COMCAST - The Most Hated Company In America

Yet another unpleasant customer service experience at the hands of Comcast so-called customer service.

Our internet and phones went out on Friday 3/23/12. My wife called, and after interminable slogging through menus, finally reached a human, who, after going through some perfunctory self diagnostics, said a technician would be there between 3:00pm and 7:00pm. My wife had to be somewhere at 4:00, so I left work early to go home and wait.

Four hours and 7:00pm came and went, and I called Comcast. An automated recording informed me they had arbitrarily changed the appointment to Saturday 3/24 between 11:00am and 1:00pm. Infuriated, slogged through the deep muddy of menu choices and finally got in touch with a human. He said somehow the dispatch had not reached any technicians and the service call was rescheduled. I told him I expected someone to be at my home tonight, not tomorrow, that it was unacceptable to have me leave work, costing my two hours pay, and unable to telecommute due to lack of internet service. He offered me a $20 credit which infuriated me even more. I demanded to speak to a supervisor. Once the supervisor got on the phone I did not relent until she agreed to send someone over.

The technician arrived at 9:00pm. He did some diagnostics and said the modem was fine, then went outside and looked around and informed me there was a problem with the box on the pole, which was affecting everyone on the block.

I found this odd, since no one I spoke to before this mentioned anything about anyone else having trouble, and wouldn't some other person have called if the entire block had this problem?

He said a technician would fix the box on the pole overnight and my service would be restored the next morning.

Needless to say, when I checked in the morning there was still no service. I called back, and explained the situation, and the person in the phone said someone worked on the pole overnight. They said they would send a technician over. The technician arrived at 10:00am and when he looked at the modem, lo and behold, it turned out the modem was bad, the opposite of what the idiot the night before said. He replaced the modem and all is now working.

It is now obvious to me that the "problem with the box on the pole" story was false.

So here are my problems:
1.) Two hours of lost pay
2.) Being trapped in my house for four hours, unable to leave, waiting for a technician who never showed up
3.) Being lied to and jerked around on the phone by an incompetent service rep.
4.) Having an incompetent technician come to the house, lying and misdiagnosing the problem.
5.) Overuse of my iPhone data plan due to inability to connect to my wireless network, costing me money
6.) Loss of service for over 24 hours, service I am paying for
7.) Extreme stress due to having to deal with incompetence every step of the way, except for the technician who came Saturday morning and fixed what the others were unable to fix.

I am blind with rage over this situation. It will take more than a $20 credit to make me whole.