COMCAST is OUT and DISH is IN -

On 10/28 I decided that I had enough of the constant outages from Comcast. From 10/16 to 10/27 I was talking to Comcast CS 8 times for credits for outages, in looking at my account on the Internet I saw that only 3 credits for the outages of the 8 were applied.

On Sat. the 28th, I called Dish and made arrangements with them to start service on Tuesday Oct 31st.

Mike, a Dish installer showed up and started on the project, Peter, a second tech was called in to assist when it appeared that it would take more time than expected.

With the work under way I decided to call Comcast again just to make sure that the account was being closed as previously agreed.  (I was paid up until 10/31).

I spoke to 'Josh' in the Retention section and of course he started on his spiel about what could he do for me to make me change my mind.  I told him that the ship had already sailed, his Comcast equipment had already been removed and the 2 Dish installers were putting in their Dish equipment.  I suggested he save his efforts for the next unhappy Comcast customer as I was finished with the company.

He then started on how I had a 'contract' for 2 years and there would be a big penalty (I think $400 was in there somewhere) for not finishing the contract.

My reply was that the contract was for good service and 8 repeated outages as reported to them over 11 days was not good service and I had no further interest in speaking to him.  I ended the call at that time.

Dish got the TV service working but there was a serious hang up with the Internet as they could not run the cable down the wall in the small bedroom where the computer would be.  Efforts by both techs in the attic were not successful and a small hole ended up punching through the ceiling.

RE:  Hole in Wall:  It was suggested by the installer that someone come out and look at the wall damage and get it repaired.  I said it was a waste of time to spackle, sand, paint the hole, plus the paint would never match.  So I just got an unused face plate and put it over the hole.  Minor problem solved.

Around 9 p.m. I suggested that they pack it in for the day and finish on Wed. 11/1/17.  I spent the next 24 hours playing with the new TV service and a 3rd installer arrived at 2 p.m. Wed. and finished the job with some difficulty but after 7 hours he got the Internet up and running.  The hangup was that this installer did not have the needed codes from Hughes Net to get the service booted up and he had to go through many people at Hughes before he got it up and running.

Since the original idea of dropping the cable down the wall and putting in an outlet did not work out the fall back plan was to run the cable outside at the roof line then drop it down behind a downspout to enter the front bedroom via drilling a hole from outside to the bedroom and putting in a box on the outside wall.  This was done and the cable is 95% invisible on the outside of the house.

While Dish installs the TV via satellite they also do the install for Hughes Net with them putting up a second dish on the roof.  In more normal circumstances just one tech would do the entire job in a morning or an afternoon.  My job had some unexpected issues with 2 by 4's being in the way of simply dropping the cable down the interior wall and the 2nd day with the installer not having the needed authorization codes to finish getting me online.

So the change has been made and I am getting acquainted with the new clicker and how things work with Dish.  I may like it and I may not but I did not believe I could continue to use Comcast with their recent miserable service and their not honoring the various assurances of credit for the many outages.

The Comcast equipment will go back to a UPS store to be shipped back to where ever they send such returns.

One thing I like, and was surprised about, is that you can have all the local channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) set to record all the programs during prime time, the recordings will be available to you for 8 days before dropping off the grid.  So if you want to watch Blacklist, NCIS, etc. you do not have to set recordings for each show - choose the proper app and the whole block of shows is recorded.  Outside of these shows you still have to arrange to have a show recorded just like on any of the other services.




Thurs Nov 2, I took the 4 items of equipment and a few minor items back to the UPS Store where they boxed it up for shipment back to Comcast.  I got the usual receipt so Comcast won't be able to say the items were not returned.

Minor Follow up:


Due to the somewhat complicated 2 day install and the slight damage to the bedroom wall, on Friday Nov 3rd, Dish supervisors Ken Mimbs and Jedremiah Stokes dropped by to review the install and the wall.




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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2017

COMCAST - The most complained about of all the TV / Internet service providers

This past few weeks have had lots of service outages and I complained by phone for 4 (now 8 times) of them asking why they were happening and for credits for them.

As far as I can determine there was some mal-functioning junction box that had to be either repaired or replaced.  There were more outages than I complained about because some were of shorter duration, the bigger ones got me to complain.

The screens below are how I found out about the service not working.  You would think that if Comcast knew there was going to be an outage that they might put that on screen to at least show those watching that there was an issue.

Nope, not Comcast, the screen just froze up and you couldn't do anything at all, the Internet/email just disconnected and you could not sign back on.  Calling in was the only way to get info (and long waits to talk to a person in the Philippines).

But even when you got to an agent they could not fix the issue as it was a repair item and not something that they could send a signal down the line to reboot.  

