Lemonaid from a lemon?

[Xairbusdriver]

Finally decided to call Comcast Service since one of the best channels was not working off our cable box. C-SPAN2 worked perfectly on any other TV in the house but the one TV connected to the cable box would not work. After a few seconds the image would become pixelated, the sound would drop and the picture would even freeze. Since that channel is mostly viewed on weekends (it's called "Book TV" then due to the subject matter then!) I never bothered to call when I was thinking about it.

Thinking that the easiest way to get a phone number would be to use their web site (they took over the RoadRunner franchise only a few months ago, so I didn't expect them to have a listing in the phone book yet) I quickly found my first error in logic! If you are having troubles with the Internet service, you'd likely not look there for a phone number, right? So, why bother putting one on the site? Save a few electrons!

Eventually, I managed to 'talk' to someone/thing via a "live chat" and they let slip the phone number, accidently, no doubt! But it worked and a date/time was scheduled for service (rebooting had failed three times). Now all I had to do was set aside the whole afternoon of Thursday! These people must be busy, not that they would think any of their customers might be!

Just like a sundial, they called about 12:30 to be sure someone would be home for the rest of the day! "Sure," I said,"I've taken the day off just to meet a highly trained technician! I hope s/he brings some technical data for me to read while he trouble-shoots!"

An hour later, the tech calls to verify that I'll be standing on the curb waving a flag for him (he's a little lost but thinks he can find me as he slows at each corner looking for that flag...

It takes him only 10 minutes to exit the truck after he arrives! However, that is merely to walk around to the side doors to access his tools and read the last chapters to some manuals. Eventually, he makes it to the front door and I welcome him in, all the time wondering how long he's been since he arrived in the USofA... But he was a friendly, if somewhat non-verbal and I took him to see the ailing TV and demonstrated the problem and how well the other TVs worked on the exact same channel. Although he'd likely never seen C-SPAN2 before, he agreed that it was probably even less interesting in the current jerky, sound losing condition and set about performing the exact tasks that had already been done thrice!

He installed a new cable box, an Explorer 2200 versus the 2000 model. Just the name "Explorer" caused me some concern, but I decided it really didn't have anything to do with Microsoft, just an unlucky choice of names... He even built a new cable to connect to the wall jack. Of course, nothing made any difference.

I then remembered that the only connections I had not checked was the one on the outside of the house. Perhaps it was loose? Well, whether it was corroded or not, we didn't determine, but it definitely was loose! I had to let him borrow a small Cresent wrench to disconnect it! He then built another cable to run, on top of the ground (and a fence!) back to the cable terminal in the back yard. Shazam! That solved the reception problem! Something wrong in that buried cable! Probably from the 'activities' of our resident mole(s), no doubt!

So, my grass cutting is ended until a crew returns to bury a new cable! It's simply too dangerous to mow around that cable! Although it might work if I could get my lovely wife to simply hold it high over her head as I mow around her feet...nah, I'd rather let her make me some lemonaid!

[Paddy]

Just make sure they DO come back and bury that cable, Jim. We had one that I kept asking them to bury that ran (barely covered) down the side of our driveway, above ground along the back of a flower bed at the end of the driveway and then barely buried across the lawn to the house, and they kept saying "oh yes, they'd get right on it" and nothing would happen. Finally, our reception got so bad that they put two and two together and got around to replacing the cable and burying it. They also rerouted it - the installer who came to do it couldn't understand why they'd taken it all the way around to the back of the house in the first place!

Must admit I was rather impressed with Rogers here in Toronto, who when we complained that we were getting a bit of pixelation on one channel late one Friday night, tried to fix it by resetting our box from their office and when that didn't work, scheduled us for a visit from the repair guy on SUNDAY, while apologizing profusely that they didn't have any appointments available on Saturday! (We were out all day Saturday - didn't matter a fig to us!) And he showed up promptly, and not only replaced our outside line, but determined that the signal going to our box was weaker than it should have been and installed a booster. Granted, my husband the neatnik came along afterwards and grumbled about slightly messy tangle of wires in our electrical panel box and proceeded to staple them neatly in place...guess you can't have absolutely everything!

[RNKIII]

Up here it's the squirrels that gnaw on the overhead lines. So Charter keeps restringing new 'main' cables along the power lines in the back of the lot.... BUT , they don't remove the old cable, just add more, now making for a squirrel 'superhighway' in the sky where two or three can pass each other while going in opposite directions to get to the choicest gnawing point on the new cable.


Bob K.   rnkiii

[Xairbusdriver]

I'm not sure I really want them to return! not only will it mean a return to mowing the grass, it will also provide the 'trenchers' an opportunity to 'find' the underground irrigation pipes! And maybe even the telephone lines? I should get a warning about the anticipated action by another party spraying colorful markings all over the grass. Companies are supposed to call an 800 number to have an agency come by and mark all underground utilities before any digging is done. Fortunately, the gas lines are in the front of the house!

Only squirrels we have around here are the tunneling kind, no overhead wires but they still find stuff to chew on under the grass!

BTW, please don't mention how good other companies services are! It just makes those of us who can't access those companies more dissatisfied! I asked the tech if he'd previously worked for RoadRunner. When he said he had, I asked if he thought Comcast was better. He agreed with what I'd heard before, Comcast is not perfect but it's still more "Comcastic" than Comcast! But we have no choice - monopolies are funny that way...

[Gregg]

I probably told this story here 4 years ago...
When we moved in, the lanscapers cut our telephone line, 'cause it wasn't buried deep enough. (Phone Co. error, not landscapers.) That very evening, the telephone repair union went on strike. Finally, someone shows up to fix it; managers in boots, who probably used to do the outdoor work before "moving up the ladder". Well, we had no grass yet, and it had been raining for days by then.

The guy tried to find the cut wire, but gave up and put a new one in, on top of the muck, of course. The landscapers came back and put in the sod, working around the wire. When they sent someone to bury the cable, they said, "Oh no, we can't do that through this sod. It'll tear it to pieces. We'll have to come back in 2 or 3 weeks."

So I have to mow around the stupid wire, making that a two-person task. They finally buried it, leaving a meandering line of dirt through our newly sodded lawn for the entire summer. There really is a proper order of doing things....

[Highmac]

Jim: By coincidence, a post from George led me indirectly to the following, which I posted back in 2004.... and which is still worth reading again

QUOTE

Anyone who has tried to deal with big company incompetence will enjoy this outburst.... this is (we are told) a copy of a complaint letter received by NTL (a UK cable company that has since merged with Telewest and Virgin to become Virginmedia).


Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone.
During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions.
Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning or notice, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat ar*e waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive at all, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website.... how? I alleviated the boredom to some small degree by playing with my testi*les for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept.

The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum.
Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After several further telephone calls (actually 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks) my modem arrived... a total of six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.

I estimate that the downtime of your internet servers is roughly 35%... these are usually the hours between about 6pm and midnight, Monday to Friday, and most of the useful periods over the weekend.
I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 telephone calls on my mobile to your no-help line this week, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled boll*ck jugglers.

I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back), that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman).... and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no-longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testi*le-moments to attend to.

Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music.
Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were sh*t, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there?
How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bast*rds you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum - incompetents of the highest order. British Telecom - w*nkers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.
Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardyquest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you do likewise, and cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief although these feelings will quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps a small measure of bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you, and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.
Have a nice day - may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of tw*ts,
Yours psychotically

To give Virgin (my ISP) their due, the occasional problem I've had has been dealt with promptly and efficiently.