Post Merger-Failure, Comcast Still Dedicated To Treating Customers Like Shit
from the comcastic dept
Look, you don't get to be the best at something without being fully committed to it. Sports, science, doing that thing where you make farty noises using your armpits to gross your mom out, all of them require not just talent, but the kind of dedication it takes to put in the work to being the best. Comcast has that dedication. You might have thought that after its abysmal customer service record helped torpedo its merger with Time Warner, discouragement would have set in. And maybe if customer after customer after customer publicly lambasted Comcast for doing what it does best, that the company would have been forlorn and simply given up.
Well, you'd be wrong. Being the best at pooping on your customers isn't something Comcast is willing to give up on. This was most recently evidenced when the company simply took the email address of one customer and gave it to a new customer of the same name, and only corrected the mistake once the news got involved.
In April, another Kathleen Cox, who lives in Michigan, signed up for a Comcast account. The company took the Florida's Kathleen Cox's e-mail account and gave it to the woman in Michigan.Keep in mind, Kathleen Cox the Florida edition is a current customer. No matter, new customer means -- yoink! -- there goes the email address you've been using for a decade. But, hey, mistakes happen, especially when you're a Comcast customer, so let's give our friends there a chance. I'm sure the company was johnny-on-the-spot in helping get this resolved, right?
"It has been crazy," said Cox. "It is frustrating that's what it is."
It means all of her e-mail contact information went away, but it also resulted in Cox getting the other woman's bill.
"Your bank, your doctor, everybody you know that had your email address for 13 years," said Cox. "All gone."
The problem apparently wasn't fixed until the news station got involved. "Everyone says 'within 24-72 hours,' and nothing happens," Cox told First Coast News. Cox said she spoke to 18 Comcast agents who promised to fix the problem. It took "more than a month" to finally get it solved, according to the report.It's starting to look like the only way to get a customer service issue successfully resolved with Comcast at this point is to involve someone in the media. For Florida Cox to be promised a resolution in a few days and have it take a month, all the while she's missing out on emails sent to her in a time when email is perhaps the primary method for communication throughout the day, has to be immensely frustrating. I imagine the folks at Comcast, who have in the past been willing to do a mea culpa, must have their tails between their legs.
"We have apologized to Ms. Cox for the inconvenience and frustration this has caused her. Our customer care has worked with her to resolve the issue," Comcast told the station.Just another win for customer service, I guess. In the meantime, all the Joe Smiths out there probably want to go with a different email service.
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Filed Under: customer service, emails
Companies: comcast
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Friendly proofreading - her first name isn't Florida.
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If it had said "Kathleen Cox", you wouldn't know if it was the lady I Florida, or the lady in Michigan. By saying Florida Cox, the person mentioned is pretty obvious. Or perhaps you would have preferred "The Cox living in Florida..."
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this comes to mind
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Maybe though it's all of the above.
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Why could Comcast pick this kind of incentive for customer service? Because they want to have bad customer service.
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In other words, "We don't care. We don't have to."
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However, I have never seen even a single piece of email come through, so it seems that even the minimal level of effort I put into it is unnecessary and that email account can be completely ignored.
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Most likely...
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So for something thats not supposed to happen, its gonna keep happening, cause there is nothing to prevent it from happening.
Given the fact that any free email host has a 'technical measure' to prevent this very action, I wonder if Comcast's lack could be considered negligence?
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Not exclusively though. My brother is a programmer, and he uses a Comcast address. No idea why.
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Comcast
And then stonewalls by continuously claiming it's impossible for that to happen, for four days? And then tells me I can get my phone number back if the new subscriber is willing to let it go? And teh new subscriber, being an absolute low life, offers to let it go for the miserly sum of $500.
Comcast sucks, in so very many ways.
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You're actually using the Comcast VoIP? I didn't think people really did that.
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support solution
Writing a public blog post about the situation (in any un-related blog) gets them to call you in about 48 hours.
Thus it would seem that within Comcast corporate, the PR dept has much more power to actually do things than the CS dept.
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Comcast support has been good to me
My most recent experience was a couple days ago. I recently upgraded my Tivo. After using the Tivo for a few days, I noticed I was missing some channels that another Tivo in the house was getting. I called Comcast. The guy I talked to didn't fix the problem, but he did notice that I had some old codes on my account. He fixed the codes, which upgraded my service from 25Mb to 50Mb and reduce my bill by about $20. He then dispatched someone to come take a look.
When the guy came onsite, it wasn't a physical problem, but he stuck around working through his various internal support channels until someone found a mismatch on the hostid of my Tivo to what was on the account. Once that was fixed, everything worked.
So, there are some problems with the above. Why was a manual review required to find old/outdated codes, why couldn't the first guy fix the hostid problem, etc. My point is, everyone I worked with was professional and seemed to be to be honestly trying to both solve my problem and make things better for me.