Extremely annoying and it has me looking again for other options.

Thurs 10/26/17

Again today the service for both TV and Internet was out.  The auto recording at their 800 number said it would be back by 10:54.  It actually was back up by 9 p.m.

I called in again to their call center in the Philippines to complain, got a $25 credit.  Seems there is a 'partial node outage'.  What a worthless service this is.

------------------------------------------

Outage from 10/22-23/17

Outage from 10/17

You'll see a credit on your next bill

Here's a breakdown of this credit:

Credit Description	Amount
AR DVR SERV	$0.32
BLST/TRK	$1.49
DIG A/O SERV	$0.46
EQPTRACK	$0.06
EXP BASIC	$0.72
HD TECH FEE	$0.32
LIMITED BAS	$0.68
RENTVIDHSDEQ	$0.32
STMPXALC	$0.11
XI3 BOX	$0.16
Total	$4.64

You can view the credit on your online account within 24 hours.

======================================================

You'll see a credit on your next bill

Here's a breakdown of this credit:

Credit Description	Amount
AR DVR SERV	$0.64
BLST/TRK	$2.99
DGTL REMOTE	$0.03
DIG A/O SERV	$0.92
EQPTRACK	$0.12
EXP BASIC	$1.45
HD TECH FEE	$0.64
LIMITED BAS	$1.35
RENTVIDHSDEQ	$0.64
STMPXALC	$0.21
XI3 BOX	$0.32
Total	$9.31

You can view the credit on your online account within 24 hours.

You'll see a credit on your next bill My Account You'll see a credit on your next bill Here's a breakdown of this credit: Credit Description Amount X1 STARTER DOUBLE PLAY $25.00 Total $25.00 You can view the credit on your online account within 24 hours.

SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2017

Each month the amount due seems to creep up and I am always on the phone to find out why and to get it tweeked to a lower monthly price.

Your bill at a glance

For GA, 30114-7171

Previous Balance $152.48

Payment - thank you Sep 07 -$152.48

Balance forward $0.00

Partial charges Page 3 -$13.59

Regular monthly charges Page 3 $158.14

Taxes, surcharges & fees Page 4 $6.07

New charges $150.62

1st Chat with Comcase Customer Service

2nd Chat with Comcase Customer Service

Below is the 2nd Chat in a slightly easier format to read 

• chat id: 09dfecd9-3044-493d-8de3-ff87b3e52ac0
• Problem: Entry Subject to sales team / lower monthly bill

