The Comcast Saga
We moved into our unit on Monday about 3 PM. Lois, the mother of the
landlord, came over to greet us and while she was here she
demonstrated the use of the TV's. We asked about WiFi and she told us
to contact his daughter Kathy, the owner. On Tuesday, Nancy called
California and explained what we wanted. Kathy said she would contact
Comcast and tell them to add our name to the account. She said that we
should then go to the local Comcast store to pay for the Internet and
pick up a modem and router so we could hook it up and be in business.
Wednesday morning when Nancy got up she discovered that the TV in her
bedroom did not work. It displayed a message saying that there was a
problem with the connection. The other two TV's still functioned. We
drove north to the store and talked to the clerk, Yaritza. We
explained the situation, that we were renting a house for a month and
wanted to add WiFi to the account. She took our information and
charged us $25 for six months of Internet and $6 for rental of the
hardware. She filled large red bag with equipment and sent us on our
way.
Back home, we checked the contents of the bag. There was a Netgear
router just like ours and a modem. In addition there were three
packages with remotes and other stuff. Why? We wondered why because we
already had them with the TV's. I got to work hooking the router and
modem up, it took a while but I was successful. That was the good
news, the bad news was that now we only had one TV working.
I called Comcast and spoke to a technician. He spoke with a heavy
accent and I had a hard time understanding him. He was asking for the
numbers on the cable boxes for the TV's which were not working. I read
them off to him including the whole "A as in Able" thing. He told me
that they would be activated but there was no immediate change.
Chip and Laurie came over with the Christmas decorations and Chip took
a look at the situation. The two TV's were still not working. He
checked all the connections. In the bag in each package with the
remote was a cable box. Chip swapped out one of the "new" boxes for
one that didn't work, no luck. The puzzling thing was that the small
TV in Jana's room was still functioning. We switched that box with the
one in Nan's room and - - It worked! I decided to switch it to the
main TV in the living room in the morning, I'd had enough Comcast for
one day.
Thursday morning, we still had Internet but now the last TV was
defunct. Another call to Comcast. This time the respondent spoke clear
English. I went over the entire story with her and she decided we
needed a home visit from a technician. The earliest she had one
available would be Sunday morning so we set up an appointment.
On Sunday morning, the tech came and we went over the situation one
more time explaining the situation, showing him what we had done and
what we had in the red bag. He got on the phone and repeated most of
what we had told him. He then gor into the bag and removed the cable
boxes from the packages. He read the numbers off to the person on the
other end of the phone and then replaced the connected boxes with the
"new" ones. TA! DA! Success! The end of our problem except - -
The cable account is now in our name. Apparently when Kathy called
them they did not add our name to the account, they transferred the
entire account to us. The cable boxes, router and modem are our
responsibility. When we move out at the end of the month we must
remove the boxes, modem and router and return them to the Comcast
store thus leaving the home once again cable free. Further more, we
are responsible for the monthly bill. Oh well, we needed a project for
the post Christmas time. I'm sure it will go well since all of our
contacts with Comcast have been gratifying.
