Comcast: The Fleecing of a Subscriber

i had to cancel the MLB Extra innings package as I have a HD TV but Comcast does not provide the package in HD. The Comcast staff was full of mis-information such as the signal from MLB is not in HD when Direct TV and others provide HD for about 1/2 of the games. One Comcast staffer said it might be the signal, one the TV, etc. Obviously the HD channels are fine. Not long ago Comcast admittedly screwed up and wiped out my e-mail contact list and ALL of my historic e-mails. Why should I be punished and pay for MLB Extra Innings but have a poor picture as it is not in HD? This is 2009 and HD is not new. Time to replace Comcast.

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We had comcast but now have cable, internet and phone service and dont pay as much, would never go back!

How dare Comcast's subcontractor J & E Enterprises think they can tresspass on my property, dig up my lawn and tell me: "On July 1st 2008 we will digging up your property" I said "I think NOT" Then this punk had the nerve to tell me " you have no choice in the matter, we will contact the police and have you arrested if you interfere" I proceeded to throw this punk off my property. I then called the owner of this scam business and he told me the same thing. Last I remember this is Toms River, NJ NOT Communist China, Cuba or Nazi Germany. I have written my local polititions and after knocking on door onh my block it appears the entire naborhood is up in arms. We ALL are pissed. I called your executive team and they are so uninterested. I am now looking at the legalities of permits applied for. And the legalities of digging up the right-of-ways. You may not need a permit to dig up an easement BUT you sure as hell need a permit to dig a right-of-way. We will be watching and as soon as your paid jokers touch a drop of ashfault or concrete your sub-contractor is in a world of trouble!!!!! How dare your company do this. We on Kilkormic Street are counting down the days till I can disconnect you and sign up for Verizon FIOS!!!!!! I'm sure just just as uninterested as your comcast team.

I just got off the phone with Comcast. I'm in an acquired area myself (we were Suscom customers), and they recently decided to remove a slew of channels were are entitled to as per our original Gold pkg. What's the point of grandfathering us in, if they're just going to 'move' channels into other pkgs. I'm still being charged the same. Surely that's not right. I've already made 4 calls about this issue, with around 4 hrs. of time invested. I'll continue to call out of principle...

I have been with Comcast since 1977 (yes - 31 years). Well first with the company Comcast bought out many years ago and then Comcast. I canceled my service today and was told that twenty some odd years ago Comcast had provided me with an "ANALOG RECEIVER BOX"... Close to 27 years to be exact. They said if I did not return the box, I'd own them $40.00 for the equipment. That box had not been used in at least 20 years and I have lived in the same house for 31 years and I looked high and low for the box (about 2 inches tall x 8 inches long and 6 inches wide (black)… Because I hadn’t seen it in years, I had no idea where it may have been misplaced. When I tried to find out how I could be charged full price for something that was almost three decades old, the response basically was “you either turn it in, or be charged” – END OF DISCUSSION! The reason I was leaving Comcast to go to DirectDish was because Comcast in December 2007 in my area decided to cut off the Hallmark Channel (just before Christmas with all the Christmas specials coming on) or pay a higher fee for that channel. I know a lot of people called in and Comcast backed off for an additional week then cut the channel. I was just tired of the poor overall quality of the stations and service and finally changed. I know writing Mr. Brian Roberts of Comcast Interactive Capitol in Philadelphia, Pa will fall on deaf ears and it is impossible to find their VP of Billing at their Seattle, Washington billing site, so this is a good place to vent my disgust for Comcast for their cheap ways. Three decades of 100% paying on time and loyalty... one would think the least they would have done was to wave the full price of a new Analog Receiver Box (are they even being used on modern televisions?) and just charge me the depreciated value of the box (that would be about 2 cents on today’s market). If you’re thinking of a long term relationship with Comcast… they don’t know the meaning of the concept.

how can i take legal action against comcast? i want all of this nonsense to stop!Somebody please answer. Thanks again Bede

