Comcast: Worst. Company. Ever.
Inspired by March Madness, the folks at The Consumerist set up brackets to determine America's worst company. The tournament is still going on, but I'm not afraid to predict the winner.
It will be Comcast -- in a rout.
Sure, you skeptics are thinking, "What about Wal-Mart? Exxon? Halliburton?"
I'll admit that we can't (yet) connect Comcast to child labor, environmental destruction or Dick Cheney (although clearly you've never sat for seven hours on a Saturday waiting for a new DVR). But I'm not alone in my seething rage for the nation's largest cable company.
The Internet is filled with sites -- like ComcastMustDie.com, ComCraptic.com and ComcastSucks.org -- dedicated to the company. Comcast customer Brian Finkelstein's video of one of its technicians sleeping on his couch has been watched more than a million times on YouTube.
Then there's Mona Shaw. This once mild-mannered retired nurse from northern Virginia (a square-dancing Unitarian, no less) got so fed up with Comcast's lousy customer service that she went down to the local office armed with a claw hammer. Here's the play-by-by from a Washington Post profile of Shaw:
Shaw storms in the company's office. BAM! She whacks the keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!
Shaw was arrested and earned a $345 fine, along with the admiration of millions.
Awful customer service is one thing. But what's truly frightening are Comcast's plans to turn the freewheeling, open Internet into something that looks like, well, cable TV.
Comcast is one of the leading opponents of Net Neutrality -- the fundamental principle that prevents service providers from discriminating against Web sites or services based on their source, ownership or destination.
Along with AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon, Comcast has claimed that Net Neutrality is just "a solution in search of a problem." Well, here's the problem: Last fall, the Associated Press caught Comcast secretly blocking popular -- and legal -- peer-to-peer file-sharing. First, Comcast denied it. Then it claimed it was just "reasonable network management."
There's nothing reasonable about it. The Associated Press couldn't even upload a copy of the King James Bible. And the "bandwidth hogs" that Comcast targeted just so happened to be using a service that directly competes with Comcast's video business.
In response to a complaint filed by my colleagues at Free Press, the Federal Communications Commission launched an official investigation. Comcast kept denying, stonewalling and questioning the agency's authority.
As part of its inquiry, the FCC held a hearing at Harvard University on Feb. 25. But Comcast was so afraid of scrutiny that it hired seat-fillers to crowd out the public and applaud on cue. But activists photographed the pawns sleeping through the testimony, and Comcast's ploy backfired in a big way. Net Neutrality might be complicated, but everyone knows a dirty trick when they see it.
With a second hearing announced for April 17 at Stanford University, Comcast issued a press release on March 27, touting an agreement with BitTorrent, one of the firms it had been blocking. Comcast claimed the pact as evidence that the blocking could be "worked out through private business discussions without the need for government intervention." But of course the unenforceable deal doesn't apply to any other firms or future innovators.
This fishy-sounding agreement didn't fool FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. "While it may take time to implement its preferred new traffic management technique," he said in a statement, "it is not at all obvious why Comcast couldn't stop its current practice of arbitrarily blocking its broadband customers from using certain applications."
That's FCC-ese for "I'm not buying it." Comcast's response? They sat out the Stanford hearing.
To be clear, Martin hasn't always been a friend of the public interest. He has tried to gut media ownership limits and has rubber-stamped mega-mergers. He even voted for the ruling that put Net Neutrality in jeopardy in the first place. But let's give the guy a break. After all, he's human, which means he must hate Comcast, too.
Of course, if the FCC and Congress don't act quickly to stop Comcast and restore Net Neutrality, we may have to take matters into our own hands.
Two words: Hammer time.
A version of this post originally appeared in In These Times.
An audio version is featured in this week's Media Minutes.
Follow Craig Aaron on Twitter: www.twitter.com/notaaroncraig
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The biggest "War" right now isn't the "War on Terror" or the "War on Drugs". It's the "War on Communications". Most of what you do, what you think and what you buy is controlled by the information you have. Corporations and governments would do anything at all, no limits, to get control of your access to information. There's no conspiracy and no need for one. It's so blindingly obvious that even an idiot like Bush gets it. Control what people know and you own them, body and soul.
If we don't fight this now in every way possible, we're going to be well and truly screwed.
moved here from another (time warner service) state, had comcast cable & wi-fi internet hooked up just last september and i have had to call for interrupted and or non-existent services at 7-8 times in just 7 months. just today, i left work to go meet them because my cable and internet had been completely out for two full days. turns out some tech had disconnected my services outside - got the WRONG house! i got my whopping $9 credit to my bill for the missing tow days - lucky me!
I hate Comcast's political bungling, but I've had nothing but good experience with their Customer Service. That doesn't invalidate all complaints, but it is one experience to counter the negative ones. Plus, I sure as hell thing I'd rather have Comcast people blundering around my hometown than armed Halliburton idiots.
My vote goes to Virgin Mobile, they are truly rude and the customer service people don't have a clue about the company's business.
I was going to complain to the BBB about them but when I saw the history between the two I realized it's a hopeless cause.
BUYER BEWARE!
I vote for EARTHLINK as the worst company that I've ever had the misfortune to deal with.
Mind-boggling incompetence on so many levels....
Try this was on... a friend of mine suddenly started receiving multiple bills from Comcast. He asked what it was, and was told to ignore the 2nd bill. Week later, a notice that the bill was late came. Several more weeks, service was cut and when he called, they informed him he hadn't paid his bill. Long story short, Comcast had him signed up on 2 accounts. They offered a month of free service and rectification of the problem. 3 months later, he has still gotten neither....
