epm
@68.42.x.x
| reply to epm
Re: I work for comcast
yeah, I've been using the DNS servers I saw on another thread here and they've been working so at least I have something of a fix for people. It seems like the entire country is messed up. The IVR on the phone is saying 4AM for an ETR but last night I noticed a lot of places started working around 11:30.
Uh oh, i'm getting the mean people calling now. |
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somebodeez
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-24
here | Good luck to you! |
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nakedland
join:2002-05-18
Friday Harbor, WA
 ·Comcast
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast Formerly ..
| reply to epm
That's a shame that people have to be mean.
Reminds me of when I worked at O'Hare, it was a blizzard outside, no planes going anywhere, and we had this one guy who cursed us because he couldn't get to LAX. Said he would never fly our airline again. He left our counter to try another airline, 45 minutes later, came back and apologized...said "I guess this storm is affecting everyone"....then demanded we compensate him for the delay.
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"My son defends our freedom in the USAF" |
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CableTool
Poorly Representing MYSELF.
Premium
join:2004-11-12 | Get off the internet and answer the phones! 
The only information we have recieved internally is that the DNS is down and there is no ETR. |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| HAHA.....no kidding right...still got 119 in queue...Calls have been taking a bit longer due to me giving out DNS IPs. They haven't given us much info either though....they finally posted the IVR on the phones though so maybe the queue will start to go down. |
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lcplwan
join:2002-12-25
Sacramento, CA | Hey is it possible for someone to write a letter and have tons of comcast customers sign and say we demand a refund?.. this is seriously stupid.. lucky that we can use other DNS servers... we should get like a free month or something.. |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
 from:
jkj860 
| Well for one they usually only credit per 24 hour period. But if you want to be credited for the time you were down by all means have at it.
About $42.95 /month for CHSI and $3.00 /month modem rental gives you $45.95 a month for internet. That's a $1.48 a day and since the outage was for maybe 9 hours (7pm to 4AM) that's a whopping $0.56 for tonights outage. If you want to expell all that energy in a written petition go for it, you're certainly entitled to it, but I'm not sure it's worth it. |
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luckylar
join:2002-01-29
Hixson, TN | It may be only $.56 BUT if Comcast's 9 million customers demand that, it's NOW 4 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS!!!! |
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J1000
@comcast.net
| reply to epm
epm, while I'm not the kind of guy to call up and demand a credit, I do feel the need to point something out (just FYI I'm not irate at all here, just being philosophical).
When you pay a monthly fee for service you are not agreeing to outages. Regardless of what the fine print might say, customers expect constant access (and rightly so). If they were told ahead of time that service would be down at random once a week or so, they would probably just choose another provider who promised more OR they would expect to pay a lot less.
When service stops without notice that violates the customer's expectations and you can't break that down into a per-hour dollar amount just by dividing the monthly cost into minutes. Maybe Comcast isn't legally obligated to give a credit of any sort, but to rebuild goodwill with the customer they are going to have to do that and more. Even if I'm not the kind of guy who complains to the help desk I'm definitely going to remember outages the next time I choose a service provider. Heck that's why I'm not with SBC anymore! Generous credits are one of the only ways to restore the relationship with the customer. |
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Confusatron
join:2002-01-03
Ypsilanti, MI
1 edit | reply to luckylar
said by luckylar :It may be only $.56 BUT if Comcast's 9 million customers demand that, it's NOW 4 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS!!!! LOL!
I usually take the "my time is not worth the $1.50 or whatever they will give me", but I think I may call in on that idea alone
said by BudBob :If I ran a business like that I would not have too many customers after this. The key is to run the only business in town. That tends to limit customers' options... |
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Blam
Penguin Power
Premium
join:2002-02-06
Philadelphia, PA
| reply to J1000
Sortof along that line of thought that you posted, a couple months ago, Verizon's connection went down in the local area here for a bit. It made the news and Verizon was out there with a P.R. person talking to the local news media and apologizing for the outage. I didn't even notice because I normally use my Comcast and the DSL is a backup. I never called in a problem because I wasn't really using it at the time and never knew until I heard it on the news. Then as a followup, after everything was fixed, I got a phone call from Verizon (they do this often) to again apologize for the outage, with a brief explanation on what happened. And in general, about once every couple months, I get a call from their customer service asking if my service (both phone and DSL) are satisfactory. This with me having their lowest tier DSL and basic phone, with a few add-ons. At this point, thank goodness I have the DSL because I am using it right now. I have yet to have 2 consecutive 24-hour days of service in the past 2 weeks with my Comcast (and this having nothing to do with the DNS problems of late but I do truly believe it is a routing issue related to the CRAN).
