Posted on 10/18/2007 5:56:35 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
...Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris Hilton, a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer" Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local Comcast office in Manassas to settle a score, and boy, did she!
This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed "Triple Play" service, which combines phone, cable and Internet services, in Shaw's brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed to show up on the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later but left with the job half done. On Friday morning, they cut off all service.
This was the company that has had consumer service problems serious enough to prompt the trade magazine Advertising Age to editorialize that Comcast and other cable providers should spend less on advertising and more on customer service. And has spawned a blog called ComcastMustDie.com...
So Mona Shaw and her husband, Don, went to the local call center office to complain...according to Shaw: Mona demands to speak to a manager. A customer service representative says someone will be right with them. Directs them to a bench, outside. (Remember, it's mid-August.) Mona and Don sit.
Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock. Sit, sit, sit, go Mona and Don. For. Two. Hours.
And then...the customer rep leans out the door and says the manager has left for the day. Thanks for coming!...The insulting idea that, as Shaw puts it, "they thought just because we're old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains and backbone."
So, after stewing over it all weekend, on the following Monday, she went downstairs, got Don's claw hammer and said: "C'mon, honey, we're going to Comcast."...Hammer time...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I’ve had nothing but good from Comcast. Oh, there was one installer who couldn’t get it right, but my husband redid the wiring, and everything works 99.8 percent of the time. There are occasional outages, but when I call, they take care of it right away.
we have Verizon DSL which is superb. We have Comcast cable which never gives us trouble. I think we have a Verizon landline. And I don’t own a cell phone. If Verizon had cable, I’d probably switch
We dumped Comcast and went with Qwest. Our service included better offerings and $145/month instead of $225. I’m sure Qwest will screw that up and we will have to switch again to something else.
This woman was interviewed on our local radio. After hearing her describe her attempts to get Comcast to respond to her requests, I think I would have done the same thing.
Comcast acts like this because there isn’t much competition to force them to treat their customers better.
Stories like this one are why I won’t get their combo packages.
Was the poor little blonde that had her keyboard smashed the one who had Mona and her husband sit outside in the August heat for three hours, only to be told the manager had left for the day? If so, it was earned trauma. You obviously haven’t had to deal with Comcast lately, or you, too, would be polishing up your hammer. I subscribed to their TiVo service. It took three tries for them to get me a TiVo box that actually worked. Each try necessitated me taking half a day off work and sitting for hours waiting for their mental deficient to come install the box. When the third guy left, he took the remote, and it took me a week to get it back. On another occasion, several years ago, I was having problems with my digital service and they sent two different technicians who were not trained in digital service. I will not go into my billing difficulties with Comcast because it would take too long, and I don’t want to relive those nightmares.
I think that's actually in their mission statement on their web site...:-)
Howdy neighbor. (I'm in the SW Chicago suburbs)
Oddly enough...I was not had ANY problems with service or support from Comcast. In fact, I was quite impressed with the knowledge of the guy on the other end of the phone when I had a minor issue with their internet service.
I second that. On the odd occasion I call Comcast about internet problems, they are nothing but professional and helpful. For example, I called about a month ago when some contractors digging a ditch down the street cut through Comcast’s fiber. A Comcast truck showed up about 15 minutes after I called and had it fixed an hour later.
By the way, my wife’s computer had the same problem as yours (pings worked, email worked, browsing did not, DNS flush didn’t help). Rebooting corrected it but only for a day or so. It turned out to be a buggy, outdated driver for the Ethernet card. After I updated the driver with the latest from the mfr’s website, the problem went away for good.
Finally a human with an IQ over 70 checked into the situation and realized our serial number was not one of theirs (I guess) - Of course this took about 8 months. I was not going to have my credit rating marred for a $100 claim but it still was a B$3th to clear up with them!
Personally I'd never get their (or anyone's) main phone service. When it comes to utilities I'm a Luddite. Ma Bell is for phones - period.
Do you think that this was the blonde’s decision? That she intentionally told them to sit in an uncomfortable place? That she held the manager so he didn’t go out?
Been there, done that, gotten the hell from customers. She didn’t deserve the woman’s rage.
And this is part of the problem we have. The extreme is cheered. They chose to sit there too, I would have stood at the desk and actually have done this from time to time. Bring a folding chair and make a place. That works.
I don’t care what poor customer service these people got. Get a sign and protest outside on the sidewalk, start a letter writing campaign. Violence should NEVER be cheered. Personally, I’d medicate the old lady.
If you don’t want to go through the problems again, move on to Directv and let them go. Don’t give them your money and complain.
I almost experience panic attacks at the thought of having to call comcast! It does not stop at the door of Comcast though—call ATT and see what happens. And, oh if you have a problem with a modem for your internet service and have to call the modem manufacturer! This past spring I called the local gas company about my bill. It was a little higher than normal and I requested a reading of the meter. This was a Tuesday. On Wednesday the technician was supposed to read the meter and on Thursday I was going to call back the Gas provider(DTE) to get the update on the meter. I was too busy to call Thursday—so on Friday morning at 6 am my house was a little cold and I went to turn the furnace on. It would not work—blower on but no heat! I laughingly wondered, “did they shut my gas off?” Well I called DTE to check on the status of my account and the person told me, “you are okay, your account is fine.”
Then I called the furnace guy—he came at noon and checked everything out. He stepped outside and came back in and told me my gas was shut off and capped off at the meter! I paid the man $60 for the call. It took me one month and several phone calls, but I got my $60 bucks back!
True-violence is not an option. Yet, my sister was told by a customer service rep at GE appliances “I don’t care if the front of your dishwasher falls off, we are not going to do anything more for you.” How would you like that? What do you do? Boycott—that’s the ticket!
That, of course, is the problem in a nutshell.
If someone told me that they didn’t care about it, I would call back and get a different rep. Did she get the rep’s name? I have gotten a name, called back, then gotten a different rep and reported it to the supervisor.
This happenened this week to me with my internet service. We had a 48 hour outage where I was told that the internet in MI was down. HA! Talked to one dimwit, wrote his name down and called back. I got an ETA on the service by telling them about it and service was back within an hour.
Those who have never been in the middle of these situations have no clue what the CS people are going through. You go to the bosses and ask them what you are suppose to say and get some glib answer, THEN have to deal with the customers.
The blonde didn’t cause the problem nor did she do anything more than her supervisor told her. She didn’t deserve some raving senior with a hammer.
Actually, this has gone on for months—the response from the rep was the “final answer”. You are correct, customer service can only provide what they are told—but it does reflect on the company for lack of options that take care of customers.
I wish I could get rid of DirectTV and internet service. We live in an area that will not support Verizon because of the outdated lines. Cable refuses to bring service to any street with only a few homes. We are stuck for now with overpriced DirectTV. They make you get channels you don’t even want or use in order to get a few you do like. I wish congress would make them stop making us purchase garbage channels
If I was on a jury and I heard this, I wouldn’t convict. I’d give her a medal instead.
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