Oh, my, am I going to be the only dissenter here? Comcast's opposition to net neutrality, while an obvious business decision, is terrible. OTOH, I have actually found their customer service (in Seattle) to be excellent. Their folks on the phone have been just fine and they have shown up when they promised. I particularly like the phone option of leaving a call back number and they call me. My 92 year old father who's hooked up to a MacMini calls Comcast every time he has the slightest computer problem and even if it's not a Comcast issue, which it rarely is, they help him out. Now he does use the "I'm a really old handicapped man" line a lot (he drives, plays golf and enjoys Scotch and Guiness), but Comcast has still be truly kind.
"They aren't screwing with me, so they can't be all bad" is about the weakest argument I've ever heard.
It is much easier to live without than to live with. My most current story is with Sprint, however I probably could retire if I was paid for the hours spent dealing with their incompetence and mediocrity. And the many hoops that they ask you to jump through and still have no resolution. I hope they all go south.
I got to a point where I took my complaint to the Better Business Bureau (http://kansascity.bbb.org/index.html) and this is automated and online and had no real resolution but acted as an arbitrator.
These companies have no bearing on the time required to resolve a problem if they didn't create the problem in the beginning.
There should be charge back legislation authored to protect the consumer.
Cablevision could give Comcast some competition for that title.
Pull the plug. Your IQ will improve.
Nominated in the "but that was *last* paragraph" department, we have:
>>Comcast is one of the leading opponents of Net Neutrality -- the fundamental principle that prevents service providers from discriminating against Web sites or services based on their source, ownership or destination.
Then we segue to...
>>There's nothing reasonable about it. The Associated Press couldn't even upload a copy of the King James Bible.
So what you're saying is, they treated traffic equally, without regard to who was sending it, or what it was?
(a quick check of mininova shows three seeds for "King James Bible", and 1,775 for "Superhero Movie" - clearly showing how effective these filters are.)
Anyhow, don't let me interrupt a quality rant.
Actually, no that's not what he's saying. The bible upload was blocked so Comcast could give preferential treatment to other users such as Comcast's own internet video service.
They aren't filtering select content -- they are blocking entire services and applications.
Sorry, folks, AT$T wins, hands down.
My story is long and boring--and contains over two years of abuse, forgotten service orders, mystery charges to my phone bills, cut-offs for absolutely no reason, abusive customer service reps, and on and on and on.
It's time for a revolution, people. It's time to reclaim this nation for the corporatists and the plutocrats who encourage and empower them.
You said it!
and I know that was a typo, "ShawnMichel"; you meant "....reclaim this nation FROM...."
Oh, man, you're not kidding. Add "dings to your credit card for $8.74 charges" that were mistakes in billing they could never point you to someone who could fix despite hours and hours on hold and being transferred to the far corners of the earth."
ATT is a satanic organization headed by the big guy hisself.
I agree. AT&T sucks big-time. I quit them after I complained about an unanounced change in rates that ended up costing me over $600.00 one month. When I complained, the AT&T rep told me, "We can't tell our customers everything."
By comparison, my experience with Comcast has actually been pretty decent, net-neutrality issues not withstanding. I would suggest that customer service, which in my area is both responsive and competent, is more of a local issue. Of course, given my overall skepticism of any monopolistic industry, I don't discount the possibility that my experience is unique.
That exact thing happened to me with AT & T. Well, I got online and wrote the FCC or was it FTC. They have an online form and ATT was begging for my forgives and removed the whole $600.00 - bull*** charge from my bill - with a formal apology.
Never pay them! Go online and fill out the form. They take everyone for a ride - jerks. Also, about Comcast. I just moved to Ft.Myers, Fl. recently from Ft. Lauderdale. Well, Ft. Lauderdale you could get somewhat decent customer service - however, in Ft. Myers - nada. They don't show for appointments, they lie to you repeatedly - they are unprofessional, rude and do not do their job. I hate them - plain and simple. I could tell stories of trying to get internet/cable in this new place in Ft. Myers - but won't bore you. They are the worst and seem to have no idea how to do their jobs. Good for nothing from start to finish.
The lousy service which many of us are getting from Comcast (or "Crapcast" as it's called at my house), is an obvious example of how deregulation of the media has failed, and failed us miserably... and wasn't it a certain President named Bill who told us how wonderful things were going to be when the media's been deregulated?
I'm ticked with Comcast because they chopped over a dozen channels off of their programming line-up (mostly West Coast feeds of various premium channels), and jacked-up the rates yet again. This is enough to make me seriously consider cutting the cable and getting "The Dish" instead.
Go for it! I fired Crapcast years ago due to their inability to maintain service and their truly sad and inept customer service. I have DirectTV and have been very happy for the last 7 years. I'll never go back to Crapcast.
I've always wondered if Comcast's decision to move MSNBC to a channel which requires a digital cable box, as the company did here in Oregon, was politically motivated. Comcast-- Worst Persons In The World!
I find the entire Cable franchise scheme very mob-like.
in the 80's I took then-LA-mayor Tom Bradley's deposition in class-action lawsuit as to how the no-bid franchises we being awarded seemingly arbitrarily with much evidence that they were being bought and paid for with gifts and cash to the mayor and his cronies.
This sh!t has been going on for so long and become such the norm, I don't know how we are going to get it under control
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