Farewell, Comcast

Y'all probably remember my lengthy Comcast saga last month (posts here, here, here, here, here, here and here). The whole thing was extremely frustrating and took way too long to resolve -- and might never have been resolved at all, if not for corporate intervention which was due solely to the fact that I'm a blogger. Yet despite all the angst, Comcast managed to keep my business -- even after the revelation that they were stealing my cable -- by fixing the problem and giving me a refund.

And then they proceeded to lose my business over a lousy $5.

I explain after the jump.

Here's the thing. Some time ago, in a development unrelated to our high-speed Internet woes, Becky and I decided to cancel our cable TV service during the summer. We'd been looking for ways to trim our budget, and we concluded that we really don't need cable during the interregnum between college-basketball season and college-football season. The only real thing I'd miss would be watching The Weather Channel in the event of a landfalling hurricane, but those are more likely to happen in late August and September anyway, by which point we'll have reactivated our service for football season. And anyway, the mere, slim possibility of missing Jim Cantore get all bug-eyed about a July hurricane probably isn't worth a summer's worth of $49.95/month bills.

I dawdled a bit about actually canceling our service (partly because I didn't want to miss Wolf's calls of the April and May primaries), but finally, earlier this month, we bought an antenna from Best Buy for like $15, and I then called Comcast to cancel our cable service... whereupon I was told that we'd have to return our cable box first, or else pay $29 for them to come pick it up. This is slightly annoying, since there's a Comcast truck at our apartment complex every damn day, but whatever; so Becky drove down to the local office and returned the box. She then instructed them to cancel our cable TV service -- to which the customer service lady replied that such a cancellation would cause our Internet bill to increase "from $42.95 to $57.95." This was new information, so Becky held off on canceling anything, in order that she and I could consult about what to do.

The purported $15 increase was news to me, for two reasons. One, I was unaware that our Internet rate was any kind of a promotion related to our cable TV service. As far as I knew, we had been paying a fixed, non-promotional rate for high-speed Internet service that was unrelated to anything else. Secondly, the lady's comment was odd because we don't pay $42.95 per month for high-speed Internet -- we pay $52.95. Where, I wondered, did she get the $42.95 figure from?

So I went to Comcast's website and checked their current rates, and as it turns out, $42.95 is now the base rate -- not the promotional rate, but the basic, long-term, fixed rate -- for high-speed Internet customers who also have cable TV. If you sign up as a new Internet customer, you get six months at $19.95/month, after which your bill increases to $42.95/month.

By contrast, when we signed up, back in the long-ago dark ages known as May 2007, $42.95 was our promotional rate; it then increased to $52.95, which is what it's been ever since.

Now, I understand the purpose of promotional rates -- they gotta attract new customers -- and so I'm not going to get too high-horsey about the $19.95 rate and the "how dare you fail to reward my customer loyalty" concept. Although, that said, I must admit, it is somewhat galling to think that new customers are, during their promotional period, paying more than 2 1/2 times less than what I've been paying; that seems a bit excessive. But that's not my real issue.

My real issue is this: if the basic, non-promotional rate for new customers has decreased to $42.95, then my rate should have decreased too. Promotional rates are one thing, but it's absolutely unconscionable for Comcast to continue charging me $52.95/month indefinitely, when new customers will be getting a flat $42.95/month rate, after their promotion expires, which will continue indefinitely. When telecommunications companies raise their rates, everybody's bill goes up; well, when they lower their rates, everybody's bill should go down. That's just common sense.

To illustrate this point, suppose I had kept my service for another five years. In 2013, I would still be paying $52.95 per month, while a customer who signs up today would be paying $42.95. So, over the course of the 54 months after the expiration of the new customer's six-month promotional period, Comcast would have collected $540 more from me than from him, for the same service, during the same time period. Why? Because I'm a more loyal, long-term customer! How on earth does that make any sense?

Needless to say, when I realized this, I was pissed off. And then, on top of it, now Comcast was saying they wanted to increase my Internet rate by $5, from $52.95/month to $57.95/month, because I was canceling my cable TV service. So now I'd be paying $15 more -- for the same service -- than what the new customer (with cable TV service) pays long-term, and $38 more than his promotional rate. Are you freaking kidding me?? You can afford to provide this service to other people for $19.95 temporarily, and $42.95 indefinitely, and yet you want to charge me not just $52.95, but $57.95 for it?? For the same damn service??

