Monday, August 14, 2006

What did the five fingers say to the face?

SLAP!

This is what AT&T is doing to Comcast at this very moment. They are taking advantage of a devastating (for the company) weakness with Comcast service.

When this happens........



People get really f-ing pissed. What makes them even more pissed? Not being able to use a land-line phone. Doesn't seem like the huge deal I am making it out to be? Be without power for 23 hours and see how far that cell phone battery takes you. Sadly.. I was one of the lucky ones... There were many reports of people being out of power for days.

Unfortunately.... you don't even have to loose power to go technologically dark. So when Comcast called a week after the power outage to sell me services, I was so pissed I told them they were the last people on earth who should be calling me.

Since moving into my new place four months ago, I have had 3 complete Comcast outages. One was do to the heat index and resulting power losses. The others.. who the F knows.

So when Comcast again called yesterday to ask about the nature of my last call, and what my customer satisfaction was. I let loose. I was so pissed about the other stuff that I forgot to even complain about HD content.

Don't I pay extra every month for HD.. yes I do. I have previously blogged about it here.

Later that day I told my husband with glee they called to let me bitch at them. Ironically at that very moment we heard an ad on TV bitching about who else? Comcast. It turns out the issue must be big enough that AT&T has run a whole ad campaign to capitalize on the weakness. Apparently that random call wasn't so random. The ad campaign must be making a difference to Comcast. I have never had them call to see what my satisfaction level was.

Unfortunately with so few choices... changing providers is a little like trying to figure out which side of the apple is less rotten.

I'm not just sport bitching. But I'd rather not go through all the trouble of switching only to find myself in a rather similar predicament. Which is why I am not currently at AT&T.

1 comment:

  1. Comcast completely sucks, but the good news is with the TiVo series 3, you can actually cut out $22.80 off of your monthly bill. That $5 HDTV box is technically billed as an HDTV box converter. Since TiVo S3 does the lifting, Comcast should drop the fee if you upgrade. Of course this won't stop them from changing their fee structure, but my math suggests that between the digital converter, the HDTV signal, the cost of the remote (yup ComCrap dings you 0.20 cents per month for their remote), the "program guide" fee and the "only $9.99" DVR surcharge that it is significantly more expensive then people realize. I'm going to wait for my first bill and then file a truth in advertising claim against them with the FTC. Luckily, we have laws in California that specifically prohibit this type of marketing and with the TiVo 3 finally here, I dont' see how they'll legally be able to continue to charge me converter "rental" fees, when I own my own box.

    The ironic part is that Comcast isn't charging me anything to have two cable cards, but they'll try and least a modem to me for $3 per month, if I didn't already have my own.

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