You can consider the following another rant about the worst “tech” company I have ever dealt with: Comcast.

If you think I bitch a lot about Comcast on this blog, you should talk to me in person — I complain about them almost daily at this point. Yes, I’m still having problems with them. And yes, it is ridiculous.

Something like 5 months now after services started popping up on my bill that I didn’t actually have, they’re still there. I’ve thought the matter was resolved at least 4 other times. Each time, it hasn’t been. It’s laughable. I think I’ve talked to everyone at that company about it by now. They can’t seem to get their act together because I’m pretty sure no one in that company talks to one another. And if they do, they certainly don’t speak the same language.

The latest fiasco goes something like this: I’m getting charged for the triple-pack, cable-phone-internet package. I haven’t had that since I called to cancel it something like 3 months ago — yet I am still getting billed. When I finally got someone on the phone to explain why (mind you, this was after a different rep told me they were taking the charges off of my bill — which of course never happened), the response was that since I still had the modem that supports phone service I was getting billed for it. When I brought up that the phone service didn’t actually work, that they had shut it off remotely, they claimed that didn’t matter and that someone actually had to come out to my place to turn off the phone service — which hadn’t happened.

I’m pretty sure that’s a lie, that they can shut it off remotely, and did so. But whatever, I really didn’t have time to argue about that. I’d spent far too much time on the phone with Comcast already, so I just told them to come pick up the device and shut off the service. But there was another phantom charge — for HD cable — which I don’t think I’ve had for about 6 months or more (so long that I’m really not sure if I ever had it). Again, Comcast said because I had the cable box in my possession, I was being charged for HD cable.

Never mind the fact that the cable box hasn’t worked for 6 months, something which I called about 3 times back in the day, but again, never got resolved.

Again, I’m a busy guy, I just don’t have the will or the patience to be on the phone with Comcast arguing for hours, so I told them to come get all the devices, and made sure that when they did, they would stop charging me. They assured me I would no longer be charged for those services when the boxes were turned in.

Well, the Comcast guy came on December 24. First of all, when I asked what area he needed access to so he could turn off the services I didn’t want, he had no idea what I was talking about. (Big surprise.) All he needed to do was pick up the cable box he said. When I asked about the phone modem, he said that was fine to keep. Well that’s great, I could have turned in the cable box myself, why again did they need to send someone out to my place to do that? But again, as long as it’ll stop me from getting billed, I was fine with whatever. He took the box and left.

A few weeks later I get a bill — for the same wrong amount, for the billing period beginning on December 28 — yes, four days after the guy was out here to shut everything off.

Big fucking surprise.

I took the usual route and once again emailed Comcast about the issue. But you know what? Fuck it. I’m through using back channels to do most of my complaining. It’s great that Comcast has someone on Twitter, they get some nice press coverage for that — it hasn’t helped my billing issue in the slightest and quite frankly I’m sick of people telling me to consult @comcastcares. Comcast may “care” on Twitter but they’re fucking idiots when it comes to getting shit done for their customers paying them hundreds of dollars a month.

You want to know what customer service is? A couple weeks ago I noticed my iPhone earbuds had sound that was starting to fade in one ear. I took it into the Apple store to ask if that was covered under warranty. Without any questions, the rep just walked over to where the earbuds were, took a brand new set out of their packaging and handed them to me. That’s customer service.

At one point I was paying Comcast nearly $200 for awful user experience, a bunch of channels I don’t want, and this shit customer service. $200 a month, for crap. I’ve since bought an Apple TV and now get 99% of my content through that and my Xbox 360 — the experience is 1,000 times nicer, and absurdly cheaper. Or rather, should be absurdly cheaper, if Comcast would stop goddamn billing me for services I don’t have.

With content moving to the Internet at an quickening pace, and devices outside of cable’s control that are able to access that content becoming increasingly a part of the living room, the cables companies should be worried. For too long they’ve gotten away with a shit product, and that mixed with their absolute shit service will keep driving people away.

People simply haven’t had a choice before, so they stayed, but they’re getting choices. And any choice is better than Comcast.

[photo: flickr/scriptingnews]