshell. I’m surprised they don’t just print it out on my billing statement each month. Something like this: “You owe $111.62. Got a problem with that? Blow me!”  ComCast sucks!

 

ComCast Customer Service Reps Are Nice People And Don’t Suck

I actually feel sorry for the people answering the phones at ComCast. They have to listen to people like me bitch about their lousy company all day, every day. Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice about who to call and complain to so they get to bear the brunt of it. I apologize to them one and all.

Seriously, they have all been polite and friendly and I know they are doing the best they can under the circumstances. I even had a nice chat with one of them as we reminisced about SCTV and Bob and Doug McKenzie (ComCast has a call center in Canada, eh.) It’s too bad ComCast sucks so much or they might actually be able to have a good day now and then.

 

What You Can Do To Protect Yourself Against Future ComCast Outages

Let’s be honest here…you can’t do squat - that’s why I created this Web site.  If your ComCast service is working at the moment (which I’ll assume it is if you’re reading this) then IMMEDIATELY print this page before something bad happens. Put it in a safe place so you can find it the next time your ComCast service goes out and then tape the pages over your monitor and pretend that you’re actually browsing the Internet.

I wrote some jokes and stuff below to try to keep you in a good mood as you wait for the ComCast Tech to arrive some time between 7 am and 8 pm next Wednesday.

Enjoy,

Chuck

Sucky ComCast Humor Section

Top Ten Lists

Top 10 Things That Suck More Than ComCast:

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1. Sharon C. (See here)

 

Top 10 ComCast Christmas Carols That Suck:

10. (Totally) Silent Night

9. I Saw Three ComCast Trucks (In My Lifetime)

8. O Cablebox

7. Little Phoneless Boy

6. $#@k! The ComCast Customers Sing

5. It Failed Upon A Midnight Clear

4. Have Yourself An Internet-less Christmas

3. O Little Town With No Phone Service

2. O Come O Come Comcast Technician

1. All I Want for Christmas (Is My Cable TV)

 

Riddles That Suck (But Not As Much As ComCast Does  - Otherwise They’d Be In The Top 10 List Of Things That Suck More Than ComCast)

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: To move into a neighborhood that had a cable provider other than ComCast.

 

Q: How many ComCast technicians does it take to restore your service after a storm?

A: Ten-thousand.

 

Q: How many do they have?

A: One.

 

Q: What is ComCast’s corporate mission statement?

A: Do everything possible to make FPL look good by comparison.

 

Q: What’s worse than Hurricane Wilma?

A: ComCast.

 

Q: How do you get a blond to go home after sex?

A: Tell her you have ComCast cable/Internet/telephone service.

 

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?

A: A newspaper. Get used to reading it until your ComCast service comes back.

 

Q: What’s the difference between ComCast service and a Rolls Royce?

A: Some people have actually seen a Rolls Royce.

 

Politically incorrect joke alert!!!

Q: What do you get when you cross a {Insert Appropriate Ethnic Group Of Your Choice Here} with ComCast?

A: A network that never goes down.

 

Jokes That Suck Almost As Much As ComCast

1. Three ComCast Technicians walk into a bar and tell the bartender “We’re here to fix your cable service.” The bartender replies “What is this? Some kind of joke?”

2. An applicant for a ComCast position is being interviewed by a manager. When asked why he wants to work for ComCast he says “I want to help people and provide the best customer service possible!” The ComCast manager replies “Excellent! You can start tomorrow. Your salary will be $150,000, you’ll have 12 weeks of paid vacation, full medical coverage, a retirement plan and we’ll give you a new Lexus for your personal use.”

“Are you KIDDING?!?” asks the applicant. “Yeah” replies the manager, “but you started it!”

 

Haikus That Don’t Suck Anywhere Near As Much As ComCast

Haiku #1:

I sit in my home

Waiting for the ComCast Truck

I swear, ComCast sucks.

 

Haiku #2:

My phone doesn’t ring.

My television is black.

I swear, ComCast sucks.

 

This next one is my favorite; it took me hours to compose it but I think it succinctly captures the essence of ComCast:

Haiku #3:

ComCast sucks sucks sucks

sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks

sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks

 

Sucky ComCast Contest

Count how many times the word “suck” appears in this web site (in any form) and you’ll win a year of FREE COMCAST SUCKY SERVICE!*

*If you believe that, you’re a sucker!

 

11/30/2005 Update #1

Yesterday someone tried to break into our house. They smashed a huge picture window in the back in an attempt to get in. Fortunately, the alarm must have scared them off because it sure as heck couldn’t notify the alarm company because my sucky phones don’t work! I really ought to contact an attorney.

So, anyway, I was outside cleaning the glass off the pool deck when I hear someone knocking on the wooden fence. You can imagine my excitement when I saw the ComCast logo on his shirt. “Is your cable still out?” he asked. “Uh, yes. As is the cable at all of my neighbors’ houses” I replied. His expression quickly took a turn for the worse. He fumbled with the paperwork and said that the work order was just for my house. “I know”, I said, “because I’m the only one that reported it. My neighbors all have BellSouth DSL and satellite dishes so they don’t care when they lose cable.”

He went around to a few of my neighbors’ houses to verify my claim that they were, indeed, without service. When he returned he said “Holy crap! You have several blocks without service here! I thought this area was restored after the hurricane.” “It was” I said. “This just happened last Wednesday. I tried to tell them when I called that it wasn’t just me but they wouldn’t hear me.”

He went to his truck to call it in. When he was done I asked him when he thought they’d get to it. “Well, I don’t want to say because you’ll just be pissed off” he said. (I can’t imagine why he’d think that!) At least he was honest.

So I’m still here with no cable/phone/Internet waiting for the guy from the window company to come board up the hole in my house and tell me how much it’s going to cost to fix the window. This sucks.