Here in Philly, the local Comcast used to be very involved in the community, etc. They recently had a ceremony for the ground-breaking on a new corporate HQ that will be in a 55-story skyscraper 2 blocks down from where their current skyscraper is. It just seems that they are now caught up in the same sort of thing that companies like Time-Warner-AOL or Viacom have gotten caught up in - eat or be eaten, where they buy up everything around them or get gobbled. And that has and will continue to impact on their service and just plain running of their businesses, IMHO. It's really a shame.  |
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jakoe420
join:2003-09-05
Knoxville, TN
clubs:
| reply to J1000
said by J1000:
When you pay a monthly fee for service you are not agreeing to outages. Regardless of what the fine print might say, customers expect constant access (and rightly so). If they were told ahead of time that service would be down at random once a week or so, they would probably just choose another provider who promised more OR they would expect to pay a lot less. ugh
that is ignorant
if they were told ahead of time?? wtf |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| reply to Confusatron
I hope you're not bringing up the flimsy excuse that Comcast has a monopoly or something. in addition to comcast in this area people have a choice of Charter, Wide Open West, SBC Yahoo and about 4 other local high speed services....hardly a monopoly. |
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imrf
Premium
join:2002-06-06
Utica, MI
·WOW Internet and C..
| said by epm:
in addition to comcast in this area people have a choice of Charter, Wide Open West, SBC Yahoo and about 4 other local high speed services....hardly a monopoly.
Charter does not overlap in any Comcast market that I am aware of in MI. They are in Almont and north and to the west of them as well towards Flint. |
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Alt DNS BAD
@comcast.net |  reply to epm
does anyone wonder if these attacks are for the purpose of phishing farms? .....kill the legitimate DNS's and force people to use compromised DNS's or...some attempt at cache poisoning? |
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damox
Premium
join:2002-01-07
Olympia, WA | No . . . actually that's been ruled out! |
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jellyvista
join:2004-08-27
Westwood, MA
| reply to Alt DNS BAD
epm,
I called to get my refund, but I tried to be very nice about it. Yes, for me, it might be some fraction of a dollar, but it is also the only way I really have of letting comcast know my displeasure. Unfortunately, it falls on the call center folks, who really shouldn't be taking the brunt of this. As part of my job, I've sat in with some call-center folks, and I only have admiration of the depth of knowledge for some, and the patience for others, of the folks who work there.
If Comcast had any kind of transparency, I'd be able to find out what was going wrong, and whether they were attempting to do anything about it. If Comcast simply owned up to what was going wrong, I'd be less irate. Companies are black boxes, however, and I can't imagine that any higher-up is going to listen to call center complaints. They've instructed the call-center folks I've talked to just to say "yup, there's a problem," which sounds like an implied "suck it up." So the bottom line, however small it may be for me, is the only avenue I have for communication into the company.
Good luck! |
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skelet0r
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Florence, AL
| reply to epm
I am sorry, but you are incorrect sir, or maybe thats all that you can give, but when I called they gave me $20 dollars off next months bill. However, I was very nice, calm, and simply explained how I had been paying for the Gold Tier and did not appreciate multiple outages, whether I can fix the problem (change DNS servers) or not. I actually only asked for $10, but that sweet honey gave me $20 and gave me her extension so that I could reach her if I ever had a problem. Seemed like a real cool person. |
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outraged at comcast
@comcast.net
| quote:
I am sorry, but you are incorrect sir, or maybe thats all that you can give, but when I called they gave me $20 dollars off next months bill. However, I was very nice, calm, and simply explained how I had been paying for the Gold Tier and did not appreciate multiple outages, whether I can fix the problem (change DNS servers) or not. I actually only asked for $10, but that sweet honey gave me $20 and gave me her extension so that I could reach her if I ever had a problem. Seemed like a real cool person.
This has been my experience as well. I aplaud your ability to stay calm. I do most of the time. I am just really starting to feel that I have a second job which is keeping comcast honest. As a paying customer, I should not have to call up twice a month to see why their service is down. |
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Newegg
Supreme Ideology
join:2004-11-14
Atlanta, GA
1 edit | reply to skelet0r
But some of the time talking to a tech is like talking to a brick wall and in the end they end up doing nothing when they promised you something just to get rid of you. So in the end you might not see $20 of your bill next month.
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30Mbit makes 6Mbit look like dialup around here. |
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