I finally got to level up.

After talking to 28 people at Comcast, I finally got access to ftp. I'm still leaving them, but my blog is really old now. I have all the images, but reassembling those images with all the posts would take a really long time. If I can just grab the dir from Comcast, I can just take it somewhere else.

You know, after a while I was sure I just wasn't articulating my problem very well. So, like in video games when you have to replay a level you have to do it slightly differently. Over and over I'd try to slightly change the way I was describing it. Mr S. even starting Googling the exact phrases from the Comcast site so he could make sure there was no misunderstanding.

The insanely frustrating thing was absolutely no one knew was FTP was or did. At one point I was yelling at a guy. I mean, really yelling. It was the only time I was shocked they didn't hang up on me!

I'm here to help you. This is where I had to ask him if he knew what FTP was. Yes, yes. File transfer protocol. In my mind I said at last. Only to realize seconds later he didn't know what it was. Http he said. FTP from the command prompt! I'd have to repeat what is was. I finally started having to ask them prove to me you know how to use FTP. How would you use it? I got the same thing over and over. It's like Yahoo the guy would respond. It not anything like yahoo!

And the complete frustrating thing was no one would admit they didn't know how to use it, and they refused to send me to someone who did. I'd be told I was getting a 2nd level support line, when the level of knowledge was exactly the same. I have probably 7 or 8 phone numbers. I even had to drive down to my local Comcast site and ask them if I could get a phone number of someone who was more technical.

Mr S. finally started dealing with them because he was sure I wasn't saying the right thing. Not that anyone who knew anything about networking would have misunderstood me, but 80% of the time you end up in India.

Eventually I found out there was a third line of support. I was sent over to Security Assurance who apparently was the only one who had control over what might be causing my problem. But they couldn't help me. Finally Mr S. talked to a guy named Mathew (the second Mathew he'd talked to) who looked at the Comcast forums which I linked in one of my other posts. He was the first guy to have any clue or any inclination to try and find the correct person to talk to. I don't remember what number Mathew #2 was. It was somewhere after talking to 20 people. I think he was in the 22-24 range. He actually had to call internally around Comcast to find out how to help, and he seemed embarrassed it was even hard for him internally to find someone.

At this point I'd given up. I'd mentally prepared to just devote a chunk of my life to reassembling my blog. Mr S. was still trying to find the magic power up to get through this level. And I guess he randomly tried to ftp in, and it worked. I immediately started to download my images to at least mirror my stuff so I could take it somewhere else. It was about 30 minutes later someone at Comcast actually called back. Rochelle told Mr S. that my access had been disabled due to a security scare, and that it wasn't her group because they usually try to contact the customer. But someone in the same group (security assurance) had apparently done it. I guess they shut down access if something triggers a security concern.

It looks like my swapping out of the modem was a completely random coincidence. But it would have been really nice if someone would have even notated my account. It would have saved - I don't know, I lost count at 12 man hours. And if I would have gone through the diags the techs wanted me to do, it would have been well more!

Additionally if Comcast wonders why their call volume is so high, it is because their tech ARE dumping calls. If you call from home, and they do not understand how to solve your problem they will just send a reset to the modem. At one point Mr S was "chatting" online with a tech and he started to flip out. Even though he'd specifically asked the guy not to reset out modem, he did. Chat over man. Chat over. My images are still broken, but I don't care. At least I can get at them. I can fix that next week.