  ---

• Neha > Hello charles_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Neha. Please give me one moment to review your information.
• Neha > I am here to assist you.
• charles_ > My Issue: Entry Subject to sales team / lower monthly bill
• Neha > Hi Charles, hope you are doing well.
• Neha > I understand you are looking for the options to lower the bill.
• charles_ > need sales/loyalty people, not just customer service. Already spent 20 min with another of your reps who could not help. Need someone who can get this right or can canel my account.
• Neha > Let me check that for you.
• Neha > I will definitely take care of this for you.I assure you that by the end of this chat ,I will either resolve your issue or will help you with the best available resolution.
• Neha > Definitely it is important to have clear understanding of new promotions . I can surely help you with this.
• Neha > For the security of your account could you please help me with your full name,account number and complete service address along with zip code associated with account?
• Neha > For the security of your account could you please help me with your full name,account number and complete service address along with zip code associated with account?
• charles_ > Doubt you can help, needs to go up the food chain. My 'chat' with Amit of a few min. ago should be in your file. I am not interested in going through all this again, can you send this to 'loyalty' people or not.
• Neha > Charles, loyalty people\\Customer solution is reachable over the chat.
• Neha > However if you want I can help you with the package.
• charles_ > Amit said the same thing but it was a waste of 20 min and I don't want to waste another 20 min for no purpose. Can you send me further up the food chain or do I have to call on the phone and cancel?
• Neha > Chales, we have ongoing promotions for you to lower the bill.Please help me with account details so that we can check the same.
• charles_ > Neha, thanks but Amit tried and could not help, he offered me a package of 45 English channels and 65 Spanish, that is of NO use as I don't speak Spanish. Please let me know if you can bounce this upstairs or not. If not I will just phone in and cancel the account.
• Neha > Charles, I would request you to please contact our Customer Solution Team at 1-800-XFINITY (934-6489). Business hours: Monday – Friday: 8AM to 9PM & Saturday: 8AM to 1PM
• Neha > The team has all the access for new promotions.
• Neha > We have promotion at $69.99. In this package you will get a Performance internet (25 mbps speed) + Limited basic cable (25+ cable channels ) + Free HBO premium channel + Free Streampix + phone services.If you can help me with the account details I can check if the same package is available for you or not.
• charles_ > What I have is Digital Ecomomy 39.95 plus 59.95 for performance internet, with all the options I have now it is 164.25. More than I will pay for the package. I do still have free showtime, dont know how long it lasts tho.
• charles_ > Account 8220 21 062 0211708 - charles harris
• Neha > Thank you for this detail.
• Neha > May I have the complete address along with the zip code ?
• charles_ > 110 holly mill village dr canton ga 30114
• Neha > Thank you for this detail.
• Neha > Please give me few couple of minutes to pull up your account information. Would that be alright with you?
• charles_ > ok but limited basic is going to be to basic, digital ecomomy is lowest I would want to go. Internet cost is far to high for what I use it for.
• charles_ > Note: I have no use for phone. I have 2 cell phones and do NOT need or want any land line phone.
• Neha > Charles, as I can check you have same promotion available with you at$69.99.
• charles_ > As I understand it I now have:
• Neha > We have an ongoing promotion for Triple Play Package that has Digital Starter Cable package with over 140+ channels + High Speed Internet with download speed of 75 mbps + Digital Voice services that includes unlimited nationwide calling and 12 popular calling features. With XFINITY Voice Unlimited you will have unlimited calling to landline and mobile destinations in China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea. You will also get a Free Standard Cable box with this promotion.The package price is $99.99 for 24 months.
• Neha > You can download Xfinity connect app from either iTunes or Play store and you can convert any smartphone, tablet or even an iPod into your Home phone
• charles_ > 39.95 Digital Ecomony, 59.95 for performance internet, 10 for DVR, 19.90 for cable box 9.95 for HD fee, 10 for modem and taxes.
• Neha > That's correct!
• charles_ > have no use for any phone service so Triple Play is useless. I am not going to continue to pay 59.95 for internet just to send and get emails. If that can't come down we are wasting my time, also what is this HD fee of 9.95, I don't have a TV with HD so that is also of no use to me.
• Neha > You can swap the HD box to remove the HD fee charges, the packages I have offered you are the best package on the account.

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2017

Use fees as a way to charge customers more than the advertised price

More Charter customers paying controversial broadcast fee

The Motley Fool  DANIEL B. KLINE  Feb 9th 2017 9:52AM


Cable companies including Charter (NASDAQ: CHTR) and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) use fees as a way to charge customers more than the advertised price. These are not government-mandated taxes. Instead, they are fees people must pay in order to get the service they thought they were getting for the advertised price.

Imagine, for example, if a fast-food chain ran ads for a cheeseburger, fries, and a soda selling for $3.99 (plus any applicable taxes) but when you went to pay for the deal, they tacked on a $1 packaging fee, $0.50 in order-taking fees, and a $0.75 meat-placement fee. People would be outraged, they wouldn't pay it, and they would take their business to a restaurant that charges the price it advertises.

Cable, partly because people are simply used to their bills being higher than the advertised price, and in part because many people have limited choice, has long gotten away with exactly that type of pricing.

These fees take a lot of forms, but the most egregious one may be the "Broadcast TV Fee" that Charter and Comcast tack onto many customers' bills. This fee, which varies from around $3 to about $6 a month, passes on the cost of what the cable companies pay local channels in order to rebroadcast their signals.

People don't have the option of declining the fee, or even dropping the local channels, and now Charter, which recently bought Time Warner Cable and Bright House Media, has started to add the controversial fee to the bills of some of its new subscribers.

What is happening?

Charter customers in some Massachusetts territories it bought from Time Warner Cable have received notices that they will be paying a Broadcast TV fee, MassLive.com reported. The cable company notified customers they would be paying a $4.47 "local broadcast TV surcharge" beginning in February. Comcast has been charging a similar fee to its Massachusetts customers since 2014, according to the local news website.

Why is Charter doing this?

Adding a fee lets the company collect more money without raising advertised prices. It also might confuse some customers who think the government imposes the fee or that it's somehow out of the company's control.

Full price information Charter has been sued over this practice, according to Consumerist. The lawsuit, filed in November 2016, comes from a former Time Warner Cable customer who accuses Charter of "engaging in a massive illegal scheme of falsely advertising and promising its cable television service plans for much lower prices than it actually charges." The lawsuit [opens in PDF] does not seek any monetary damages, merely an end to the practice.

Charter made a statement to Consumerist trying to justify the two fees named in the lawsuit -- the Broadcast TV Fee and the Regional Sports Fee -- mostly by listing the fees some rivals use that it does not.

