Heidi Fleiss could have said this of Comcast: "These guys are really sleazy. I mean, top-drawer sleazy."
"High-tier services for corporate clients? I'll get you right away to the supervisor."
"Our XXXfinity services will knock their socks off."
"Our line-up is so much better (than theirs)."
A rotten apple by any other name would smell as bad.
My thoughts about Xfinity Comcast? Worse than Comcast. Xfinitely worse. Don't get their Blast Plus package. They'll play bait-and-switch on you.
Comcast rolls out all the time new gimmicks designed to entice people to buy more stuff they don't need and also to justify across the board price hikes. Defective Comcast equipment, which you're paying for, anyway, and their professional incompetence and mistakes--simply gives Comcast another opportunity to do a soft sell. Hard sell comes later.
Comcast recently wrapped its octopus arms around Universal Pictures and MSNBC. This is robber-baron capitalism, 21st-century-style, all under the watch of Obama: the concentration of the entertainment industry, news media, cable television, and Internet all cohabiting under one prosperous roof.
Unlike Fleiss, of course, Comcast is willing to cast its net wide and far for clients of any income level in anticipation that the latter will fork out eventually $100, etc. for more channels, higher Internet speed, "service calls," etc.
I wonder how many millions Comcast execs individually make off the backs of the unsuspecting American public and why Congress doesn't investigate the company. Or how it persuades its thousands of employees to lie to and mislead customers. It's very likely they get bonuses for tacking on as many fees and charges as possible.
If it can make J.P. Morgan cough up billions...
For example:
For the past week, my digital cable box had been misbehaving and after two long telephone calls, I was promised a new cable box that would arrive by UPS in 3 days.
The next day I discovered that I had been "enrolled" in an Xfinity Bundled Service (Blast Plus!). The rep had told me simply that along with a new cable box, I would get a six-months rebate on my limited Basic Cable plus a three-month rebate on my International Premium Channel. (Too good to be true. I should asked "Why?").
(Most of the reps speak English as a second-language, so even though they may be friendly, communication is not straight-forward).
* He mistakenly arranged for a technician to come out the next day to unblock equipment. (A wasted trip, according to him).
* He also mistakenly cancelled my International Premium Channel. (The only reason I subscribe to cable).
* He didn't tell me that I was getting Blast Plus. He never mentioned this to me.
So in total I spent 2-1/2 hours talking to five (5) different people just to get a new cable box, which will arrive in 3 to 5 business days.
Nowhere on the Comcast website is there any mention, much less explanation, of Blast Plus, so there are no guarantees (written) of anything.
After six months, the Blast Plus will jump by $20 and in a year another $10. Installation fee $15 (someone at Comcast has to press a button to "activate"). And who knows what else.
But I still have to get a tech to come out to be able to restore my International Premium Channel.
When he does arrive, it takes him 15 seconds to fix things, explains that someone at Comcast screwed up when they set up Blast Plus. On the way out he leaves me a bill for $32 ("kit installation)."
I'm sure Comcast is counting on customers to not remember. Meanwhile, every few months it hikes its prices on all cable-related services, hoping that subscribers won't notice or protest.
* * * * *
To install the new cable box, I spent at least three hours fiddling around with the box and remote control as well as trying to activate my service online. And they charge you a "video installation fee" when you do it all by yourself with no help from them! Totally bogus.
Something else I discovered with the new cable box was that even though it had outputs for component cables, which would give a better quality picture, Comcast intentionally prevents non-HD customers from connecting those cables (red/blue/green) to their HDTV's or A/V receivers. Even though you are renting it from them. In fact, I'm not even sure if Comcast would allow its customers to NOT rent the cable box from them, i.e., buy one outright.
Because Comcast is the #1 ISP in the U.S., it has millions of customers. Even what seems like a modest sum ($4.99 monthly) for its "service protection plan" (only 99 cents two years ago) can generate tens of millions of dollars each month for the company, especially its executives and shareholders. (Hence, its policy of before a technician comes out to already bill you for a service that may actually be a result of faulty equipment. The tech hands you the work order without giving you time to do much more than give it a glance. If something is "off," well, you have to call Comcast, which is about as pleasurable as getting a toothache.
After the self-installation of the cable cable, to my considerable consternation, I still could not watch the one premium channel that I have been watching for the past ten years. So I have to wait another three days for a technician to come out.
Also, my Internet speed has not changed, and I am still getting limited Basic, with no new channels. I should never have agreed to the "rebates."
* * * * *
About this same time my monthly Comcast bill was due. I checked online and discovered that the automatic payment which I had set up several weeks earlier still had not kicked in. Because I had been slapped with a $25 or $30 "late fee" in the past,* I called Comcast to ascertain whether I should "manually" pay the current and pending bill. I was told that automatic payments would begin during the next billing cycle and that I should pay the current bill.
This is what I immediately did. Four days later, I discovered that Comcast had debited my credit card twice for approximately the same amount. I am guessing automatic payment DID begin the last cycle, but I have no way of knowing, and I don't trust Comcast representatives to either know or to tell me something closely resembling to the actual situation.
In fact, there is no way of knowing when push comes to shove whether I will be charged the Blast Plus monthly charge I was repeatedly told I would be paying because the summary of billing statement/account is impossible to decipher. I have only the word of Comcast employees, including the one who told me in the beginning that I was getting one six-month and one three-month rebate plus a new cable box via UPS (and no new plan).
Bait-and-switch?
* The circumstances were the same then, except that I assumed that once I set up automatic payment three weeks in advance of the payment due date that it would begin in that billing cycle. After I was slapped with the fee, I phoned Comcast and was told that automatic payment would take up to two months to begin and that I should have known that I needed to pay the upcoming bill manually.
* * * * *
Where on the website can one find a statement of the fee schedule Comcast charges for its services?
What happened to Comcast's "satisfaction guarantee"?
What about a lawsuit against Comcast for false and deceptive advertising? What about rebates to all its customers of the past 10 years for shameless profit gouging, the kind that the record companies were forced to pay?
* * * * *
Beware of Comcast's bait-and-switch tentacles, now Xfinite and self-propagating.
http://forums.comcast.co…
WHAT ABOUT MAKING THE CITY OF SEATTLE GET SOME BA--- SO IT WILL TAX COMCAST'S NET PROFITS AT 35%?
http://www.yelp.com/review_share/H1cnBfqbRW8_-sCnAIfMPw/review/CoSLq-YDLOSC18mrR1Buyw?fsid=R0zkPdgPSHvoc2McpxdQCA
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