I'm still trying to get my breath back after getting a punch in the gut from Comcast today. I called to ask if Digital Phone service was available. No, of course. I currently pay about $125/month for my TV & Internet service to Comcast. I have no HD right now and if I subscribe it's another $9.99/month and I only get about 7 channels..whoopie. I asked the NNCSR (not-nice customer service rep) how much I was currently paying for my Internet service to which she quickly replied, "45.95." Okay, that's with their Standard service, digital preferred & HBO and I still pay $45.95 plus the modem? Yep.. sure do! So my next question was, "Well, how much would I pay for the Internet service if I dropped my cable TV?" A short, "$60.95", was her response. Is she serious? $60.95 + modem? I said, "Okay so $65 for the speed I have right now." "Oh NO!", NNCSR barked, "your speed will go down to 3MB down and 384 up if you cancel your cable." Wait just a damn minute. You mean to tell me that my speed will be cut in half (supposed to get 6 now, barely get 2) and the price will go up by $20? "Are you serious?" In a very cheery voice this time she answered, "Yes. I am." So, it was hanging on the edge of being very sarcastic from this NNCSR. If I could get another high-speed Internet service provider I would drop Comcast completely and go with Directv for my HD. They have me right where they want me though. So, my thoughts are that she told me I should be getting speeds to nearly 6MB and I barely get 2MB I am going to be calling them S.O.B.'s until they get me the service I am paying for. If they can't do it I'll demand credits until then. I work for another very large cable company and know they can do this. The unfortunate part is that Comcast won't offer a reciprocal account to us (free cable) but we do for their employees that live in our footprint. All of this is their business plan? It's unreal to me. Customers at my cable company pay $45.95 FULL PRICE - NO DISCOUNT for internet. If they bundle the price goes to $39.95... sure as hell beats Comcast! (same speed). What a bunch of sticklickers. Guess they must be doing something right somewhere or they wouldn't be the largest MSO in the country. I still hate their guts though.

Comcast is getting hit hard by Verizon's FIOS. Due to this they are turning to more and more devious ways to bilk customers and others out of money. In regards to the DVR's they are so old they shouldn't be installed in customer's homes or businesses. Does that stop Comcast. NO!!! There are new converters available but Comcast wants to continue using the old converters even when they know that they are bad. Comcast just doesn't care.

This sucks. It's obvious that the money is spent on advertising, and certainly not on performance; nor any sort of help for the problems that thry create.

Today I didn't receive any color TV on regular basic TV without box, even though I have another TV with their (Comcast) box. Got one or two BW programs of poor quality. Go figure. I'm paying big bucks per month for actual service, not accidental receptions. Why the heck should I go to the other room and invite mental anguish trying to find out if Comcast HDTV with their free box works on that particular TV? TV I can do without. Why, for instance, should I pay for Oxygen or music TV or no TV at all? I called them twice. Once I called to cancel my service and send me the bill. Second call was to make sure they will cancel service and to inquire what to do with the free HDTV cable box they sent me free recently. They will come by Thursday and pick up the box. Good riddance. I will do without TV entirely. OK, presidential debates, come on. I won't be watching.

It's Comcaustic! Meh, I'll try again later...

Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette turned my on to this column... Comcast is not available in my rural area, but we use DitecTV with no problem. Our problem is with Verizon. I don't care if they offer a lifetime of free service. They have screwed my with phone service (land line and cellular) for years because they are the only game in town. One of Verizon's techs told me that the office harps on customer service to the techs, and then added, "If the guys on the phone didn't piss off the customers so much, we'd not feel like we should be wearing bullet-proof vests to work!" I'll NEVER let Verizon have my TV business, and when my contract is up, my cellular business will be taken from them. More viable options will be available.

I got the same AT&T grandfathered package from Comcast & they thought I'd pay an extra $42/mo to keep my line-up. Wrongo! I promptly switched to Dish & got Verizon phone & DSL. Guess what? I have more channels, better equipment, pay lots less & my internet is MUCH faster. Best decision I've ever made.

