The Personal Blog

Hello Dustin,

I read on this URL (http://dustinwwilliams.blogspot.com/2008/10/upgrades-coming.html) that you are switching service providers from Comcast. I decided to send you a message because I wanted to ask the reason why you are disconnecting your service. If you could please let me know, I will greatly appreciate it.

If there is anything I can do to make you change your decision, please know that I  am here to assist.


Best Regards,

Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations

Well, there are a few reasons that we have chosen to discontinue the service.  The main one is your customer service reps.  My grandfathers name is on our account, although he passed away back in 1983.  You guys have known about it, but have told us not to worry about it and leave the bill the way it is to avoid unneeded work.  We called and talked to someone about changing the account over into my parents name, and they told us that all we would need is a copy of the bill with his name on it and the account number because we didn't have a death certificate.

We had our services cut off, but immediately had them turned back on, only to have our digital box not reauthorize.  I called and had it reset, but then the internet wouldn't work right.  So, I called back, only to have a woman tell me that the services are set for complete cut off any day.  I asked her again, all we had to have was the bill with my grandfathers name, the address and account number, and she told me yes.

So we disconnect our equipment and make the 30 minute drive to the closest Comcast facility inside a Kroger store only to have the woman, who was as nice as she could be, say that we HAD to have the certificate in order to change the name or anything.  We are a very busy family and we didn't have time to stand in line for hours to pay $10 to get a death certificate for someone that died in 1983 to have services changed.  So we left the Comcast facility, went directly to Circuit City and set up DirecTV service, then went to AT&T and set up DSL service.

This is only the beginning of our frustrations with Comcast.  The cables outside of our house, which you guys put in, are old and need to be replaced to ensure that we're getting the best picture, as well as the digital channels that we pay for.  We had a technician come to the house and he told us that the cables are fine, but they're not big enough to support some of the digital features that are on the digital cable converter box.  Therefore, we don't get over half of the digital channels that we're supposed to be getting.  We ask him what it would take to get the lines replaces, and he tells me that it would be somewhere around $35 an outlet to replace the cable that you guys ran for free.  Why should we pay you guys to replace your own cable so we can pay you for service?  It would cost us around $175 just to replace the cable alone.

Not to mention the bill itself.  Where we were paying over $145 a month for only one digital HD DVR (that we did not have HD service with, nor did we ask for the box to begin with) and high speed internet, we are going to be paying a little over $100 for an HD DVR box with HD service, 3 additional basic receivers and a high-end channel package from DirecTV, as well as 6.0MB AT&T DSL.  So there was no contest there.

I doubt very much that there is anything that anyone could do to make us go back to Comcast.  We just can't afford to pay for services that we can't receive.


Dustin Williams
www.dustinwwilliams.blogspot.com