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that $5 was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was the one final indignity, heaped on top of a pile of Comcast-related indignities, that I wasn't willing to accept. First you send out an incompetent tech who says I have an "Indiana modem"; then you make me drive to your office repeatedly to fix problems that you caused; then you schedule a visit and don't show up for it; then it takes you four visits to diagnose and fix a technical problem that you caused; then you try to charge me for one of the unsuccessful visits to fix that problem; then I find out you've been overcharging me by $10/month; and now you want to charge me $5 more, just so I can have the privilege of canceling an unrelated service that I happen to also buy from your company? I think not. F*** no.

So, last week, I called AT&T and ordered DSL. It's substantially slower than Comcast cable Internet, but it's also substantially cheaper -- $19.95/month -- and I figured the slowness won't matter that much for regular web browsing and the like. I set it up over the weekend, and so far, I've been correct; the connection seems plenty fast for our needs. I then called Comcast on Monday and told them to disconnect my service entirely, both cable TV and high-speed Internet. Buh-bye.

When it comes time to put away the rabbit ears in late August, I don't know for sure where we'll be living, but if we're still in Comcast-only territory, I'll definitely give DirecTV and Dish Network a very close look. For all the sincere efforts of good, friendly, competent corporate and local-office employees to fix my problems (and thus prevent further bad P.R. from my blog), the bad still definitely outweighs the good here. Comcast has earned my scorn.

Interestingly, the Comcast phone representative I spoke with yesterday was unfazed by the news that I was canceling my service. In contrast to the TiVo rep I spoke with the previous day, who offered me four months of free service in order to entice me not to cancel, the Comcast rep perfunctorily asked me why I was canceling, seemed uninterested in my answer, and then matter-of-factly informed me that my service will be disconnected next Tuesday, April 27. (I was assured I won't be charged for the eight days of service in the interim. Based on past experience with erroneous billing charges, I strongly suspect that I will be charged, and I'll have to raise bloody murder to get a refund for that ~$30. I will, of course, do so.)

I guess it makes sense for Comcast reps to be unfazed by customers canceling their service. If this is how Comcast treats its customers -- and the terrible satisfaction ratings indicate that it is; indeed, I've gotten much better service than most, because of my blog -- they must get a lot of cancellations.

Comments

[Phil]

I quit comcast about two months ago. Cold turkey. Cable, internet and phone; all cancelled. I now save $147 a month! That company sucks. It just feels good every day knowing my money is not going to that company!

[Anonymous Hoosier]

Comcast-free since August '07 here... welcome to the club!

It helps to have a three-story, 37 screen sports bar -- and another, smaller sports bar -- within a block and a half.

[Surfer Gurl]

I stumbled across this post....not going to read all the posts related to your Comcast problems -- it'll just make my head hurt...Just wanted to relate my own Comcast tale...I've had Comcast internet/cable for nearly four years in my apartment. A couple years ago, my idiot neighbor kept trying to swipe cable from me by putting in a splitter, except he kept putting the splitter in wrong. Comcast techs would come out, scratch their heads a lot, talk about nodes and other mysterious cable magic, and then eventually discover and dismantle what the neighbor had rigged up. Life would be good again, for a while. Hillbilly neighbor was nothing if not diligent. After the FIFTH theft, I asked Comcast if they were going to get tough with the guy. They just gave me the phone number to their Comcast cable theft hotline. I flipped my lid, and told them I was going to quit my job, buy a bunch of cable splitters from Radio Shack, and hook up all my friends because I knew I could do a better job than my dumbass neighbor. That seemed to get the rep I was talking to going. They finally removed the nest of tangled co-ax cables in the crawl space beneath the 4-unit apartment building, and restrung cable to my unit (go figure, I'm the only one in the building who's actually getting and paying for cable) and now I've had an interruption-free signal for about a year and a half. How nice. I had to threaten to steal from Comcast before they actually provided me decent service. Oh, and the only tech who was worth his salt -- on more than one occasion -- was a 20 year old guy. He was better trained than the 40 and 50-year old guys who told me they couldn't figure out why I had such a bad signal.

P.S. I think I'm paying the same high rate you are. I'm too tired to fight with Comcast about it -- I've been tied up in negotiations with Verizon, trying to get to the bottom of why they were giving me a 20% discount because of where I work, and why they suddenly stopped three months ago despite the fact that I still have the same job and the fact that my co-workers are still getting the discount. Why is everything in this country broken????

[BK]

First, let me say I agree that Comcast is craptastic, but I think the fact that all this has happened to you has skewed your view a bit.

You said "it's absolutely unconscionable for Comcast to continue charging me $52.95/month indefinitely, when new customers will be getting a flat $42.95/month rate, after their promotion expires, which will continue indefinitely."

