Cable company suck

[Spiffy McMoron]

So I was at a friends house on Mondy night, and we were going to watch the Colorado-Calgary hockey game that was on Pay-Per-View. So my friend orders it up, but realized that he had ordered the regular feed when he'd really wanted the HD feed. OK, oops, we'll phone the cable company and see what can be done.

So he calls Shaw and gets pu on hold for about 10 minutes. He then talks to a guy at Shaw who isn't quite sure is it's possible to chage feeds like how we need, so he said he's going to put us on hold again and check with a supervisor. Hey, no prob, that's cool. 35 more minutes pass.

By this time, the first period is over. Finally we get connected to somebody! Wait, no, it's another customer phoning in to complain that his digital box isn't working. My friend and this other guy talk for a minute, confirm to each other that they don't work at Shaw, and both hang-up. At that point, my friend gives up, and we enjoy the rest of the game in peace--even though Calgary lost.

[Gerrinson]

Well, to be fair, your friend did order the wrong thing and wanted it swapped which is not always as simple as it sounds. I'll give the Shaw rep the benefit of the doubt on this one, despite the company's strong aura of suck.

Getting connected to another customer who called to complain - that is definitely sucktastic. Although a novel way of avoiding having to deal with customer complaints.

[trunks2k]

My cable company suck (Comcast):

We got cable at our place and when we signed up we asked what channels would come in cable ready since we would be using TV cards on a couple of our computers. They told us that we'd get all the channels that were under Channel 100.

I go out and buy a brand new TV since I had wanted an HD TV come back and hook it up without the cable box (since we didn't purchase any channels over channel 100). And it works - I get the channels plus the HD channels for broadcast TV channels. We're happy.

A few months later, suddenly about 2/3rds the channels stop coming in. I figure it's just a problem with the cable and wait for it to resolve itself. A couple days later, it's still not resolved. So I try hooking up the cable box, and all the channels come in. Crap, they're scrambling the channels to make us rent a box.

Room mate calls up comcast to complain since we were told we'd get X channels on cable ready, but are now only getting Y. Rep sends us a tech scheduled a week later. Tech shows up, takes two seconds to look at the TV and says "Yeah, Comcast is doing this so you'll have to rent the box," nothing he can do, so he leaves.

Room mate calls comcast again to complain and they insist on sending a "more experienced tech". He argues with them a bit because the last time the tech came out he told us what we already knew and didn't do anything. They still insist, and my room mate agrees. Tech shows and he says the same thing as the last guy as well as chatting about how many people are pissed off about it.

Bill comes and there's an extra $60 charge -- $30 for each tech visit! Room mate is furious and calls up Comcast to bitch to them about charging us for those visits, especially since we didn't want the visits in the first place . Hearing the conversation was hilarious:

"...If that can't possibly happen then why is that happening?!* Yes the problem is still happening, but that's not what I'm calling about. I want this charge taken --- No that's not what I'm calling about. You guys charged me for -- NO! Listen, right now I'm too fed up to deal with the issue, I've accepted what you guys are doing and have moved on. I just want you to remove the charge for sending out two techs after I told you I don't need them because I already figured out what was going on and without telling me I'd be charged. They didn't do anything! No. It wasn't our fault. I DIDN'T WANT THEM SENT OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU INSISTED THEY COME!"

This went on for a good half an hour.

*Referring to the channels coming in via the box but not directly through cable ready.

[XXDarrienX]

I am on the side of the CSR, we had no control over things like that, and I actually remember getting in trouble for trying to help a irate customer with an issue when nothing was working. All we were told to do were to schedule technicians for that even though its obvious a tech has been there atleast 5 times.

[Broomjockey]

By this time, the first period is over. Finally we get connected to somebody! Wait, no, it's another customer phoning in to complain that his digital box isn't working. My friend and this other guy talk for a minute, confirm to each other that they don't work at Shaw, and both hang-up. At that point, my friend gives up, and we enjoy the rest of the game in peace--even though Calgary lost.

Dude, I told you, all your team had to do to hold up your end of the bargain was win that game. Geez. You DESERVE regular def. Bah.

[Hello Kitty]

I just want you to remove the charge for sending out two techs after I told you I don't need them because I already figured out what was going on and without telling me I'd be charged...This went on for a good half an hour.

So what happened with the $60 charge? Did they waive it, as they should have? They should have mentioned the charges BEFORE they scheduled the truck roll.