I get more than 22 HD channels with my HD antenna. (Although some are spanish and some are 480p)

Wow, if you think Comcast is bad, just thank god you don't have Charter... all these Comcast horror stories sound like the *good* experiences I've heard of with Charter Communications. Some folks around here (Madison, WI) are actually hoping the rumor is true that Comcast will buy them out so we get "better" service. ("better" being a very relative term here)

You might consider watching a little less TV and doing a little more of everything else. I see that you blog and all, this is a good start, you show promise in creating media instead of submitting to it. HD, as you found out, is just a gimmick to squeeze more money out of the sheeple. Does the quality of content improve? no, you just get more pixels to it. You could save over $2000/year by ditching and dusting off your library card.

Dropped COM'post'CAST few years ago (after 12 years of service. Started at $9.00 ended in $90.00)when I got the run-around..trying to get a cable modem replaced (mind you I was leasing it from them). Customer service and satisfaction is not on their corporate goal. I am surviving with DirecTV and DSL.. fine.

Comcast stands for incompetence and mismanagement. But what do you expect from a monopoly given a free pass by our government. Look beneath the surface, and I bet you will find a great "good old boys" network 9or much worse) between Comcast and our legislators.

We dumped comcast after FIOS arrived in the area. I never want to go back. We have cable, internet and phone service and pay less. Now if they would let a Tivo work on their system without having to rent a box all would be good...

Caomcast jus plain SUCKS! I pay around $100 a month for cable and internet and the internet is always down. My boyfriend has to unplug it about 5 times a day to make it work, and on some days that wont work. I can't wait till FIOS gets here.

Same here. Got rid of the Comcast cable service-- we were paying > $50/mo for BASIC analog cable-- in addition to $50/mo for cable internet! The final straw for me was when they changed the channel lineup-- which wouldn't be too bad... except for the fact that they neglected to inform anyone of what the new lineup was! So my TiVo suddenly started recording ultimate fighting championship match marathons when it should have been tuned into Law & Order. Long story short, and several frustrating calls to comcast, in addition to physically showing up at the local office, and even Comcast can't tell me what channels I should be receiving. Mind you, I'm paying them $50/month for this privilege. So screw it-- I was already receiving the local HD broadcast channels through my OTA antenna... so cancelled the cable but kept the internet (only option available so far...) Screw comcast.

Last year I moved into a Comcast area from Time-Warner. Now, Time-Warner was no angel, but they did the job and got paid for it. Comcast is downright a scam. I've been a customer for only 9 months, and I am doing my best to flee to a competitor. I am just waiting for Verizon Fios to be wired into my neighborhood, and I am in the process of getting a dish on my roof for DirecTV, who BTW has a heck of a lot more HD channels than Comcast, and hopefully not over-compressed like Comcast likes to do. It's not often I blacklist a company, but Comcast is my latest entry.

My only complaint with Comcast is that I have to buy a "package" in the first place. There's only 6 channels I ever watch. I was seriously drooling over those rumors about an "ala carte bill" requiring cable/satellite providers to let you pick exactly which channels you want and just pay for those. Just give me Sci Fi, History Channel, TNT, A&E, Spike, and CNBC. I don't want or need anything else. Unfortunately the cheapest "package" that gives me those costs over $50 per month.

I have a whole lengthly list of problems I've had with this company...in just ONE MONTH. 6 interconnected occasions where I have been through everything you are describing. I am waiting impatiently for Verizon FIOS to come to my area. One that happend, the first thing I'm doing is going to Comcast's regional center and throw their craptastic boxes in their face.

I had problems with comcast too. Since I already had comcast internet service, I decided to get the cable TV as well. I called comcast and set up an appointment. Of course I had to take a day off. I've been waiting all day long and nobody showed up. I even called comcast and they told me that the technitian is coming, but he never showed up. The following day I called them up and they told me that I have re-scheduled the appointment for next week. I was stunned! I never did that... A year later I made frineds with one comcast installer and he told me that this is their standard procedure when they are too lazy to do the scheduled job. They have all your information and they call Comcast customer service from a cell phone and pretend to be YOU! They simply re-schedule the job for another day and you know nothing about it! As a result you have to take another day off to get things done...

Here in "Doity Joisey" it's refered to as : "Comcrap". (We feel your pain). I have Direct TV and my neighbor has Optium Cable. He also signed up for telephone and Internet service. The phone costs 29 a month and his cable TV bill is 90. Internet service costs 49 bucks a month. He's got a router and a switch after the modem and 6 of us now use his connection to the internet. We each kick in 10 bucks a month. He's happy; we're happy and to hell with them all!