Well, that may be true, from your point of view, but as a business, why the hell would they voluntarily--without any prompting whatsoever--lower your rate? Ignoring the increase in your internet service, how does lowering your rate to coincide with current base rates make any business sense? Sure, there are customers (such as yourself) who actually pay attention to their bills and are informed as to how much they are paying for each service. But I would wager the vast majority of Comcast customers just send their check in each month, and that's that. How many are going to keep abrest of the new rates? It seems that you wouldn't have except for the rep informing you of the base rate.

My hunch is that Comcast has run the feasibility scenarios and has determined that it is in their best interests financially to never voluntarily lower rates. The amount they collect from those customers who don't notice or don't care about the price difference simply outweigh those who get upset and cancel service. Therefore, it's not really "unconscionable" for them to not lower your rate out of the goodness of their hearts.

Now, if enough people catch wind of what's going on . . . .

[Marty West]

All it takes is some good haggling. I have RCN HD, High Speed Internet, DVR, HBO, Showtime, Starz, and Cinemax for $100.00 a month. You guys are suckers!

[john]

Obama's huge rally in Portland was advertised as a free rock concert. I read the local papers, they didn't mention the free concert. I haven't been watching the concert ads to notice anything amiss.

The papers all said "Obama is a rock star." They should have said: "Obama is given a huge boost by a rock star"

[dcl]

Comcast free for over a year... It's all about the free HD TV over the air... The last straw for me was Comcast wants to charge you extra for a local HD signal? Seriously folks? You want an extra 20 or so bucks a month for something I can get absolutely free at a better quality? Must say, I really like their scare tactic commercials, if you have cable don't worry about the transition, never mind that if you got the government funded converter box you would get a better over the air signal than you've ever gotten before with your rabbit ears, nothing to worry about -- complicated transition stuff my ass -- but lets scare the old folks that have never bought cable into buying it.

Anyway, my building has a 10 up 10 down 20 dollar a month internet connection that works anywhere in the building. For those scoring at home that's a faster download speed faster upload speed and lower dollars per month that Comcast. Granted I live in a rather big building so we take advantage of a rather massive economy of scale, but still.

TV is over the air -- I don't really watch anything but the broadcast networks at this point, if I even remember to watch them, mostly it's Netflix really. And the over the air signal is higher quality than the signal Comcast sells you. If you really need "cable" look into Fios also, if it is available where you are. Massive technical superiority to cable way less compression -- again, Comcast's ads on this are such bullshit that it almost merits a false advertising clam. The revamped Apple TV is also actually a decent product. HD movie rental is expensive with limited selection but for what it is, it works well.

Also, don't forget to do the math, if you watch a very few cable shows regularly consider just buying the season from Apple. For what you pay for a month or two of cable you can get full seasons of something like five shows. And if you are really patient you can just netflix the season all at once. And even if you need to go to the local pub to watch the big game you still come out ahead and a lot of games end up being on premium channels anyway (with commercials! I don't get that, if I'm paying 20 bucks to watch the game, leave out the commercials, even if it means I stair at an empty field for a few minutes like I was at the stadium.) The only thing you can't get is 24 hour news networks and seriously niche sports -- if you are a big bass fishing fan on versus, you are probably out of luck and if it's just not election night without a Wolf on TV, you are probably also out of luck. But remember, HD cable costs you something like $1,000 per year -- that's a hell of a lot of TV show downloads. Of course, you would need to find a way to get a broadband internet connection that didn't cost 1k per year for that to work.

[I R A Darth Aggie]

All it takes is some good haggling. I have RCN HD, High Speed Internet, DVR, HBO, Showtime, Starz, and Cinemax for $100.00 a month. You guys are suckers!

That's nothing.

I still have Comcast signal coming thru the pipe 16 months after I moved into my current place. The previous occupant had Comcast, and got evicted. I haven't paid a penny.

Granted, I don't get all the fancy on-demand, HD, and...wait...I do get HBO...BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Brendan]

