Comcast Business Support SUCKS

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here at my office we have Comcast for TV and as one of our Internet Providers. We spend close to $800 a month for Comcast Services.

My offices are on the top floor of a skyscraper in downtown Hartford. Seems as though when people move out or in in floors below us, it always screws up our cable signals up here.

Anyways one of my bosses called me the other day to report that one of the News Channels they watch was missing and that other channels they watch are pixelating often. Going through the channel lineup I find that we are missing 70 channels we are paying to get. Its a signal issue.

I called Comcast Business support where calls are now answered in India. I got a nice lady who helped me and made an appointment for a technician to come out on Thursday.

Since making this appointment yesterday I have now received 5 calls from Comcast Advanced Support in India, with each person calling wanting to cancel my appointment because their remote diagnostics tests show that my loss of signal is now resolved. I have never had a loss of signal. only loss of channels and pixelation on what we are getting. They tell me to unplug my cable box and plug it back in and they don't get that its happening on ALL of the TV's in the building.

They then appologize and say the tech will be out on Thursday to take care of the problem... then a few hours later I get another call from Comcast in India wanting to cancel the appointment as my loss of signal issue has been resolved. And to make matters worse, when they call you get an automated "Hi this is Comcast Business Advances support, please wait for a represenative." and the last call I waited for close to 10 minutes before the rep came online.

I asked to speak to someone in the US on the last call and was told they are in India and have no way to transfer us to the United States.

I can't believe how back Comcast Business support SUCKS.

If they do not have this resolved tomorrow I have permission to cancel the TV and Internet and each office will be allowed to subscribe to Youtube TV and bill the cost back to the company.

Its almost like COMCAST is not trying anymore.

 

[harshness]

I can't believe how back Comcast Business support SUCKS.

This is what happens when you subscribe to a service that doesn't offer effective Service Level Agreements. They can pass the buck until the cows come home.

The part I find incomprehensible is that the technical support people don't seem to understand what it is that they're working with (at least when English is the language in play). They can also be very argumentative and will often put you on hold to talk to their pod leader.

They seem to have unusual difficulty maintaining telephone support connections and I've never had them call back when a call was dropped.

The fact that Xfinity is made up of a number of decidedly independent entities also makes it difficult to work between support and your local technicians and the storefronts. None of them seems to know what the other is doing. Reminds me of back in the POTS days of telephone when two of the three entities (central office, loop guy and circuit guy) would participate in blaming whomever wasn't present in a meeting with the customer. Now the loop guy is also the circuit guy.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok so I posted my fustrations to the Comcast Business Support forums...

Got the following message back from them.

Comcast_Kassie​

Official Employee
•
8 Messages
1 hour ago



Scott Good afternoon! Thank you for reaching out to our Community Forums Team. I can see how your services not working properly, and having this experience with your services would be frustrating. I would be happy to take a look into your account and services, and get you in the right direction for a resolution. To begin, can you please send a Direct Message with your name, the business name, and the service address we will be working with today?

Click "Sign In" if necessary
Click the "Direct Messaging" icon at the top of the page (looks like a text bubble)
Click the "New message" (pencil and paper) icon
Type "Xfinity Support" in the "To:" line and select "Xfinity Support" from the drop-down list which appears. The "Xfinity Support" graphic replaces the "To:" line
Type your message in the text area near the bottom of the window
Press Enter to send it

Only problem is when I try that there is no Xfinity Support to send a note to.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAkxJEIwbtY

These guys are IDIOTS.

 

[harshness]

Only problem is when I try that there is no Xfinity Support to send a note to.

As I said, Xfinity doesn't know their left hand from their other left hand.

 

[Juan]

Have you tried driving over to the local Comcast business office?... atleast you could vent your frustrations in person

 

[navychop]

Bail shouldn’t be TOO high!

 

[harshness]

Have you tried driving over to the local Comcast business office?

Back when they still had an office, I was no stranger. Now that their offices are no longer open to the public, things are a lot different.

In my recent dealings, Comcast Business has mostly independent agents who work on a monthly commission. If you find a good agent, sometimes they can work the system through someone on the inside that they've developed a relationship with.

 

[Juan]

Back when they still had an office, I was no stranger. Now that their offices are no longer open to the public, things are a lot different.

In my recent dealings, Comcast Business has mostly independent agents who work on a monthly commission. If you find a good agent, sometimes they can work the system through someone on the inside that they've developed a relationship with.

They have some place you can swap equipment etc etc.. usually called "Xfinity Store"
For example

Xfinity Store by Comcast - Google Search

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Have you tried driving over to the local Comcast business office?... atleast you could vent your frustrations in person

They closed it.

They have a consumer office and when you go and you give them your account info they give you the 800 number to call as they can't deal with businesses.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Well the tech just left.

Yes out signals were a little low, he went down to the 15th floor and turned up the power on the amp and now levels are fine.