[trunks2k]

I am on the side of the CSR, we had no control over things like that, and I actually remember getting in trouble for trying to help a irate customer with an issue when nothing was working. All we were told to do were to schedule technicians for that even though its obvious a tech has been there atleast 5 times.

We weren't really blaming the CSR who sent out the techs, we had been talking previously with what was probably an outsourced call center and they were just following a script. It's more of a blame on Comcast as a whole.

The last rep we talked to was via a number given to us by the second tech, this rep had more power than the previous rep did (according to the tech), as it was local support. Our problem with him specifically is that we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we needed to use a cable box for the time being, and just wanted the $60 off the bill, which he kept avoiding addressing that issue.

So what happened with the $60 charge? Did they waive it, as they should have? They should have mentioned the charges BEFORE they scheduled the truck roll.

Yeah, after my room mate was getting really really flustered because the guy wouldn't address the billing issue, and kept trying to talk about the technical issue and was about to ask the rep for "the person that is capable of firing you". Yeah, I cringe a bit when my room mate deals with CSRs, but in this case it was somewhat deserved.

We wouldn't have minded had the billing issue been addressed immediately and then talk about the technical problems. But it took the guy almost 20 minutes to even begin to address it, but still kept going back to the technical issue.

We wouldn't even be using Comcast if we had a decent alternate choice. We NEED high speed internet since both of us work from home sometimes, and we're out of the DSL range, which really shocks me since we're in the middle of one of the larges cities in the US. I guess Verizon doesn't care about our section of the city. That leaves us with cable internet, which is provided by Comcast, and it's too expensive to get Comcast just for internet and Satellite for TV.

[Andara Bledin]

we're out of the DSL range, which really shocks me since we're in the middle of one of the larges cities in the US.

You might look into if there's anything you can get if you do a DSL/VOIP package.

Our apartment complex isn't supposed to get DSL at all, but for some reason, if we get VOIP with DSL, we can get DSL. I don't get it, but it works.

^-.-^

[trunks2k]

You might look into if there's anything you can get if you do a DSL/VOIP package.

Our apartment complex isn't supposed to get DSL at all, but for some reason, if we get VOIP with DSL, we can get DSL. I don't get it, but it works.

^-.-^

Then we'd be paying for VOIP. We don't even use a landline phone. Neither of us need phones that often, so we just stick with or cell phones. I check with verizon monthly to see if anything has changed (or even if fios is planned), but they keep telling me no. Although, in the group of new houses across the street, almost all of them seem to be using satellite. I should ask them what they do for interwebs.

[Kogarashi]

We wouldn't even be using Comcast if we had a decent alternate choice. We NEED high speed internet since both of us work from home sometimes, and we're out of the DSL range, which really shocks me since we're in the middle of one of the larges cities in the US. I guess Verizon doesn't care about our section of the city. That leaves us with cable internet, which is provided by Comcast, and it's too expensive to get Comcast just for internet and Satellite for TV.

My first married apartment was like that. We must've been in the black hole of the city or something. The apartment got Comcast channels without a box as part of the rental package (it was provided to the whole complex and figured into our rent), but Comcast didn't provide cable internet to the apartment. Neither did iProvo (or whatever Provo's own cable internet provider was). Both supplied cable internet to the next complex over, approximately 200 feet away. We needed high-speed, so we basically had a choice between AT&T DSL and Qwest DSL, the latter of which we'd been fiercely warned away from by friends of ours. Apparently Qwest was quite fond of raising customer rates without actually telling the customers.

The really annoying part of the DSL, though, was that we couldn't network our computers for some reason. We borrowed a friend's router, but couldn't get it configured for the DSL. So we ended up having to switch the internet cable on the box for whichever computer needed to be connected at the moment.

[Spiffy McMoron]

Well, to be fair, your friend did order the wrong thing and wanted it swapped which is not always as simple as it sounds. I'll give the Shaw rep the benefit of the doubt on this one, despite the company's strong aura of suck.

Oh, I agree--we did order the wrong thing. And if the guy at Shaw had just said, "Sorry, you ordered the regular game. There's nothing I can do." that would have been the end of it. It was the whole being put on hold for 45 minutes that was the suck.

Dude, I told you, all your team had to do to hold up your end of the bargain was win that game. Geez. You DESERVE regular def. Bah.

You know what, Broom? I tell you what:

1) Maybe your team should win some games on their own
2) I've had just about enough of your sass. I'm just sayin'.