BK, "unconscionable" may be a bit harsh, and I certainly don't deny that my view of Comcast is jaded by my experiences. However, I don't think the practice of forcing longer-term customers to indefinitely pay higher rates than shorter-term customers is a good business practice in the long run. It may well make mathematical sense, as you say. But, to paraphrase my personal hero, Hillary Clinton, it isn't all about the math. ;) No, but seriously: running a business requires more than tending to the bottom line. It also requires tending to your company's reputation -- or its "goodwill," to be a legal nerd about it. :) And when you nickel-and-dime your loyal customers to the point that they feel justifiably put upon and screwed over, you're severely damaging that goodwill. And in this Internet age, a single customer can be like the rock thrown into the middle of a pond that sends ripples all the way to the other shore. Blogs, social networking, etc., give pissed-off customers a platform to vent their frustration, which can have a snowball effect, as Jeff Jarvis's "Dell Hell" problem demonstrates. Comcast has explicitly recognized this problem with their bloggy outreach program. Yet, if they're following your logic, they haven't fully learned the lesson of the blog age, which goes something like this: you might be able to screw over 100 people, and only 10 of them will notice; and if 5 of those people cancel their service (like me) and 5 of them renegotiate their rates (like Marty), but the other 90 keep happily paying their overpriced bills, you might come out financially ahead, superficially; but if 1 of the 5 who canceled his service has a sufficient platform (a blog, a YouTube channel, etc., or even just word of mouth), he can create hell for you that will outweigh all the nickel-and-dime gains you just racked up. The end result is that, in order to rake in a few extra bucks, you've further sacrificed your company's already-suffering reputation, which will have long-term consequences that might not show up on the monthly balance sheet, but that doesn't make them any less real.

[Becky]

BK, I think the larger issue is whether Comcast is being penny wise, pound foolish. They've effectively lost our business forever wherever a feasible alternative is present. And forever is a long time and lot of potential business.

[Marty West]

Darth Aggie is pwning Comcast!

[Marty West]

Personally I don't even watch a lot of television. I watch sports and Lost with the occasional Food Netword show thrown in there. My girlfriend is a television junkie though...she will watch anything. Sad.

I recommend this book. It really makes you think even though it might be a little dated.

[Brendan]

Alas, dcl, Fios is not available in our area. (I just checked.) Thanks for the suggestion, though. That $42.99 rate is incredible, given that it's apparently 3-4 times faster than Comcast and yet is $15 less than Comcast's non-cable-TV-customer rate (and the same as its current cable-TV-customer rate).

[Jim]

FiOS is pretty nice, if for no other reason than it is new and Verizon hasn't had time to screw it up yet. Verizon's techs are just as bad as Comcast's, unfortunately.

[Anonymous Hoosier]

Just had a thought: maybe you should replace the "Blogging Hyperactively Since 2002" sub-banner with something like "Comcast Free and Happy" (I'm sure you or others can come up with a better slogan... "Live Comcast Free or Die Hard"?). That would keep the point going...

[Brendan]

"Comcast Free Since Next Tuesday"? Heh.

[BK]

Brendan - that was exactly what I was suggesting with my last comment, although I didn't state as much. Clearly new-age mediums are going to change the way business is conducted. This is especially true for large nationwide businesses like Comcast, whose competitors offer viable alternatives to their service.

Becky - very good point. On a per-customer basis, they really screwed themselves over with the way they handled you guys. I didn't think of it that way.

[Bob]

You haven't lived until you've been skewed over by Verizon. What a bunch of rats they are. I would love Comcast where I am, but they aren't available.

[dcl]

When it comes to cell phones bob, no question. and land line charges are also rather ridiculous.

[MHiggo]

Brendan - I've not had the 'pleasure' of dealing with Comcast, though Hawaiian Telcom has its own unique set of quirks.

If you do end up going to a satellite service, I would recommend DirecTV. They seem to pick up new channels fairly quickly, and I've yet to run into a service tech as hopeless as the ones you've described.

[Ed]

I have had AT&T DSL service for about a year. I switched from broadband cable (Time Warner) mainly due to mucho outages, along with double the price ($40+ vs. $20-$25). I was very concerned with my speed, but it turns out I have superior speed with DSL. Reliability is off the charts superior with my DSL setup.

My apartment complex had significant phone line service issues. When it rained, DSL died and on a couple of occasions, several tenants lost all phone service. It took multiple visits by techs who had no solution before a tech took pity and escalated. Sure enough, there was a bigtime problem with the feeder line for our entire block. Since then? One incredibly brief outage.

I also went with DirecTv. There is a VAST difference if you have a stand-alone set-up (dish) as you would in a single dwelling, vs. a communal set-up, such as an apartment complex. I would not hesitate to go with DTV as a single. If you will be sharing a local network off of a single dish, you really need to talk to your neighbors. I am very, very, satisfied with the options I have and the price I am paying.

Of course, with climate change, YMMV.

[Rick Boeckler]

Brendan,

I had DTV Service for several years before changing to Verizon FIOS. With the exception of losing the service for a couple of minutes during severe thunderstorms, the DTV worked fine. We do have a clear, unimpeded view of the southeast sky, which helps. During those several years, both the TV reception and the service were excellent. I did not have my internet with them, as I had Verizon DSL service. When the DTV service person called to inquire why we had changed, I could not come up with any real complaints. The Verizon FIOS service is simply better, more reliable during storms and it offers more hi-definition TV channels.

Uncle Rick