Saturday, May 23, 2009

Um So Yea…

**Update Saturday after Service Tech came by…Tried out a new box, still no On Demand…Said that it will be Tuesday before the On Demand people can help out, because they don’t work weekends and Monday’s a holiday.  (this is IF we get seen that day)  I told the service guy that this doesn’t look good on Comcast considering we just got it installed on Thursday.  He of course agreed with me.  We are MAD! I may in fact write a review on Comcast over at JoJos Place.  Hopefully this will end in something good!**
As you know from yesterdays post we decided to keep Comcast.  I received an email from a Comcast customer relations guy yesterday telling me thank you for keeping Comcast and offering to try and remove our installation fees.  (Thanks!)  I was curious as to how he found the blog, and he explained Google Alerts. 
So, I am guessing that he will see this post too, which is fine by me.
Because I have some complaining to do!
When the install guy came on Thursday he brought out our HD box and I ask him while he was hooking it up about an HDMI cable.  He said that they only hooked things up with the component cables (red, blue and green)  and that we could purchase one if we wanted to use that instead.
Well, Zack is a huge stereo/tv/surround sound/gamer and wants the best that you can get.  So of course he wants the HDMI hook up!
He came home Thursday night and was going to hook up the HDMI cable that we have and get this, there was NO HDMI outlet on the box! 
Well, um…just to let you all know out there, the best picture/sound  quality comes from the HDMI cable.  HDMI actually stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, so why is it that Comcast isn’t hooking it up with the true HD cable?  Because they are expensive.  If you have HD tv and you don’t have the HDMI cable, go and buy one!  The best brands are Monster Cable and Rocket Fish but they are also very pricey, but you can go to Target and get them for a cheaper price then what you would at Best Buy. 
So on Friday morning I called Comcast and explained that we didn’t have a HD box with the HDMI outlet on it.  The lady that I spoke to was surprised that we didn’t and told me to bring it in to the local office and exchange it.  So, this is what Zack did during his lunch break yesterday.  The lady in the office gave him a sheet of paper that had the set up on it and said this is all we would need. (sounds simple)
So last night Zack hooked it up and we turned the tv on and followed the directions on the paper.  He ask to give him a digital channel to check things out..I gave him the only one I could think of, Sprout (because Kelsie was watching it so much), it wasn’t working.  We scrolled through and noticed half of our channels were showing up.  Half of the basic cable channels, half of the digital channels and half of our HD channels.  On the screen where they weren’t coming in it said we needed to order them. So I called the Comcast 800 number and got a lady who didn’t need to be working there. 
I was on the phone with her for 30 minutes and she didn’t even send the signal to our box right.  She also kept saying that we weren’t on the right input that we needed to change the input on our tv to find the cable coming in.  I told her that we were, because it was the only thing hooked up to the tv, and plus I was seeing a Status Screen coming from their box!  She had never heard of it.  She was trying to tell me again about the input and that it needed to be changed.  I then broke it down for her.  I guess she got it, because she said she didn’t know how to fix our problem and that she would have her supervisor call me within 15 to 20 mins. (fine by me, I just want my channels back)
So after 30 mins I called back.  Because no supervisor called!  Got a guy this time and he had the problem fixed in less then 5 minutes.  Wished I would have gotten him to begin with! 
So we didn’t get to watch Wall-E like the kids wanted too, because by the time this all took place it was too late and they had to get in bed.
Zack and I decided to find a movie On Demand last night because there wasn’t anything else on tv.  After scrolling through tons of movies, we found one we wanted, pressed ok, and dang it if there wasn’t an error occur and it said something about to use On Demand to call and order it.  WHAT???!??!  We did order it, my gosh we used it on Thursday night and Friday morning. 
What a mess.  So I called again.  The guy that I got this time rebooted the box sent another signal and still couldn’t get any movies.  Same error message, so sometime today there will be a tech come out.  Sometime you ask…Yea, between 9 this morning and 8 tonight.  There goes our Saturday!  It’s after 9 this morning and no phone call yet to let us know they are coming.  Wonder when they’ll be here.  The only complaint I guess I don’t have is they are coming on a Saturday.  Although, I will say that Knology’s guys work 24/7.   We had to call them a couple of times once around midnight and the other time was about 10 at night.  Both times they sent someone out.  They never had to come in the house but they fixed the problem that was going on outside.
Irritated I am! 
I will update later after the tech comes to see if got our problems solved.

2 comments:

Amanda said...

Well maybe Comcast will see my comment too. I will NEVER use Comcast, ever. Not if that's the way it is... I can tell you that. Not a great way to run a good business if you can't help peoples problems AND it takes that much effort to get something simple set up. Grrrr so frustrating, situations like that makes me furious! Maybe when I get ready to get cable, I will go with Knology! I already like them better lol

Molly said...

That is so irritating! I was on the phone with ATT for forever trying to get our cable set up properly here. They are the only service to our neighborhood too. If everyone just did things like I want them to, everything would run smooth. Hehe.