Henry47
06-25-2003, 01:58 AM
So I moved back with my folks last week and since I already had Broadband high speed cable internet at my apartment, I decided to look into some companies around the bay area. I found Comcast and decided to give them a try. I quickly made an appointment for the 12th of June and awaited the day to come in hopes of speeds greater than my current 56k set up at home. The 12th of June came around in no time and the day passed by with no tech at my door. My girlfriend also made an appointment on the same day at her house in SF and with the same luck, no tech. I figured they were busy and never got around to me so I went online on my SLOW 56k and reordered the Comcast service, this time I found a rebate on a Motorola rebate. After the completion of my online order, I was told that a Comcast representative would contact me within the next 72 hours so for the next 3 days I waited with no calls. At this point I was getting frustrated with them so I decided to give them a call. I explained to them how I made two requests for their service and that I've been waiting 3 weeks in total for their damn service. The Comcast representative told me that my orders did not go through and that she'd have to input it into her computer manually. I then asked for an appointment time and she replied that the earliest she could have a tech come to my house was for the 8th of July. At this point I almost exploded as I tried to patiently explain how it's been 3 weeks since the first expected date of their tech. After speaking with the supervisor, and threatening a complaint, they finally agreed to send someone over on the 24th of June. My girlfriend also duplicated this process as her appointments were missed and her orders were not sent through. She had the exact same appointment as me on the 24th, from 3-5pm. So I waited impatiently until 4:45 when the Comcast technician FINALLY arrived. It seemed as if he were clueless and didn't know how to do ANYTHING. After he called his buddy to come on by, his buddy took over. He was pretty damn rude to me, making his visit quite awkward. He refused to service my house as I ran an errand so I had to stay at home until he finished. His attitude towards me was basically very rude, not welcoming at all, and he was not willing to answer my questions. After he installed my modem half assed (not even hooked up to the computer) he left without even a "Goodbye". After he left, I ran my errand and when I returned I noticed that the cable jack he hooked up the modem to wasn't sufficent enough to get a good signal so I basically took apart everything he did redid it myself in another location. At this point I tried to complete the online registration and configure the modem but ran into some complications. I fumbled for the technical support number on the Comcast Home Installation kit and was greeted by a rather sweet young lady. She tried her best to help me get on my way but at the end of the 20 minute conversation wasn't very helpful. I called again 5 minutes later and was greeted by an older woman who was eager to help but at the end, my cable still didn't connect. Only after a third call to Comcast's technical support did I successfully dignose the problem. It turns out that it wasn't my computer that wasn't set up correctly, but their server was down and wasn't able to complete my online registration. The Comcast representative then instructed me to wait a few hours while the server was online so I could retry again. At midnight I was finally online and ready to go except that now my Internet Explorer didn't load pages correctly. ANOTHER call was made to Comcast explaining the error messages that I received through IE and after a quick 2 minute tutorial, I was finally on my way to the World Wide Web. At this point I called my girlfriend and asked how her installation went today. She told me that her tech arrived at 3:00 on the dot, and was very helpful. She had ordered the basic installation (free installation of modem but the customer has to reconfigure their own computer/modem, etc) The tech then complimented her on her stunning good looks and offered to do EVERYTHING for her ($140 value) She then told me how he even gave her a FREE ethernet card for her second computer. At the end, he gave my GIRLFRIEND his personal cell phone number and suggested that she call him if she had any problems. He said he would do ANYTHING for her, all she had to do was call.
So back to my own installation. It's midnight and I finally hooked up my cable to work successfully on my desktop. Now I had to hook up my wireless router and configure my wireless PC card for my laptop. Installing the router was pretty easy but configuring it took a little finger work. After half an hour of error messages, I decided to call Linksys' techincal support. After a 40 minute wait, I was connected to a heavily accented foreigner who greeted me with a "Hello?" This Martha Fawker was the most annoying/irritating man that I have ever spoken to. He rushed through the instructions as if I were a speed listener and when i didnt understand his instructions, he would repeat it at a taunting voice. At some points of the call I thought he disconnected me because of the 1 minute silences. I seriously thought that he was drunk and/or high. His instructions were so confusing/inaudible that I became enraged and almost hung up on him. After being on the phone with him for what seemed like forever, he "dignosed" the problem. He recommended that I should reinstall the newer software for my wireless PC card and that he would e mail the attachment to me. I asked him "well how am I going to install the software on my computer when I can't go online to access my e mail? "uhh...I don't know" was his response. He told me that he was going to "a;lkdksalkfhwe to the e mail departent while he asdljehoeigh" Iin my mind I was thinking "uhhh......???" So I waited patiently as I thought he put me on hold. After 2 minutes of silence he finally came back on the line and said "you forgot to hang up."
"I thought I was being transfered," I responded.
"You have to hang up your phone." he replied.
"Okay, bye"
Then he hung up. No "Thank you for calling Linksys, have a good day." NOTHING, just hung up.
After that I decided to call back in hopes of receiving a more competent technical consultant. I pressed all the necessary buttons in the touchtone menu and was greeted by another heavily accented foreigner.