I would like to drop Comcast, but I pretty much only watch cable shows and my condo association won't approve a different provider or dishes. I have had horrible problems. My internet is out maybe 30% of the time. Once I tried to upgrade my service, and one driver called me but never showed up. A few hours later another driver called when I was in the bathroom, and didn't call back or leave a number (caller ID was blocked). Then they said it was my fault for not being available. I guess you need strong bladder control to be a Comcast customer - you have to hold it for 8 hours! They did send a driver finally after I called a few more times to complain and threatened to cancel (but I never raised my voice or got mad). Of course more and more they move channels out of my package and into more expensive packages. They've done that three times now in under two years. Ridiculous. they're not fleecing you for enough I guess. I just don't really think anyone else will be that much better.

Not on Comcast, but I was having problems receiving some of the digital cable channels on Warner Cable on one of three cable boxes. Resetting the box via signal or unplugging didn't help. Turned out one of the cables supplied had a faulty (intermittent if you wiggled it) ground connection at one end. Why it allowed some channels but not others, I don't know, but the technician who came to the house tracked it down (first time he said he'd seen this), and it worked fine after that. Hope this helps someone.

I absolutely agree. I am totally being fleeced by Comcast. I use to be charged $42.95 a month by Adelphia. When Comcast bought them out they said I could only maintain the same rate if I added on a cable package. I didn't want cable, so now I am over $50.00 a month. As soon as DSL or FIOS becomes available I am done with Comcast. Corporate racketeering at its worst.

Last year I had problems every few weeks with my Comcast internet service going out. Nobody knew why, but we figured out that if they rebooted my modem from their end, it would fix the problem. So I got in the habit of simply telling the CS rep to do that to save us all time. During one of those calls last October the CSR asks me if I want to upgrade to digital cable (we still have the cheapest analog package available) for some special price. I politely say no and she tells me that analog will be going away in my area in January and I'll be paying more if I don't upgrade immediately. Well, SHE LIED. It is June and we still have basic analog service and we've gotten no indication whatsoever that it is ever going away. If AT&T ever gets past the regulatory crap here in IL and offers real cable and broadband at a cheaper price, it will be goodbye Comcast.

I dealt with Comcast on the phone yesterday. I was interested in signing up for new service. The rep tried to hustle me. I said I was curious about their packages, and the rep tried to engage me in a "well what do you watch" discussion. I explained that I just wanted to know what the packages were, but the rep initially refused (!) to tell me. Later I told her I wanted basic cable, whatever was cheapest but she still (!) wouldn't tell me the rate. Lame. So I thanked her for her time and hung up. Losers.

We switched to Verizon FIOS one month after buying an HD TV because Comcast repeatedly failed to make its signal strong enough to drive it and the other TVs in our house. We had seven useless service calls. Plus, their internet service rountinely failed for days on end in our neighborhood.

Comcast partners with Microsoft so it's no surprise they share Microsoft's business ethics. It's in the set top box. I won't have it, which is why I use a Mac. You can vote with your feet and go with Dish Network. Do not go with direct TV because they've done evil by sueing non-customers that own smart card programmers. See how easy this is to solve?

I had comcast cable service, which charged me for a cable modem and about 50 bucks a month. When I cancelled the service they said they wanted me to mail the friggin modem back to them. I had no idea where the modem went when I moved, but they sent a bill for $80 to the wrong address. Long story short: the sent the bill to a collections agency, who filed a credit report against me. They are on my shat list.

