Comcast tech help . . . HELP!

Hi Ford1224,

As one that has worked with and on electronics since my teens, I understand what it takes to move some of the components to get to the cables.

To me this is about as ridiculous and inexcusable as it can get with any company with which a person does regular business. If they are having a Network type of problem they should certainly know that before they start having people moving around heavy components. Way too many electronic component companies seem to love to make it harder for the customer to work on them. Why else would they put "black words on black products"?

Most of the components I've worked on over decades seem to do the same "black on black" nonsense when it comes to reading the "in/out/vcr/hdmi" and so on. Just like motor vehicle manufacturers started doing decades ago also. Making it nearly impossible for even mechanically inclined people, which I am when it comes to these products, to work on them in their own garage. Special tool to fit this/special tool to be able to reach that, and so on.

Am sorry to hear about your experience and hopefully you will physically recover without any lasting effects. I would certainly get in touch with their PR department one way or another and pass on this stupid/ridiculous and unnecessary work this representative had you do, and for a reason he/she should have known about.

I truly feel your pain and frustration. They got rid of all the knowledgeable techs, like my son and his co workers, when they turned 50, and outsourced the work. I will do anything to not have a tech come to my home. If you get a women tech she will be a lot more helpful. Most of them are just experimenting with your TV or computer, because they know not what they are doing.

I have gotten a lot of freebies because they couldn't fix the problem. HBO AND SHOWTIME FOR ONE YEAR, STARZ AND ANOTHER ONE FOR TWO YEARS, AND I FIXED THE PROBLEM MY SELF. The voice had gone out on my Smart TV. They tried to tell me it was old. It's a new 4K Samsung, just brought this year. When I got off the phone, I went through the menu and find one app that said, upgrade software. I figured, what the heck, pressed and the sound came back on. Another time, I had another problem they couldn't fix, so got my DVR half price for a year, and fixed it myself by reading the manual that came with the TV. Also fixed my Kindle. Recently, my computer was working fine except for my Xfinity e mail, well now I have to go through the backdoor to get my computer to work. My son worked on it for three hours after their tech screwed the whole thing up. I ha--- Comcast. They laid off the competent employees because they made too much money, and outsourced, to where you need a course in whatever language they are coming from. I've had Mexico, India and the Philippines. As least the latter I could understand. I usually have to hang up and call again. It's horrible, so I know your pain and frustration.

They are not trained. Years ago when I needed a modem and the internet, I had my son come to my home on the day the tech was coming to drill and hook up whatever. My son, having worked for this cable company since the age of 19 to 50, had to show the kid what to do. Comcast is not the only company, ATT, cut the wires to my ADT system and pulled out my landline wires. They are not trained in the work at any of these companies anymore and it is scary when something breaks down. My friend's daughter who worked with my son, she was a dispatcher, goes crazy when she has to call them. Good luck.

Comcast is hopeless. Last winter I wanted to upgrade my service to HD with so many of the winter Olympics' events being shown on cable. (I have an outdoor antenna that I use for HD for our local channels, but for the Olympics I wanted the cable channels in HD.) I started about a month before the Olympics and was told a variety of things, but never what I wanted to hear. One CSR told me I couldn't get HD in my neighborhood which I knew was a lie as my neighbor has it and we're tapped into the same Comcast outlet on the same telephone pole. Another one told me I'd have to upgrade to include phone and Internet in order to qualify for HD. Another told me all I had to do was take my existing boxes into the local cable office and exchange them and that there would be no extra charge or fees. (It didn't work. The people in the local office insisted that was impossible.) I was told it would nearly double my existing bill (around $70 now) to include HD channels. I was told it would only increase my bill a couple of dollars a month. I was told everything but how to do it and what it would really cost. Every call resulted in a different answer with none of them being real. I finally gave up and watched the standard programming for the Olympics that weren't broadcast over the air. Comcast is my least favorite company in the world. Things that should be simple, they make impossible. It's a bizarre way to run a company.

I have Comcast too. They stink! Just go on line and see how many people hate Comcast and especially their Customer Service.

I am going to change over to Verizon but I'm too lazy and worry I'd be without cable for even a few hours.

at&t reps told me on two separate occasions that I needed a new modem when in fact it was an outage in our area.

Thank you all for your commiseration! My back is killing me now, and I have a dental appt. today which also always kills my back. Thankfully it's the next to the last one. So I can look forward to a week of misery.

The insult to injury is that Comcast NEVER compensates customers for the times they don't have service. I don't know how long this is going to last, it's still not working today. But if it lasts longer than today, I am going to call them and raise holy you-know-what for the whole experience and threaten with discontinuing the service if I don't get compensated. They always blame it on the customer first . . . "No, you must be the only one, we haven't received any other complaints."

Then the call . . . "All of NJ is down." No one else called to inquire why ON DEMAND wasn't working?

Anyway, thanks again, and for those of you who got compensated in some way, I am going to try it . . . good info.