"Hello!?" he demanded?
"Hi. I'm having a problem with my wireless router/pc card." I replied.
"Wuz yar name, and addderesh?" he asked?
I took half a second to listen to his voice and it turns out ITS THE SAME DAMN GUY I TALKED TO 3 MINUTES BEFORE!
"Didn't I just talk to you before?" I asked
"Whoops, I didn't e mail you your attachment yet, let me do it again."
I hung up.
After trying 5 minutes to figure out how to work this damn PC Card, I called Linksys' techincal support once more, hoping that the guy I previously spoke to would not pick up. If ANY man with a HINT of an accent picked up, I would immediately hang up. Luckily for me, I finally got a competent technical consultant who helped me through my troubles and now I'm on my laptop wirelessly. Sorry if my spelling/grammar sucks but it's 2:55 in the morning and I've spent 9 hours trying to get everything hooked up. Sorry if you don't understand my story but I'm not in the mood to proofread/spell check or even organize my thoughts. I'm typing exactly what I remember from a LONG day. Today I made more phone calls than I could count and I'm sure I left a lot out but it's been a difficult day and that's all I can remember for now. What sucks is that my girlfriend got everything done within one hour and she never had to lift a finger (except to open the door for the techncian) Plus she got free PREMIUM installation, PLUS a FREE Ethernet card (total value $140+60=$200) Can you believe it, $200 worth of goodies just because she's a woman. What do I get??
- A rude technician that doesn't take off his shoes in an Asian man's home.
-A crappy install that doesn't even get signals from the wall.
- Lousy technical advice from Comcast's technical support.
- Lousy technical advice from Linksys' technical support.
- A migraine.
Hey, at least my wireless download speed is faster than my previous boadband high speed cable provider.
So back to my own installation. It's midnight and I finally hooked up my cable to work successfully on my desktop. Now I had to hook up my wireless router and configure my wireless PC card for my laptop. Installing the router was pretty easy but configuring it took a little finger work. After half an hour of error messages, I decided to call Linksys' techincal support. After a 40 minute wait, I was connected to a heavily accented foreigner who greeted me with a "Hello?" This Martha Fawker was the most annoying/irritating man that I have ever spoken to. He rushed through the instructions as if I were a speed listener and when i didnt understand his instructions, he would repeat it at a taunting voice. At some points of the call I thought he disconnected me because of the 1 minute silences. I seriously thought that he was drunk and/or high. His instructions were so confusing/inaudible that I became enraged and almost hung up on him. After being on the phone with him for what seemed like forever, he "dignosed" the problem. He recommended that I should reinstall the newer software for my wireless PC card and that he would e mail the attachment to me. I asked him "well how am I going to install the software on my computer when I can't go online to access my e mail? "uhh...I don't know" was his response. He told me that he was going to "a;lkdksalkfhwe to the e mail departent while he asdljehoeigh" Iin my mind I was thinking "uhhh......???" So I waited patiently as I thought he put me on hold. After 2 minutes of silence he finally came back on the line and said "you forgot to hang up."
"I thought I was being transfered," I responded.
"You have to hang up your phone." he replied.
"Okay, bye"
Then he hung up. No "Thank you for calling Linksys, have a good day." NOTHING, just hung up.
After that I decided to call back in hopes of receiving a more competent technical consultant. I pressed all the necessary buttons in the touchtone menu and was greeted by another heavily accented foreigner.
"Hello!?" he demanded?
"Hi. I'm having a problem with my wireless router/pc card." I replied.
"Wuz yar name, and addderesh?" he asked?
I took half a second to listen to his voice and it turns out ITS THE SAME DAMN GUY I TALKED TO 3 MINUTES BEFORE!
"Didn't I just talk to you before?" I asked
"Whoops, I didn't e mail you your attachment yet, let me do it again."
I hung up.
After trying 5 minutes to figure out how to work this damn PC Card, I called Linksys' techincal support once more, hoping that the guy I previously spoke to would not pick up. If ANY man with a HINT of an accent picked up, I would immediately hang up. Luckily for me, I finally got a competent technical consultant who helped me through my troubles and now I'm on my laptop wirelessly. Sorry if my spelling/grammar sucks but it's 2:55 in the morning and I've spent 9 hours trying to get everything hooked up. Sorry if you don't understand my story but I'm not in the mood to proofread/spell check or even organize my thoughts. I'm typing exactly what I remember from a LONG day. Today I made more phone calls than I could count and I'm sure I left a lot out but it's been a difficult day and that's all I can remember for now. What sucks is that my girlfriend got everything done within one hour and she never had to lift a finger (except to open the door for the techncian) Plus she got free PREMIUM installation, PLUS a FREE Ethernet card (total value $140+60=$200) Can you believe it, $200 worth of goodies just because she's a woman. What do I get??
- A rude technician that doesn't take off his shoes in an Asian man's home.
-A crappy install that doesn't even get signals from the wall.
- Lousy technical advice from Comcast's technical support.
- Lousy technical advice from Linksys' technical support.
- A migraine.
Hey, at least my wireless download speed is faster than my previous boadband high speed cable provider.