Comcast - Big Company, Stupid Rules

I live in an area that is considered “rural”.  It isn’t by comparison to lots of areas, but large corporations use that term for service designations.  That way they can deny certain types of service.  Over many years, I have gotten somewhat used to it.  One disadvantage is that there is no way to threaten to leave a certain provider, because there is no other business that does the same thing in the area. 

Case in point:  We only have one cable provider.  Because I have been dealing with the same issue for the last two years without resolution, I will even use their name.  COMCAST has decided that they can only send my electronic bills to a comcast.net address.  I have been using one of those free provider addresses since before my children were born.  They are now getting ready to graduate from high school.  Comcast used to send the bills to that address.  Then I made the mistake of moving my office.  Don’t ever do that.

Now they send the bill to (drlasermed) @comcast.net.  I told the nice man that I talked to forever last Friday that I don’t have a comcast.net address.  He said that I did.  I told him I have been using the other one for about 20 years, I get all my mail there, and I don’t understand why I can’t get his bill there.  He says it’s a “security issue”.  They won’t send bills to anything but a comcast.net address.  It’s funny, because I finally got the office bill to come to the other address. 

I can’t even pay the home bill on the internet.  Comcast billing (or Xfinity to be exact) won’t accept my account for anything other than my office bill.  It won’t accept my home account payment.  If I want to pay over the phone, it will cost an extra $5.00. 

I finally gave up.  I had argued with several different people.  I did get the bill paid.  But they can’t fix the billing issue.  So, [insert shudder here] they are going to kill a tree every month and send me the bill in the mail.  I will kill a tree [insert another shudder] and send them a check in the mail back.  I’m not paying $5 to pay the bill over the phone [until postage goes up that much]. 

Why can’t business be reasonable?  What is so unsecure about sending an e-bill to yahoo or gmail or hotmail or any other internet address?  If you work for Comcast or know the answer, please let me know. 

Customer “Service”

Or Not

I just got off the phone with the cable company.  I probably don’t need to say any more for most of you. 

The first call I made was “before the office was open”. 

The second time I called, I got hung up on. 

The third time I called, I pressed 4 for “service” and got “billing”.  This was the same extension that had hung up on me the last time.  It wasn’t the proper department.  I got transferred three different times. 

Supposedly they fixed the e-mail problem with the bill I have had for over two years.  I will wait and see about that. 

They don’t care and didn’t apologize that I didn’t get the last bill.  They don’t care and didn’t apologize about having shut off my service in the middle of the night.  Mr. Impatient gets up at 4:30 AM to play on the internet.  It wasn’t working.  Neither was the TV.  Moooommmmmmm…….   

I apologized that I am a little cranky from having to find my credit card and pay a bill at 5 AM. 

Now can they please explain why the bill is going up by $30 per month?  Oh, I see.  We had a special rate, and now we don’t.  And something about cable boxes that weren’t available in my area until last week.  I can exchange them at the billing office and save $9.95 per month. 

I’ll get back to them on that.

I’m proud of myself for not slamming down the phone or swearing.  I’ll let Mr. Lasermed decide about the boxes.  I don’t do electronics.