It’s Long Past Time To Dump Comcast
By Greg L | 25 November 2007 | Manassas City | 19 Comments
The Prince William Section of today’s Washington Post has picked up on the story about Manassas resident’s frustrations with Comcast Cable, and Nick Miroff gives a recap of last Monday night’s meeting of the Manassas City Council where residents had an opportunity to vent. Getting prominent attention are Melyssa Webb, whose front yard was for a while an electrical equipment enclosure farm courtesy of Comcast, and Mona Shaw, whose now famous delivery of “Have I Got Your Attention Now?” while swinging a hammer at Comcast’s office equipment is now the stuff of legend. I can’t imagine any company surviving long in the marketplace while suffering such continuing, devastatingly negative public attention.
I wouldn’t be surprised at this point to hear that the Chineese-made Comcast cable receiver remote controls are contaminated with some sort of hallucinogenic substance that makes one want to be tortured.
Several Manassas City Council members are realizing just how powerful an issue this can be with municipal elections coming up late this spring. Whoever is credited for rescuing city residents from the abuse Comcast regularly seems to deliver on its own customers will develop some seriously powerful campaign momentum, and no one can afford the political liability of being seen as a Comcast stooge on the council. With contract negotiations happening right during the lead-up to the municipal elections, it’s not a question of whether Comcast is going to suffer, but the extent to which they inevitably will.
I was in a satellite office across from Prince William Hospital for a defense contractor some time ago, and had a short-term deal with Comcast for internet service. That service completely sucked eggs, and outages during office hours were frequent. After we got our permanent internet service set up and canceled the Comcast contract, these idiots called my cell phone for months afterwards, sometimes several times a day, trying to get our business back, regardless of how many times I told them to stop bothering me. After suffering through that outrage, I not only hope this company goes belly-up, but that it’s executives are subjected to long prison terms for whatever they can be prosecuted for.
I don’t know if any company ever before has managed to consistently earn such utter and well-deserved hatred. They really do channel the ghost of Joseph Stalin, and raise that to an art form.
Sell your Comcast stocks. Now, before it’s too late.
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19 Comments
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I will be canceling Comcast as soon as Verizon starts up here. I hope to get an estimated date this week. I can’t wait.
mpmom please make sure to let me know as well. I’m sure they will start on the east side of manassas drive since they rarely give us west siders anything except more illegals…
West side of MP mostly has above-ground utilities so the FIOS deployment should be quicker on that side.
Comcast hasn’t given me any trouble since the end of August. I’m amazed.
I don’t have comcast stock although I did briefly consider buying it last spring. The stock is only about $19 a share now. It was close to $30. The decline started before the great November stock tank.
I have no complaints with my service. Perhaps it is all where you live. I have TV, internet, phone and dvr service. All work just fine and there is rarely an outage. I have never had an outage with all 4 at once. I like all the conveniences it offers.
Before you jump off Comcast, read the fine print.
I went with Verizon FIOS. WWW linkage is much faster and much more reliable — in my opinion.
However, we were “told” that the fiber box was %5 for the first and the other three are “included.” But the fine print says $5 each, So in the end, I am paying $7 per month more to have Verizon.
Is it worth it? For the Cable Reliability, maybe, but the TV content is lame. So I think its a wash.
Again READ THE FINE PRINT. Also, they sent a notice saying that they are raising their rates. Hmmm. Unilateral change of contract? I need to go back to that fine print.
I’d be happy with Comcast if they took a little better care of their outside plant. Some goes for Verizon. When are they (Verizon) going to permanently repair that pedestal at the intersection of 28 and Liberia which has been covered with a trash bag for months?
“MP Resident said on 25 Nov 2007 at 11:18 pm:
I’d be happy with Comcast if they took a little better care of their outside plant. Some goes for Verizon. When are they (Verizon) going to permanently repair that pedestal at the intersection of 28 and Liberia which has been covered with a trash bag for months?”
Paging Mr. Aveni!!!
“I don’t know if any company ever before has managed to consistently earn such utter and well-deserved hatred.”
Actually Greg, the universal (actually international) hatred of the “phone company” was the stuff of legends many years ago.
What Frost me is the Cost creep..each year its goin up and I can pick about 5 channels I actually watch–an ala carte system to pay for what We watch vice subsidising the “trash per view” stuff is needed sorely.
There is no incentive for local,state or fed gov’t to rein thse guys in becuase they collect taxes off of guess what? gross amounts..go figure
I just want the ability to choose. When my comcast internet goes down I have no choice other than to deal with comcast and their incompetent techs and their we will call you within 72 hours (maybe) to arrange a time to get it repaired (another week). The last time I called them was a disgrace. The person basically told me that I might be getting a call within 3 business days to schedule a time to work on the problem. Sheesh. FIOS really needs to shake these guys up. When they lose 50% of their customers over night then maybe someone there will say, “hmm, maybe we should revamp our service and start listening to our customers’ complaints.”
Comcast in Alexandria back in the late 90’s was superb in ever aspect but Comcast in MP since about 2005 has been harrible. These guys deserve the customer exodus that is about to befall them.
Choice/Competition is what makes any service good. We have Comcast and very few issues, however, when Verizon went through here, no workers spoke English, they cut all our lines and our neighbors and their neighbors and their neighbors….. We had Comcast trucks lining the street.
Verizon was not very helpful during this event. I think only when they are both available will customers see any indication of customer service.
Agreed. That’s my point.
“Actually Greg, the universal (actually international) hatred of the “phone company” was the stuff of legends many years ago.”
We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company!
Anyone remember GTE? And how it used to cost a good 5 cents a minute just to call Centreville from Manassas? How about Contel before that? (What a great name for a phone company, “con”tel. Did they hire ex-cons? Were they the con in the list of pros and cons? Or what?)
That’s a tough one…I’ve never had much experience with cable companies (over many years and places) that I would consider “wonderful customer service” I think any time you’re dealing with what are essentially monopolies (electric, gas, phone and cable). Another problem with cable is that dish doesn’t have a much better reputation. So even where there is competition, if both choices bite, you’re still out of luck. I still believe we the American consumers do a bad job of “voting with our dollars” at places like Best Buy and Sears, let alone a situation like this where there are few good options.
Hopefully, once we have a choice, everyone will bail to Verizon and those of us that stay with Comcast might get some decent treatment. I would be happy just to have the channel line up back in place of a few spanish channels. They should be premium channels… although I’d love to know what they are saying on some of those soaps!!!!
For every Comcast sucks webpage there is an identical Verizon sucks webpage. Trading big company for another larger company ain’t exactly stickin it to the man folks.
Comcast should check out the despair.com poster that says “we’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied!”
We know Jeff. We are just filled with slim hope that consumers having a choice might force both companies to improve their support and offerings and start treating customers with respect again. If a company sees 50% of its customer base flock to the other company then you can be pretty sure that someone at the top might sit back and say, “hey, maybe our support really does suck after all” and then do something about it. I never had these kinds of problems with Comcast until about a year ago, so some executive at the top must have had some hair-brained scheme around that time to streamline operations at the expense of the customer. That executive needs to be identified, fired, and blackballed from ever working in the industry again.
“I never had these kinds of problems with Comcast until about a year ago”
I wonder if their takeover of Adelphia’s operations has anything to do with it. Adelphia was quite a mess in many places.