Why I am dropping Comcast as my ISP

No broadband provider offers HBO GO without a TV subscription. HBO doesn't allow it. The links to The Verge and Wired in the OP both explicitly state that in order to get HBO GO through Comcast you must subscribe to it through a TV package that includes HBO. The Comcast Internet+ offer simply allowed people to buy HBO with a basic $49.99 internet & local TV bundle rather than the much more expensive digital cable TV package normally required to purchase HBO. You still have to buy a TV package to get HBO/HBO GO, you can just buy it with a much cheaper one now.

If this is your only issue with Comcast, there is no point switching to Verizon because neither they nor anyone else offer HBO GO ala carte with no TV package. FIOS has a deal similar to Comcast's Internet+ (internet service, local TV hookup, and HBO/HBO GO) but there is a mandatory TV component. If that isn't activated, HBO GO will not work beyond a short grace period. Same as Comcast.

The first customer service rep who gave you HBO GO probably thought you'd bought the Internet+ package and activated you with a thirty day grace period to allow for activation of the TV service. When there was no activation, HBO GO access was shut down as it's supposed to be. If they gave you HBO GO knowing you had no TV package, they clearly didn't know the rules and gave you something they weren't supposed to. Just because you were activated and got billed once or twice before the mistake was caught doesn't mean that HBO GO ala carte is a legitimately available service. It isn't. The two reps you spoke to about the issue after it was removed from your account had it right. They can't give you what you want because HBO doesn't allow it.
 
Christian Klippel said:
The chat looks really strange. OK, i understand that these are some poor chaps in a call-center in India, but note how often some phrases are repeated _exactly_, sometimes with the same spelling mistakes. " I do apologized , I ...", "Please stay connected while I am working on your account.", etc.

This looks more like a re-implementation of some ELIZA code. Alternatively, they have a bunch of standard phrases they can enter by hitting a single key. The whole thing just looks strange to me.
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This can be explained if each clerk is instructed to set up some boiler plate, hotkey phrases for themselves, or it's done by a supervisor who isn't much better. With limited English skills, no checking by someone with better skills, and a requirement that they follow the book, this sort of thing is the logical outcome.
Not to mention the fact that they rarely respond to specific stuff you told them, it's mostly just general responses you get there, sometimes having very little to do with what you actually said.
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Which is exactly what we would expect under the circumstances. The clerks are instructed what phrases to use frequently; they are told that "apologizing" is the friendly thing that everyone in the English-speaking world does every second sentence, so they do. They are told to press the "pls stay connected" button every time they expect to be occupied for a few minutes, so they do.
I'm not convinvced that this is just a "language-barrier" issue, having someone with poor english skills on the other end. It looks more like the other side having virtually no english skills and following some script, like "if you hear word X the press key Y for a response text-snippet". If not a lousy fully automated system.
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It's a hybrid of Eliza, limited training, cheap support and no feedback.
 
Morrigan said:
lol @ "done the needful" line. Seems every Indian customer service representative is taught to say this, but it's so.... awkward. I don't even think it's proper English at all....
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It is in Indian English--a legitimate variant on par with U.S., or British or Australian, etc. varieties of English. Millions of Indians speak it as their first and only language.
 
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yodaluver28 said:
No broadband provider offers HBO GO without a TV subscription. HBO doesn't allow it. The links to The Verge and Wired in the OP both explicitly state that in order to get HBO GO through Comcast you must subscribe to it through a TV package that includes HBO. The Comcast Internet+ offer simply allowed people to buy HBO with a basic $49.99 internet & local TV bundle rather than the much more expensive digital cable TV package normally required to purchase HBO. You still have to buy a TV package to get HBO/HBO GO, you can just buy it with a much cheaper one now.

If this is your only issue with Comcast, there is no point switching to Verizon because neither they nor anyone else offer HBO GO ala carte with no TV package. FIOS has a deal similar to Comcast's Internet+ (internet service, local TV hookup, and HBO/HBO GO) but there is a mandatory TV component. If that isn't activated, HBO GO will not work beyond a short grace period. Same as Comcast.

