Comcast Is Evil
I have RCN. Comcast disconnected my internet service. They disconnected it earlier in the week as well, but I caught them at it and made them put it back together. So after waiting four days for the RCN guys to show up, they found a Comcast audit tag on my connection, and my disconnected cable. Gotta love that. That lost me a good chunk of work this weekend (hourly == $$) and slightly pissed off a client. Wickedly not cool. The fact of the matter is though, calling Comcast to complain does no good since I am not their customer.
*sigh*
June 25th, 2007 at 15:10
You could complain to the BBB or something like it - add the the multitude of comcast complaints. You might also write into the trib. Regardless, the points is that there are public complain venues.
More importantly, this is also a huge fraction of RCN’s fault. Seriously, if they are going to offer a service they have to be able to offer it. They need to work this out with comcast, mortal enemies or not. So, you should register a large complaint with RCN too.
June 25th, 2007 at 18:44
Well, you should complain to Comcast, anyway, just to be on record. This is probably a case of the local franchise going against official policy, so an aggrieved complaint to the mothership might at least give the local guys a black mark in the big book of Comcast. And, while you are not a customer now, you are a *potential* customer, so they do have incentive not to alienate you.
Also, file a complaint with the ICC (IL commerce commission).
And while you’re at it, send an e-mail to the Consumerist blog (http://consumerist.com). If you can’t do anything substantial about Comcast’s assiness, you can at least make them look bad in public.
June 26th, 2007 at 08:53
Dude!
I’m with Pam — go and complain, otherwise there are absolutely no repercussions for them doing this sort of thing, and they win.
There are stories these days of people finding the CEO’s phone number and calling them to complain directly. In this case, you don’t really want anything out of them, you want them to stop f’ing your network, so I don’t think you should do that. But again, complain, complain.
June 29th, 2007 at 21:35
Well, if Comcast is going to leave proof (the audit tag) that they are disconnecting someone else’s wires from your box, I’m pretty sure that you’d be able to win a lawsuit as well. And given that you actually lost money, you’ve got an amount to use for damages. Not that it would necessarily be worth your time to sue them, but it’s something to think about. Another possibility, if it turns out that this sort of thing happens a lot (which RCN might be able to tell you), would be a class-action lawsuit (I’ve seen at least a few of them where the person who started the suit got something over and above the ordinary class members).
July 9th, 2007 at 10:23
See, the problem is financially it makes more sense for me to use that time billing clients instead of trying to milk Comcast for money. I think I will give Comcast a ring though and let them know that their auditors are collecting on non infringers. Let them know it is in their financial interest to stop disconnecting me.