The whole thing started in October - we hit the data cap for our XFinity
plan in 2 or 3 days. I didn't know we had a data cap on our XFinity
plan, so I was befuddled. Problem is, you can't just call
XFinity, you must escalate your ticket up their chain of command: Start
with their AI chatbot, escalate to a human typing on the other end of
the chatroom, get transferred to an AI phone operator, escalate that to
any number of human phone operators. Somewhere in that initial
escalation, they discovered that we weren't on an actual plan
from them, and the services we had weren't even offered by them anymore -
our account had slipped through the cracks. Their "solution" to the
massive data leak was to give sell us the premium tier service
with no data cap...which didn't actually solve anything, it just passed
the buck down the road.
By October 6 or 7, we had blown through another terrabyte of data, so I reached out to Customer Service again to try and get to the bottom of the whole thing. By the time I had escalated through everyone there, I was in contact with their Cyber Security team who were looking into our account for data breaches or anything, but they're fucking useless and found nothing. It was only after I did my own interrogation of our entire netowr that I discovered that it was a problem on my old laptop - harddrive doesn't have 20gb left in it, and was stuck in an infinite loop of trying to download a 20gb update for a game on Steam continuously whenever the laptop was on and connected to internet.
No bigs, our new contract brought our monthly payment from $180 down to $115 (unlimited data, 1 gig speeds, basic/broadcast TV), so we were saving $60 a month. Except...the bill came in December and it was for $175. So I reached out again...escalated it from AI chatbot to human chatbot to AI phone operator to human phone operator and got told that the increase in price was for the second cable box that we had. I told them that we did not have a second cable box, we only had the one that they had sent us. They said that they could eliminate that second cable box and get our bill back down to $115.
Somewhere in there, I started getting XFinity emails to the email I have set up for my blog...this email account is absolutely not associated with any XFinity properties at all, and is only used for blog content. Trouble is, you can't just unsubscribe from XFinity emails, you have to log into your account and change your email preferences. But like I said, this email address was not associated with an XFinity account. This one really broke the brains of the humans I interacted with because it wasn't on their script. I wanted to take this specific email address and never get another damn email from XFinity ever again...which is apparently too much to ask. Their solution is to delete every email and just block the sender...nevermind that every marketing and promo email from XFinity comes from a different sender; you can't just block one and call it good, you have to block every single email that ever comes in.
Finally, we get to the Daytona 500 - one of the very few TV events I like to watch every year. I flip the TV on and the cable box and, lo and behold, nothing. The TV directed me to call their number first, but then it shunted me off to the AI chatbot almost immediately to begin the escalation yet again. Turns out, when the cancelled our second cable box, they also cancelled our first cable box. The bill for January was $145 or thereabouts, so I was confused again but was gonna let that one slide. I said "fuck it all, just cancel my service," so I was hurled over to Customer Retention (back on the phone again, not on the chat line) where the guy offered higher speeds or free TV channels or lower prices or whatever. I told him basically all of this, and said that their customer service is absolute dogshit and that if he doesnt' cancel my service peacefully, I'm just going to stop paying my bill and throw their equipment away. It took longer to cancel my XFinity account over the phone than it did to replace the brakes on my car the day before.
The icing on the cake was yesterday - the last day of our agreed-upon service; the day that my XFinity service would end. I went to print off the paperwork from my account and KEPT GETTING 404 ERRORS ON THE PREPRINTED RETURN LABEL! Ended up having to drive a half hour to the XFinity Store in the next town over (next to Cabelas and a local guitar shop, so that was cool) to return everything, which was yet another damned adventure because the cable box I was returning wasn't linked to our account, having been cancelled sometime in January.
Every single little issue with that company must be escalated up the ladder of customer service, just like I had to do. Problem is, that turns a simple request like "hey can I have my email address removed from your marketing lists?" into a mutli-hour ordeal, which I understand is by design - they seem to want to make everything as much of a pain in the ass as possible so each user just throws their hands up and says "fuck it, I'll just deal."
I'm incredibly excited for Holland Fiber to come through our neighborhood...something municipally serviced on a local scale that'll hopefully assuage some of my issues with Comcast. To boot, the price is supposed to be substantially cheaper - somewhere on the order of $40 to $60/month
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