| 4/26/08 02:38 pm - Adventures in Comcast.
Edit 5/11/08: I talked to mechamom, and it turns out that a little bit of my chronology below is wrong. I've corrected it by crossing out the wrong stuff, and adding her corrections in [brackets]. Just keepin' my hat white on this -- I can and do forget details, but I'm not going to lie about any of this when the truth is already sickening enough.
Some years ago now -- some of you might remember, because I was stuck basically-offline then, too, although only for about a month and a half -- mecha and I forgot to pass the monthly cable bill on to mechamom, who thusly did not pay it, which means we got our Interwub and TV service cancelled. We realized our mistake, paid up the bill, et cetera, and I believe that that was what started the chain of events that has continued on until this very day. Can't quite keep the chronology straight in my head anymore, and Google indicates that I never actually LJposted about Event Two of the history, but it does seem logical that that would've started this whole thing. So I'm assuming that that's what leads into the part I DO remember. It would explain why we of all people keep getting singled out for all this madness. So call forgetting-to-pay-the-bill Event One.
Event Two, which I am assuming happened after Event One: [Event Two, which happened immediately after we paid up our late bill from Event One:] Our contract with Comcast back around '05 stated that we would pay a certain amount for our cable TV service -- something like thirty, forty bucks a month. Reasonable. We paid this amount[, until the one time we forgot and were late]. Then, one month [right after we paid up that late bill], suddenly, it was over two hundred bucks a month. For no apparent reason. They had decided that the "free" premium channels we got were no longer free, I think, but whatever the reason, they assured us that our contract meant nothing and that from now on we would have to pay $200 a month for our TV.
So naturally we cancelled.
They told us we had to drop off the cable box at such-and-such a place, and we did. Mechamom even got a little receipt saying that we had given them back their cable box. [She also asked the nice lady at the place if this would square us, if we would really, truly not owe anything more, or if it was too late into the billing cycle and we'd still owe the month's payment. Comcast lady swore up and down that all we needed to do was return the box and we would never hear from them again.]
Then they said that since we had never given back the cable box, we owed them about $150 to pay for it.
"Uh, hold on," mechamom said, or something like it. "See, I have this receipt that SAYS that I gave you back your cable box."
"Nope, you owe us for it," Comcast responded. "Also, you owe us $200 for the month of cable service that came after you cancelled. Pay up now."
After a very large amount of back-and-forth, mechamom gave in and paid them for the cable box that she had already returned, and for the month of cable that came after we had cancelled.
So they took mecha, whose name was on the bills, to collections for the cost of the cable box and the month of cable.
[There was a very large amount of back-and-forth, with mechamom waving her receipt and Comcast putting their fingers in their ears and going "LA LA LA". She refused to pay. They refused to let it go. Finally they took mecha, whose name was on the bills, to collections; and at THAT point, mechamom finally gave in and paid the collections agency, because she didn't want mecha's credit ruined.]
All that was Event Two.
Event Three: We came back here to Bloomington in the tail end of 2006. At the time, Insight Communications was the only choice for cable TV, which was fine with us, as at least it wasn't Comcast. We didn't want to ever give those assholes money again.
Then Comcast bought out Insight, and took over at the start of this year.
Our billing date with Insight was... I think the 25th of each month. Mechamom did the actual bill-paying, so I didn't have to know the date, but I know it was the last week of the month. Then, this month, April, Comcast moved the bill date up to the 2nd. They didn't actually tell us, naturally. They just moved billing up by three weeks, presumably because they figured that way they could get a full month's pay for one week of actual service.
Then, since we had no idea it was time to pay again, they turned off our service for nonpayment the morning of April 2nd.
Mechamom called them, found out the problem, and paid the bill. And the cable didn't come back. And didn't come back. Repeated calls garnered only repeated promises that service would come back any day now, that it was ABSOLUTELY working. For three weeks.
A few days ago, of course, the truth came out. There is suddenly a charge on our account for about $150. They won't tell us what it's for. They "can't" tell us what it's for. They "don't know." But we absolutely have to pay it, or the cable will not come back on.
Funny how the Mystery Charge is about the price of that long-ago cable box, idn't it? Funny indeed.
So basically, at this point, fuck Comcast. They already have their cable box, AND the COST of the cable box, AND the cost of a month of cable service THAT WE NEVER RECEIVED. And, by this point, the cost of ANOTHER month of cable service, lo this merry month of April '08. And now this "we can't tell you what this charge is for, but we know you have to pay it" bullshit, which you just KNOW is SO TOTALLY not something that they would ever abuse in order to repeatedly charge you for things that you could never prove you didn't owe them for, since you would never be told what the charge was, you know, actually FOR.
I wonder if they'll take us to collections for things we already paid [don't actually owe them] for again! |