However all 70 channels I was missing are still missing. But now we know why. This channels are no longer QAM channels, they are IP streaming channels. If I want those channels then we need to upgrade all our boxes to X1 boxes. These digitial boxes that we got about a year ago are being phased out.

I am nervous about calling and getting the boxes changed out as two of of our devices are HDHomeRun's with Cable Cards... and I don't want them to take those away. (Those allow us to watch TV on any computer in the building.) We probably use that more than the TV's that have cable boxes. They were never supposed to issue cable cards to businesses but some how we got them, so I don't want to rock that cart and lose those.

My boss who is missing the news channel he wants in his office, I will show him how to watch it on his computer, or if needed give him a fire tv stick so he can see it.

The funniest part about the entire visit was the tech had to call in to Comcast Business to close the ticket, and he calls the same number that I do... and he can't get through their system and their system kept hanging up on him. He even said their support sucks as he couldn't even get through.

 

[Juan]

Well the tech just left.

Yes out signals were a little low, he went down to the 15th floor and turned up the power on the amp and now levels are fine.

However all 70 channels I was missing are still missing. But now we know why. This channels are no longer QAM channels, they are IP streaming channels. If I want those channels then we need to upgrade all our boxes to X1 boxes. These digitial boxes that we got about a year ago are being phased out.

I am nervous about calling and getting the boxes changed out as two of of our devices are HDHomeRun's with Cable Cards... and I don't want them to take those away. (Those allow us to watch TV on any computer in the building.) We probably use that more than the TV's that have cable boxes. They were never supposed to issue cable cards to businesses but some how we got them, so I don't want to rock that cart and lose those.

My boss who is missing the news channel he wants in his office, I will show him how to watch it on his computer, or if needed give him a fire tv stick so he can see it.

The funniest part about the entire visit was the tech had to call in to Comcast Business to close the ticket, and he calls the same number that I do... and he can't get through their system and their system kept hanging up on him. He even said their support sucks as he couldn't even get through.

You might try a roku with the xfinity app..not sure you can do that with a business

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Maybe I can try that in a bit. The only issue is I thnk for that to work you need to be using Xfinity Internet, which we have but its one of our backups and not our main internet. I would need to figure out a way to get him to use the Comcast Internet only at his location. With our PFsense router that IS possible, however if I just give him something that can access Pluto.TV then hes good since that channel is there for free.

 

[Bruce]

Maybe I can try that in a bit.

umm, nope-

Favorite channels can be setup through the All Channels tab, by selecting the star icon next to the channel. Can I use the Stream app on the office Roku or Smart TV? No. At this time, Stream for Business is only available on desktop / laptop, Apple, and Android devices.

Article | Comcast Business Support

What about TV Everywhere apps, people can just sign in when they are at work.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

A FireTV is an android device.

 

[Bruce]

A FireTV is an android device.

Take one in and try it, if it works, Fire TVs for everybody, lot cheaper then Apple’s boxes.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Well Comcast stream is another big fail.

We have Comcast Internet, but when you try using it it tells you that you must be using Comcast wifi... and the connection we are on IS comcast...


The router we have from them is a special one since we have static ip addresses, and for Xfinity stream to work in the office we must have WIFI that is coming directly from their router. WHich means we need to replace their router with a new one. (Our WIFI in our office is Ubiquity WIFI 6 with 8 access points via the building. Using Comcasts wifi would not work for us due to the size of the building.)

SO thats another nope.

Hard to do business with this company.

So back to loading Pluto.TV on a FireTV stick for the boss.

 

[harshness]

They have some place you can swap equipment etc etc.. usually called "Xfinity Store"

You can't get Comcast Business hardware from an Xfinity Store. The stores are for residential customers only and they can do very little in the way of "etc., etc.".

When I canceled my employer's business accounts, I had to take the gateways to UPS for free return shipping.

 

[harshness]

Hard to do business with this company.

They're strictly a low-hanging fruit type of operation and their careful avoidance of SLAs will likely insure that they stay that way.

 

[Juan]

Well Comcast stream is another big fail.

We have Comcast Internet, but when you try using it it tells you that you must be using Comcast wifi... and the connection we are on IS comcast...


The router we have from them is a special one since we have static ip addresses, and for Xfinity stream to work in the office we must have WIFI that is coming directly from their router. WHich means we need to replace their router with a new one. (Our WIFI in our office is Ubiquity WIFI 6 with 8 access points via the building. Using Comcasts wifi would not work for us due to the size of the building.)

SO thats another nope.

Hard to do business with this company.

So back to loading Pluto.TV on a FireTV stick for the boss.

Ethernet cable maybe?

 

[harshness]

Ethernet cable maybe?

What part of hardwiring satisfies the Wi-fi only restriction?

I suspect this is how Comcast prevents the streaming TV product from contributing to broadband data usage.