And if you’re wondering how I’m able to update my web site with no cable service: I brought home a Sprint PCS modem from work yesterday. It slow but at the moment it’s outperforming my cable modem by a long shot. ComCast sucks.

 11/30/2005 Update #2

Oh my GAWD! I didn’t think ComCast could suck anymore than they do but I was WRONG! After the guy left earlier today another guy came out and climbed the pole. He took some kind of measurement with his thing-a-ma-jig and took off. I called ComCast and they said – get this – they said (with a straight face mind you) – that it would be DECEMBER 23^rd before we get our service back.

EXCUSE ME!?! I gave the cell phone to my wife to deal with the dopes from ComCast while I grabbed the other cell phone and called BellSouth.

Well, THAT seems to have lit a fire under ComCast’s ass. It seems that BellSouth can have us up and running in 72 HOURS!  Now it appears that ComCast can have a tech out TOMORROW to fix their SUCKY service.

Much better.

While my wife and I were on the phone we promised (in some cases “threatened”) some people that we would mention them here. Um…let me see… Oh yes:

1. Shawn Bauknight (from BellSouth) was just delightful.  (I hope I spelled her name correctly because she RULED. She even called me back when my cell phone battery died.) If you are reading this and are trying to decide between BellSouth and ComCast then just go with BellSouth because Shawn is so nice.
2. Jeremy (ComCast) was ‘tolerable’. That means he tried to get rid of us without doing anything until we got to his supervisor.
3. Chad (ComCast) finally came through and said he’d have someone here tomorrow to fix “at least” our phone service. (Note: Chad has advised me that CDP – ComCast Digital Phones - do not require cable service. Not that I doubt him, but I’ll believe that when I see it.)

I’ll keep you all updated on the status tomorrow.

12/1/2005 Update

Well what do you know? It appears that Chad doesn’t suck! Two ComCast trucks are driving away as I type this and I’m NOT using the Sprint PCS modem! Yes, the TV, internet and phone all work. Amazing what you can accomplish if you bitch long enough and loud enough. Thanks, Chad!

Now I have to call Shawn at BellSouth back and cancel my order. Hmm…on second thought, maybe I’d better wait a couple of days to make sure that it still works.

Note to Chad – Next you’re in Miami give me a call and my wife and I will treat you to a $100 dinner. Hopefully my sucky ComCast phone will be working. ;)

12/5/2005 Update

Shenanigans! I’ve noticed some odd behavior on Google! regarding this page’s ranking. I’ll be posting more info after I do some investigation. Check back towards the end of the week for more info. (Update – 12/6/2005 – Never mind. It was just me.)

12/7/2005 Update

Yesterday, I received an email from ComCast asking me to complete an on-line survey regarding my satisfaction with my recent service call. (I’ll leave it to you to imagine my overall satisfaction.)

Oddly, there was no apparent place to enter text comments anywhere in the survey. The final question was “How likely are you to switch providers after this incident?” When I clicked “Extremely likely”, a new section magically appeared asking for my comments. I referred them to this site and mentioned that BellSouth is scheduled to replace all of their sucky stuff on Friday.

They have not contacted me with a counter-offer yet. ComCast sucks.

 

Feedback

Feel free to send your own ComCast horror stories, jokes, riddles, etc. to “ChucksCorner at ComCast.net” (You can figure it out.) Don’t expect a reply anytime soon – if ever. If your comments don’t suck as much as ComCast does then I might post them here so don’t send me anything you don’t want posted.

Of course, I might NOT post them at all since that would require effort on my part and there’s such a thing as taking something too far.

Reader’s Feedback

Well, it didn’t take long but I’ve already received my first negative feedback (I removed the sender’s last name because I’m a nice guy):

I have Charter Cable, wouldn’t know anything about Comcast. Chuck has way too much time on his hands………to have written all this on the subject. I would think he would have started out with the inconvenience of the hurricanes. What does all this have to do with disco? If disco is the “one thing in his life that sucked” so much and now it’s Comcast I would say that Chuck has had a pretty sweet life up to now. I can think of a lot more things that really suck like TERRORISM, CANCER, HEART DISEASE, CHILD ABUSE………

 

SILLY ME, I AM GLAD MY FAMILY MADE IT THROUGH THE HURRICANE ALIVE.

 

GROW UP CHUCK!!!!!!!

 

Sharon C.

Catter-wauler,

Gee, for someone with such a busy schedule you certainly didn’t have a problem finding time to compose a lengthy diatribe and then click “Reply to all”, did you? As for your question: It has nothing whatsoever to do with disco. It’s a joke. Clearly you are missing the point here so I won’t bother explaining it to you. (And I suppose Tolstoy had too much time on HIS hands when he wrote War and Peace, huh?)

Idiot. Oh well, at least now we all know that there is SOMETHING that sucks more than ComCast!

Thanks for writing.

Chuck

 

On A Positive Note

The following replies make it all worthwhile:

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Hi Chuck:

 

I love your web site. Can't stand Sharon. One more thing that sucks more than ComCast is SLOWWWWWWWWW dialup.

 

Sabra

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genius, awesome . . . way to go Chuck, you tell them.
That's why I have BellSouth and DirectTV.

 

Larry Lugones

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LOL

Thanks,
Mark E.

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Hi – this is the funniest site and totally true – we lost our service again on Saturday and still don’t have it back. 

Robin

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Chuck:

 

Love your web site rant.  I used to love Comcast, but now I'm not so sure.  I'm glad I didn't turn my home phones over to them.  I don't think my BS <Ed: BellSouth> phones have ever gone down in any storm.

 

Bob

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In case you are wondering, this many people think ComCast sucks more than anything in the world:

Free Web Site Counter

 

This many people think I’m nuts: 000001 (Sharon C.)