Labor Day started out much like a normal work day, as I forgot to turn off my work week alarm. Great start, huh? The day didn’t progress much better either, as I took out my checkbook to pay the first of the month bills. I wanted to make sure everything was paid prior to me going out of town on business early tomorrow morning.
I paid all my bills and then made it to the one bill I absolutely loathe the most. Comcast drives me insane to say the least. There is always something new added to their website that inconveniences their customers. This time was no different.
I’m going to open myself up to a bit of criticism here for a bit, but it’s an absolute must to explain the entire situation. I use auto fill on my computer. I know for security purposes, this isn’t a good way of doing business, but it’s the way I keep everything straight with passwords and PINs. When I logged into Comcast, I receive a mandatory update to my PIN, just to pay my bill.
Imagine my disgust when I realize my auto fill is working correctly and I send my update, unsuccessfully. This makes it clear that someone or something has changed my PIN. As I log into Comcast’s Web Chat to have someone aid me with this, I continue to get all my bills paid. I called Comcast and paid my bill over the phone. This was another mistake on my part. If you pay over the phone, you do not receive any confirmation of payment.
I spent the better part of the next two hours arguing with customer service about my PIN and trying to get some type of receipt to show that my payment was accepted. No one wanted to take it upon themselves to open their email client and send me an email that stated: “Comcast has received your payment of $117.25 and your account balance is zero.” That would be too easy to carry out.
I had even had correspondence with “Comcast Matt” after I decided to vent a little through Twitter.
@stanlawshow may I assist you?— Comcast Matt (@ComcastMattV) September 3, 2012
@stanlaws what kind of issue are you havin?— Comcast Matt (@ComcastMattV) September 3, 2012
@stanlaws you can dm what kind of issue you are having or email comcastcares_support@comcast.com— Comcast Matt (@ComcastMattV) September 3, 2012
This didn’t work! If you know anything about Twitter, you know that you can’t Direct Message (DM) someone unless they are following you. So I sent my email at 11:23 am on 03 September 2012 and still haven’t received a response.
After asking to escalate my problem several times, I finally received some help from a customer service supervisor. I once again asked for her to send me an email, but apparently a ticket has to be processed and sent to another department for anyone to send me an email. She processed a ticket and proceeded to tell me that I should be receiving an email and asked if she could help me with anything else.
This was a bigger slap in the face than anything else that I had dealt with for the previous two hours. The woman thought that I would be okay with knowing that an email was on its way. I know that at that point, I was about to come unglued! I wasn’t about to disconnect without an email in hand. That’s when she proceeded to tell me that I would receive an email in a couple of hours. She apparently didn’t like my answer when I told her that I could waste a couple of hours of her time, since Comcast had already wasted two of mine.
In about ten minutes, I had an email copy of the ticket processed that stated my payment was accepted and that my account balance was zero. Two easy, right?
Why do I have to threaten to waste someone’s “valuable” time to get them to quit wasting mine? What a frustrating two hours that I will never get back! I hope this isn’t a glimpse of how my week will play out!
Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday! Until next time, take care!
Stan
Just found you. I too have had some dealing with comcast in the past. That’s why I’m with Qwest/ Century Link. You must have a lot of patience. I would have been out of there in less than half an hour.
I’ve never had Comcast but if they’re anything like Time Warner the not only suck, they swallow too.