The first customer service rep who gave you HBO GO probably thought you'd bought the Internet+ package and activated you with a thirty day grace period to allow for activation of the TV service. When there was no activation, HBO GO access was shut down as it's supposed to be. If they gave you HBO GO knowing you had no TV package, they clearly didn't know the rules and gave you something they weren't supposed to. Just because you were activated and got billed once or twice before the mistake was caught doesn't mean that HBO GO ala carte is a legitimately available service. It isn't. The two reps you spoke to about the issue after it was removed from your account had it right. They can't give you what you want because HBO doesn't allow it.
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Sounds like in about a month or so, we'll have a new thread - Why I am dropping Verizon as my ISP?
 
Prometheus said:
It is in Indian English--a legitimate variant on par with U.S., or British or Australian, etc. varieties of English. Millions of Indians speak it as their first and only language.
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Recognizing that I still maintain that if they are going to deal with US English speakers they really need to be trained to speak US English (and it's reginal variants) to avoid people like me wishing a perfectly nice person otherwise was in throttling distance. They always "understand your problem "(I am certain that is a trained phrase) but they can somehow never do anything to actually assist you with the problem. I base this largely on some 5+ hours speaking with assorted persons in India for Lenovo and pretty much the same for Dell last week+ (ending for now on Monday this week with a 1 hour 48 minute (phone counter) call back and forth with 4 different people there). I took over the phone twice to see if a louder, angrier voice might concentrate their attention - it did - but nothing was accomplished.
 
In the UK we hear stories of Indian call centre workers being made to watch UK soaps like Eastenders (not the USA so cruel and unusual punishment does not apply) to understand and work with regional UK accents.

My brother used to work in a call centre in the UK and they were continually measured on what I'd call NFRs (Non-Functional Requirements) like the number of ritual phrases they inserted, using the customers name etc rather than the Functional Requirement of addressing the callers needs.
 
Wudang said:
My brother used to work in a call centre in the UK and they were continually measured on what I'd call NFRs (Non-Functional Requirements) like the number of ritual phrases they inserted, using the customers name etc rather than the Functional Requirement of addressing the callers needs.
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You may have hit on a fundamental reason for the problem. Reminds me of Jennifer Anniston's character in Office Space who was graded not on how well she served customers, but how many pieces of "flair" she had pinned to her costume.
 
I had horrible experience with comcast technical support over the phone. I can't remember if the person had an Indian accent or not, but they refused to believe that my cable modem wasn't working for me since they could detect it was up from their end. After repeatedly insisting that none of my devices could connect to the internet via my wi-fi or ethernet (but I could by jumping on my neighbor's wi-fi), they agreed to send a technician out (in like two weeks), but warned me if the problem wasn't their equipment I would be charged for the service call. Very frustrating and painful phone experience.

That weekend I went to the local Comcast store and they were extremely helpful, and swapped out my modem with no problem. In fact, he didn't even let me explain all the troubleshooting I had done, he just looked at the box and said "wow, that's old, you definitely need an upgrade."
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Sounds like in about a month or so, we'll have a new thread - Why I am dropping Verizon as my ISP?
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I actually switched to Comcast from Verizon over a similar issue. I'd been a DSL-only customer with Verizon for 6 years, but when I moved to a new house they refused to allow me to keep DSL without also picking up either phone or TV service. I almost agreed to take the phone service if I could have local service only, but then they insisted I could only get unlimited nationwide long distance. Comcast doubled my monthly bill after the first year, but at least they're still allowing me to keep Internet-only service. We'll see how long that lasts.
 
I dropped them about 8 months ago. I was moving and had actually shopped around, but my Comcast rates were better than similar packages from U-Verse, so I decided to stay with Comcast and move my services.

They screwed up almost every part of the move. 1st, they would not let me keep the same account. I had to cancel my old account and get a new one. This did not seem like a big deal, but it was the root for many of my other problems.

As I was moving in, I got a letter requesting a $300 deposit for my 'new' account. I was able to get this fixed, but it took two calls to customer service each taking about an hour.

Next, I start randomly losing cable services (I could only get some channels and not others). This took about two weeks to work out, but the cable channels finally stabalized. Then something blanks my DVR and I lose all series recordings I had set up. I had to manually go in and reprogram all of my series I wanted recorded (I generally watch all of my shows on DVR, so this is everything I watch.)

