Four Feet More

This morning, I received a notification in my e-mail that a person named "comcastcares5" had commented on my last post offering assistance in solving my problem. I was thinking about e-mailing him when the phone rang. It was Comcast. Finally, someone was calling to help me fix this mess!

"Hello!" I said, "Is this Comcast?"

The terse voice on the other line said, "Yes it is Ma'am. How are you going to pay?"

"Excuse me?" I asked. Wasn't this the person whom the Comcast Office said was supposed to call me to sort things out? "Where are you calling from?" I asked the agent.

"This is Collections Ma'am." She then explained that my account was past due and that our service had been discontinued. "WHAT???!!!" I shouted, getting really fed up. I explained to her that we had yet to receive a correct bill on our account and that I had been trying for a month to get this corrected.

Her response: "You still need to pay your bill Ma'am."

"But I haven't ever received a correct bill!!!!" I screeched. "The bills say different amounts and accounts each time! How am I supposed to know what to pay, and why didn't the lady at the Comcast office tell me any of this yesterday???!!! Don't you guys talk to each other???!!!"

I mean, really. They're a telecommunications company - can't they communicate better?

The agent responded, "I believe we do Ma'am. Now how did you want to pay your bill?"

At this point I asked her to clarify the charges for me. It seems the discrepancy in her amount and the amount I was told by billing on Friday was due to late fees that had been applied. I protested that it was ridiculous that we were being charged late fees on bills that had been sent to the wrong address and that had incorrect information on them. I also reminded her that I've been trying to get a correct bill for nearly a month and insisted that she remove the late charges.

The agent agreed to credit the late fees to my account, and I paid what I hope was the correct amount for July. I also learned that the $390 one-time service fee had been dropped. The agent then tried unsuccessfully to "reinstate service" for the account. She became confused when the system wouldn't let her reconnect service, and even more befuddled when I said that our service was working fine and had been all day. I explained again that the problem might be because there are 3 accounts open under our name at 2 different addresses. Then I asked her which account/address I had actually paid. Was it our neighbor's service that was disconnected, and did I just pay his bill for July?

At this point the agent began looking at our accounts a little more closely and said, "Oh, this is all messed up!" "Yes it is" I replied. "And I need it fixed TODAY."

"I need to transfer you to Billing so that they can help you."

"NO!!!" I shouted. "DON'T! The Billing Department told me to go to the Comcast Office to get it fixed, and the Comcast Office redirected me to Credit and Collections, and now you're sending me back to Billing!!! I'm getting the run-around, BIG TIME."

The agent said she would see what she could do and put me on hold. By this point, I was ready to spit nails, so I punched out a quick e-mail to Mark (comcastcares5 who commented on my last post). As I was typing, a woman named Diana came on the phone and told me she was getting in touch with a supervisor to sort things out. Slowly I began to relax and feel a bit more positive.

And then my call was disconnected. Lovely.

I finished up my e-mail to Mark (including the part about being disconnected) and gave him my home phone number. Then I sat and waited for Diana to call me back. But after a while I began to think that she might not call, so I picked up the phone and dialed 1-800-COMCAST, pushing all the necessary numbers to try and get back to a live person in the Billing Department. A woman came on the line and began asking me for my account info. As she accessed my account, I could tell that she was trying to make sense of what she was seeing. "It's a mess, right?" I asked. She kind of laughed and I said, "Look, I was just on the phone with a supervisor but got disconnected. Can you please put me through to someone who can help?"

BEEEEEEP - the other line rang, and it was a call from Philadelphia.

"Are you in Philadelphia?" I asked the woman. "What?" she replied, sounding confused. "Are you in Philadelphia? I have a call on the other line and I'm wondering if it's the Comcast supervisor calling me back."

"Well, Ma'am, I don't know. I'm in Wisconsin!" Perfect.

"Can you hang on a minute?" I asked, and then switched over to the other line to see who was calling.

Lo' and behold, it was comcastcares5, Mark! I quickly greeted him and then asked him to hold while I hung up with the agent on the other line. When I switched back over, Mark again apologized for the trouble I was having and said he had contacts in my area who could help out. He said he would have someone give me a call today to address the issue. "When can they call me?" I asked. The question seemed to catch Mark by surprise, but hey, I have things to do, and I can't really hang around the house all day! Mark asked, "Where are you located?" (which I found a little strange since he said he knew contacts in my area) I told him we were in California, and when he started speaking again, I heard a strange, high-pitched noise, and we were disconnected. *sigh*

BEEEEEEP - another call coming through on the other line.

Since Mark got disconnected, I switched over, and was surprised to hear Diana's voice. "Diana!" I exclaimed with joy (this was all starting to get a bit amusing to me by now), "I was just on the other line with Mark, but we got disconnected!" "Oh, don't worry about that." she said, "We've been working all this time to solve your problem and..."

BEEEEEEP - Philadelphia on the other line

"That's Mark" I said, "Can you hold please?" She said yes, and I switched back over to Mark. "Mark! Diana's on the other line! She's trying to sort things out." He said, "Take your time," but I didn't really want to have him hanging around waiting, so I said that was OK, I would try to fix things with Diana and e-mail him later.

When I switched back to Diana, she said that the other accounts had been closed and that my account was now current. "Which account would that be?" I asked. After all, it could be any one of the three. She confirmed the account number that I had thought was correct all along (Yay me!), and assured me that the late fees would be reversed and that I would receive correct bills in the future. "I sure hope that's true this time!" I replied, and Diana laughed. I was only half-joking.

So, hopefully all's well that ends well and the problem truly is fixed this time. If not, I'm sure you'll be hearing about it.