Not discounting the tremendous number of horror stories out there and I'm also still pissed at Comcast for capping my data but I wanted to point out that it's not all bad with them. There are people who work there who honesty try to do what they can for the customer.
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Because management doesn't want them found. But some agents are just decent human beings who will do it anyways.
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At&T did the exact same thing to me. when I moved
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This happened to me
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Needs to be drilled into everyone's consciousness
Use them as a dumb pipe to get an internet feed. Do not use their ancillary services. They are not reliable or trustworthy, and they offer nothing that you can't get (at little or no cost) elsewhere.
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I have a similar problem.. need advice.
I have a gmail address that I got when it was still invitation only. I used it for years until one day I started getting odd emails for a person with a similar name. I looked at the email headers and, lo-and-behold!, it wasn't directed to me at all. My email is (changed for privacy purposes) x.x.name@gmail.com, the other person's is xxname@gmail.com. Gmail doesn't know the difference between x.x.name and xxname.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313?hl=en
So, I've gotten emails from colleges with applications attached containing personal information, including SSN. I've gotten emails from a ROTC group talking about their training, I've gotten emails from people gossiping about other people I don't even know including some pretty embarrassing details, and most recently, redbox receipts.
The Redbox issue is most disconcerting since I also use my gmail for Redbox. Now, when this other person rents a Redbox movie, I get notifications for it. If that is the case, is this other person getting my email?
To me, this seems like a total security/privacy breach and I feel somewhat vulnerable. Is there a recourse I can take that does not involve just shutting down or discontinuing use of my gmail account? I've contacted the intended receivers on occasion via email and phone since I had their phone numbers from the information in the emails. They were dismayed as I was and have had no luck getting anything in the way of a way to contact google to address this.
How is it that a company as big and full of talented people as Google cannot address a privacy issue related to dots in an email address?
Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.
(Odd that this piece came out today. I reactivated a Verizon phone yesterday for my wife to go on a trip and it gave me someone else's ACTIVE number. When I tried to log in to the Verizon mobile website, I was shocked to find that my number had a bill due for $135. I tried to get through to Verizon and explain this to no avail. Only after the account holder's husband tried to call his wife and got me, did we start to get the mess sorted out. Conference calls with multiple Verizon agents and three hours later, I had a new number and but had to say goodbye to $7 in credit on my prepaid account. So, Comcast is not the only party guilty of this kind of garbage.)
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This is not necessarily a gmail fault. For example, if the person is incorrectly spoofing the "from" header in the emails they send, it would lead to the effect you're describing, but gmail itself has nothing to do with it and is operating properly.
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Just as a test I tried to sign up for my account with a period in it and it said someone already had that account. I know no one else has that account as I use that address myself. The period in a G-mail address is a long known trick to help sort e-mails.
I'm not saying that the problem is impossible, I know far too much about technology to think that any failure is impossible. I am saying that it sucks you have this problem. Google is notoriously hard to get any support from when there is a problem (let alone one that most people would think is impossible).
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Because Google is about as bad at customer service as Comcast.
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So if you have first.last@gmail.com, you also have firstlast@gmail.com
f.irstlast@gmail.com first.last+comcast.sux@gmail.com and so on.
So what is happening is that someone got an email address similar to yours and is giving it out to a bunch of people who are mis-typing it. It's no different than someone accidentally giving out your email address. It's not a security issue for you, just annoying. It is a security issue for the other person who keeps giving out the wrong email address, but that's not your problem or Googles.
I get all sorts of emails from a .uk domain because I have the same domain with the .uk left off. People are lazy and give out their email addresses without the final .uk. It works fine for other people in the uk, but I get their mail if someone from outside the uk sends it, or if someone inside the uk ends the email address with a '.'
It's exactly the same as a wrong number.
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This is often leveraged to sign up multiple times for things because it allows you to get all the confirmation emails in the same inbox.
Last time I checked (not recent) you could no longer sign up for an address with the dots in it.
I suspect their system didn't equate your vintage email with the dots, to the current best practice version without them.
Good luck getting through to Google for any type of CS issue.
I would try to get the other person to sign up for a different account as you are getting his emails but he isn't getting yours.
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If they each have their own area to operate in, that might not be that effective.
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How's that new guy doing?
Some posters here suggest not getting an ISP email address. With Comcast you need an email address to sign in to your account which has some features you may need. In places with Internet broadband caps you can look at your current monthly data use as well as find out some other useful information. One other useful feature is the ability to stream HBO Go, Turner Classic Movies, and other networks if they are part of your cable TV package. You don't have to use it for email if you don't want to and use gmail, yahoo mail or other services. That option is very useful if you might move resulting in an ISP change.
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