The last straw was when I lost my email address. I didn't think that I needed a new email address, but apparently my address was linked to my old (now cancelled) account, so it was deactivated without any notifaction.

The next day, I was returning home and I overheard a U-Verse rep giving a sales pitch to one of my neighbors. I ask him to come by my place and it turns out they have deals that fit my needs that were not on the published on their website and about 20% less than what I was paying Comcast.

I was a U-Verse customer within a week.
 
yodaluver28 said:
No broadband provider offers HBO GO without a TV subscription. HBO doesn't allow it. The links to The Verge and Wired in the OP both explicitly state that in order to get HBO GO through Comcast you must subscribe to it through a TV package that includes HBO. The Comcast Internet+ offer simply allowed people to buy HBO with a basic $49.99 internet & local TV bundle rather than the much more expensive digital cable TV package normally required to purchase HBO. You still have to buy a TV package to get HBO/HBO GO, you can just buy it with a much cheaper one now.

If this is your only issue with Comcast, there is no point switching to Verizon because neither they nor anyone else offer HBO GO ala carte with no TV package.
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No, my issue is brain-dead customer service. I would have been okay with Comcast (not exactly happy, but okay) if one of these customer service reps explained to me that I was sold HBO Go by mistake -- the way several people here have explained. None of them did and very likely none of them understood what happened.

BTW, my Comcast cable box arrived. I did not unpack it, but my HBO Go is back on.
 
I've been through the ringer with Comcast too. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say I still have their service(s). The reason why is because I had Verizon at my office and they are no better. Both companies are huge conglomerates who are simply unable to provide effective customer service. I got so mad over my 8-month Comcast ordeal I told one rep I that I was going to take out a website www comcastsucks to let the world know about their shoddy customer service. Guess what? There are already dozens of such websites. They exist for Verizon too.
 
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I'm a customer with Comcast as well. There simply aren't any viable alternatives. We have Verizon DSL, but that's spotty, requires a landline, and slow as molasses. The Comcast service has been...reliable, if expensive. I can't get Internet-only because they charge 80% as much as a basic cable + Internet. When I first moved in here 2006, Adelphia had Internet for $20/month, and then Comcast bought them out and tripled the price.
 
Ironically this thread got me into researching moving to Comcast for internet. I actually signed up for Comcast internet last week :eek: wish me luck. The installer is supposedly coming this Sunday morning (gotta have a drop installed). I'm fed up with waiting on Centurylink (formerly Qwest) to get off their asses and upgrade speeds. I've been paying around $70/month for 20mbps/896k (k as in kilobytes), tested at 15mbps/.75mbps. The download speed isn't terrible but less than a mbps for upload. Jesus its 2014 get with the times. Uploading a large file can take all day, and decent PQ on teleconferencing forget about it.

I used to justify going with Centurylink over Comcast because they didn't have caps (well Qwest didn't). But apparently now they do. I got a nasty message from them a few months back, with no prior notice that they introduced caps on my "unlimited" internet plan and with no way of measuring my data usage. And, according to some people on dslreports the Comcast 50/10 plan is commonly more like 55/12 over here. And even the non-promo price after 12 months is about the same as Centurylink (who loves to advertise all the money you'll save over cable?!) So, when left with the choice of lousy service or just plain bad, I guess you go with lousy.
 
Bumped to ask if anyone has experience with Cox for internet-only service in Arizona or New Mexico.

I am in Tucson, currently using Century Link/Qwest. I am paying for 1.5Mb down/896Kb up, but have never gotten more than 650K/450 Kb. The installer told me this would happen because the company has only four or five DSL customers in this apartment complex and therefore won't upgrade the infrastructure.

My neighbor uses Cox and gets about 25Mb down (don't know about up) for the same price I am paying.

Thanks.
 
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I can only imagine that many of you have heard the Comcast rep more or less refusing to disconnect someone's service, but if not, there is an infuriatingly entertaining 8 minutes of customer service call at the top of the story linked here. Enjoy canceling, if you so choose. :)
 
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