"Our customer friendly approach includes simplified pricing and packaging with no data caps, no modem fee, no early termination fee and no separate USF [Universal Service Fund] fee," Charter said. "We provide simple to understand bills and want our customers to understand what they are paying for, including the skyrocketing cost of broadcast channels."


What happens next?

Unless the courts step in, probably nothing will happen. It's unlikely that a Republican-controlled Congress or a right-leaning Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will force cable companies to be up-front with customers about their bill.

There is little incentive for Comcast or Charter to change this behavior. Not all customers pay these extra fees. In some markets they have not been implemented (at least not yet) and there are some promotional deals that do not include them. But many of Comcast's over 22 million cable subscribers and a large amount of Charter's 17 million pay them in amounts that can reach $10 a month.

The only way either company is likely to kill this cash cow would be if customers got angry. That has not happened to any widespread degree, so unless one of these legal challenges succeeds, it seems likely that fees will remain a part of most cable bills. That's great for Comcast and Charter, at least in the short term, but bad for the cable-buying public.

Other sites of mine FYI:

SOME BLOG SITES ABOUT KENNESAW

For info and lots of photos of the old Castle Lake Mobile Home Park and the current usage of those 52 acres take a look at:  http://castlelakemhp.blogspot.com/ 

Info on a large apartment building on Main Street, (Revival on Main), see the way it is now with comments and photos and watch the development of the land from before the complex was built to today:  http://downtownkennesaw.blogspot.com/

For information on the Cobb County Superior Court Civil Suit of Lopez, et al v. Castle Lake Homes Corp go to: https://kennesawinfo.blogspot.com/ .

4 Downtwon Kennesaw restaurants have been in this one location, now it is open for hotdogs and sandwiches, see all the configurations of this restaurant just across the parking lot from the Kennesaw branch of the Cobb library:  http://theboxcarcafe.blogspot.com/ and also   http://boxcarcafephotos.blogspot.com/

More Kennesaw restaurant info, this time a location on Cobb Pky that has had 5 restaurants in the same space, see:  http://pizzanbeyond.blogspot.com/

Want to know about the Suffa Dawat Center Mosque issue on Jiles Road?     See:  http://suffadawa.blogspot.com/

Want to know about the Federal Suit where the Mosque sued the City?  See:  http://suffadawatsuit.blogspot.com/

More Mosque info - this time about the expansion of a controversial Covington Mosque, the Al Maad Al Islami Mosque, info at:   http://almaadalislami.blogspot.com/

Remember our Pedophile mayor and councilman Leonard Church: All info is at:  http://leonardchurch.blogspot.com/

Another Cobb County (Ga) Pedophile, this one a big shot in the Republican Party, see:  https://josephdendy.blogspot.com/

Kennesaw Issues and Information.   This blog site deals with Kennesaw.   The site covers several things, the Mosque Issue, Castle Lake MHP, City elections and just general observations.   http://mayormathews.blogspot.com/

Info about a current Kennesaw City Council member, Jimmy Dickens:  http://jimmydickens.blogspot.com/

Another Council member, Yvette Daniel who writes as ‘Catcher Freeman’ in racist blogging.  http://catcherfreeman.blogspot.com/

The Kennesaw Watch 30152.  This blog site was established to preserve rants of the 'former' editor of the Kennesaw Watch Mrs Debbie Williams:   http://kennesawwatch.blogspot.com/

HWA or Home Warranty of America.  Buying a condo or renting an apartment?  Find out about a home warranty firm to AVOID = http://homewarrantyofamericasucks.blogspot.com/

The Kennesaw Watch site on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TheKennesawWatch30152/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

My own FB site:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008587503434 

The history of the Swift Wheels Skate Shop in Kennesaw, run by June Wick and including info on the suit Kennesaw brought to enforce a pledge:  http://swiftwheelskennesaw.blogspot.com/

http://mayormathews.blogspot.com/

http://kennesawwatch.blogspot.com/

http://suffadawa.blogspot.com/

http://catcherfreeman.blogspot.com/

http://jimmydickens.blogspot.com/

http://suffadawatsuit.blogspot.com/

http://downtownkennesaw.blogspot.com/

http://castlelakekennesaw.blogspot.com/

https://kennesawinfo.blogspot.com/

https://kennesawinfo.blogspot.com/

http://atlantajournal-constitution.blogspot.com/

http://swiftwheelskennesaw.blogspot.com/

http://brotherspizzacompany.blogspot.com/

http://kennesawpawnproblems.blogspot.com/

http://jcruchelow.blogspot.com/

http://syriaproblems.blogspot.com/

http://boxcarcafephotos.blogspot.com/

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