<p>For all those Comcast customers affected by Hurricane Irene – call the billing department to request credit for the days you were without service. It was in our local paper today that the credit will not be applied automatically. Unfortunately I had to argue a bit to get a fair credit, but I did get it. The rep started by saying that they were going to apply a flat $20 credit which they thought was generous. Given that I pay $230/month and was without service for over 6 days it did not seem generous at all. I had to hold my ground and he had to go to his supervisor but they did agree to prorate my bill for the entire outage.</p>
<p>Ouch!! $230/mo??? What services do you get from them? At that rate it had better include a back massage.</p>
<p>It’s outrageous, isn’t it? We get both internet and cable from them and it really adds up because we have a lot of TVs and DH wants HBO and almost all the HD channels in his man cave. Fios isn’t available in our area so there really isn’t another good option for us. Not sure I’d switch, but it would be nice to have a little pricing competition.</p>
<p>grit,</p>
<p>call them up and tell them you want to disconnect. You can switch to Dishnetwork and att DSL( 6 meg highest speed 19.95 and 3meg speed @14.95)…They will listen and give you some conssesions. Just don’t tell them this program DH wants and Dish does not have. Just call and tell them that, it does not mean that you REALLY are going to switch.</p>
<p>What exactly your $230 services composed of?</p>
<p>Wow, Comcast charges extra for HD? Glad Cox doesn’t! And you only get internet and cable TV through Comcast? For $230 a month?:eek:—and I thought I was paying too much…</p>
<p>We have Charter in Madison and Comcast in Chicago. One of the things that I have noticed on Comcast is that on their channel one I can watch shows from cable channels that I am not otherwise paying for. For example, in Chicago I do not have BBC America, but they do have the previous shows of Dr. Who. In Madison I have BBC America, but Charter doesn’t offer any already broadcast shows from that channel. In any case Charter offers very, very few back shows from various cable channels. Comcast also has about twice as many free movies in their On Demand menu as does Charter.</p>
<p>Thanks to this thread (las mas) I called comcast yesterday and had my bill reduced over $50. They are very willing to negotiate if you tell them you can’t afford the increased rate and will drop a service.</p>
<p>They do drag the call out to 30 mins, so allow plenty of time to negotiate.</p>
<p>They have these new Star Channels, and last night they showed The Social Network, which we hadn’t yet seen.</p>
<p>When the Comcast bill reached nearly double the cost after only a couple of years or so, I cancelled and lived without it. A year later a rep knocks on my door and offers a great deal at less than 1/2 of what I had been paying, plus premium channels, for 12 months. 12 months later I threaten to cancel and they consequently extend the deal for another year. Year expires, the digital age arrives and I buy a hifalutin antenna. I learn to enjoy channels 4-1, 4-2, 4-3 over-the-air. LOL. Enjoying free TV and life withouth Comcast for months. Now I am getting mail from DirectTV and Dish about every 2 weeks. Began to sign up for Dish online but didn’t finish registering. To my surprise, got a call from a Dish rep (hmmm, my anti-phising software must have failed). Explained my rea$ons for not ordering Dish. He gives me the lame excuse of “…our equipment (the DVRs) is expensive, we just can’t give it to you.” Thanks but no thanks. A few days later I get a mailing from Dish; they offer to drop the 2-year contract requirement to get the big discount. Still thinking about it.</p>
<p>grits, I would call comcast and renegotiate. my parents re negotiate their comcast every 12 months or so when their package is about to expire. I’ve called my company from time to time and gotten mine reduced also. Mine comes to 115 a month for internet and cable - that’s with three boxes, 2 regular and 1 hd, and all the channels i could ever want. no hbo or anything like that… but they do include encore with the package.</p>
<p>Called Comcast to see what could be done about the cost of my current package. Rep said he found a way to lower the cost of HBO for 2 years. Not a huge savings but every little bit helps. He put me on hold to process the promotional discount and the call was dropped. Called back and the new rep said there was no such discount and there was absolutely nothing that could be done to lower the costs unless we wanted to add our phone to the bundle. We were without service for 6 days during Irene so there is no way I’m adding our phone to the mix. Guess I’ll call back one more time and see if I get a more helpful rep. I learned from my calls during the Irene outage that there is absolutely no consistency among the customer service reps.</p>
<p>That is so true, GRITS, and one of the many infuriating things about Comcast. It’s true of their telephone tech support as well as the people on the account end of things.</p>
<p>Once a tech were here, and I was telling her about the many phone calls I’d had to make about the issue she was fixing for us. I asked her why Comcast doesn’t do a better job of training their telephone techs, and she said, “It’s not an education problem; it’s a retention problem.” By which she meant that the techs just have so much information thrown at them, there’s no way every tech can remember every aspect of this apparently highly complicated business. So they just make stuff up, I guess.</p>