Consumer complaints about Comcast Cable Service. I don't think I can ever go back to 56K modems for internet access. Honestly, I'd rather not have access at all than go to 56K. My recent experience with Comcast cable broadband in MD just made me re-evaluate whether or not broadband is even worth it either. I just recently moved and upon moving, I returned a cable modem to Comcast after discontinuuing my cable and internet service. I thought all my obligations were completed until I got a bill 2 months later for $155!! Needless to say, but I'll say it, I was fuming. Turns out, they say I never returned the cable modem. As we all know, we're all guilty of theft until proven innocent by these providers. Countless hours of holding on the phone and explaining my situation to a number of technicians and trying to fax over information on my end all for a problem that turned out to be THEIR fault. When I had my cable internet installed, I wanted to use a cable modem that I owned. They took down the serial number and recorded it on their computer system. The modem didn't work. So I ended up going to them to rent a modem. Due to their laziness and incompentency, they didn't switch out the serial numbers of the modems in their computer system. So when I returned the modem, of course, the serial numbers won't reconcile. I wish they'd refund me the wasted time that I had to take just to prove to them that I wasn't a thief. Also, $155 for a freakin' modem!?! They've got to be kidding, these things are cheap -- and they don't remember that I paid $5 a month to rent the damn thing?!? All this headache and hassle had made me re-evaluate what I really need and can handle in my life. I don't like having to defend myself for petty things like this. I don't like having to search through the mounds of paperwork to find a receipt that was given to me 2 months ago when I returned the modem (a receipt that I still haven't found, just my luck). At least I still had the box of the original cable modem that I still own (useless POS) -- I had to photocopy the side where the serial number was just to prove to them that the serial number they had on file was of my modem and not theirs. Problems like this would be less common if there were more competitors in this industry of broadband access.
Posted by johnvu at October 11, 2003 04:56 PM