I just recently dumped comcasts' tv service myself. I was completely fed up with the horrible channel lineup, the hi-def channels look like a bad movie you downloaded off the internet and over 1/2 of the channels are either shopping networks or public access -- What a load of crap. Then there are the constant guide outages, the "microsoft enhanced" motorola dvr is a horrid piece of crap. There is also the craptastic billing department that takes on average of 4 weeks to cash any type of payment other than using a debit/cc on their website and likes to change the mailing address for payments on a regular basis and not tell anyone about it. You know there is something seriously wrong with the biling department when you talk to people at your bank and they tell you that they spend at least %25 of EACH WORKDAY dealing with comcast billing problems. The hell with comcasts tv service.. dish network has tremendously better channel lineup and the ViP622 receiver just rocks!

breathless trying to keep up with the posts here but...to Dave M. contrarian views welcome. Agree with you, actually, to an extent - I love Discovery HD and Science Channel and Nat. Geo. (I wrote about Science Channel in an earlier post. It's addictive!) Per Comcast service, my own personal experience of their on-the-ground service here in the San Fran. Bay Area has been good. They finally fixed my Motorola DVR problem by swapping it out. it took three or four phone calls, haggling etc., but the tech who finally came to my house was great. (I talked about this in an earlier post, too.) Maybe it's a regional thing - some regions are better managed than others? When I run into problems w/ Comcast it's more on the customer service level, not the ground level. They have a failure to communicate. They hide the true cost of HD by requiring (after the fact) an upgrade to a more expensive underlying plan. I mean - I have almost everything they have to offer, other than VOIP. What more can they get out of me? They're squeezing blood from the customer turnip at this point.

When you unsubscribe, I can't emphasize it enough, KEEP THE RECEIPTS FOR RETURNING THE EQUIPMENT. I unsubscribed and returned equipment from a Comcast account in 2002. Five years later, I find them reporting to the credit bureaus that I owe them $1300 for a cable box and modem! I send copies of the return-receipts to Comcast, their bill collector, and the credit bureaus, and they STILL tried to fight it. I'm guessing this is part of their business plan, to threaten to destroy your credit unless you pay up. They probably figured that I wouldn't have the receipts five years after the fact. Not to sound like a raving loon, but Comcast really is a criminal enterprise.

I have no idea why you whine about your cable bill as if watching TV is some sort of God given right. TURN OFF THE DAMN TV!! Find other things to do. They still have these things called "movie theaters" where you can watch a movie if you feel like it. The reason Comcast can treat you like crap is because you're an addict and they know it. When you're the only dealer in town you don't have to worry too much about your customer service skills.

All pay TV services suck. Comcast charges over $50 a month for EXPANDED BASIC! I looked up DirecTV and the cheaper package didn't have the channel that I wanted, and to get that, the package WITH the channel I want ends up costing about the same as Comcast. Dish Network wasn't any better. UGH!!!

Comcast is not the only one fleecing via a kind of bait and switch. Comcast sold our area to Time Warner. It's really frustrating because formerly functional channels are now non-functional and Time Warner insists that we switch off of our legacy Comcast plan.

Just to be a little contrarian I have had nothing but good service from Comcast (no, I don’t work for them). Whenever I have had problems with my cable (usually something I did or natural causes such as severe weather) they have been able to reestablish my connections quickly with instructions over the phone. Routine customer service issues (“how do I program my remote to turn on the TV and DVR at the same time” answered quickly and correctly). I have had technicians at my home for over an hour reprogramming my computer to make high speed internet work with my crappy, out-of-date Windows version. Technically, they weren’t even supposed to hook me up. I called last month with a billing question (something I didn’t understand, but which was correct) and they volunteered to drop my rate for a few months. No – cable is not a necessity, but the things I like to watch, like all the science and history channels – are not available over the air. The money is not a big deal to me. I just want content and service and I haven’t had problems with either. I am pissed though that they are charging to get the NFL Network, and I won’t pay for it, but I am pissed at the NFL, not the cable people. I hope no one signs up. I will be glad to go to the neighborhood bar to watch the few games they (terribly) broadcast there. Is there any way to get Discovery, Science, History, Discovery HD, etc without cable or dish?

Hi anomebus - yes, point taken about the Internet service. I broke down my bill for the reader - so they could see that I'm a fairly heavy user of Comcast services. I don't know where I fall on the continuum but I really wonder how many 2k/year customers they have on the books. (We also order movies on occasion, so the bill sometimes goes even higher.) Just about the only Comcast service I don't subscribe to is their VOIP. (I use Skype.) Which is why I was surprised that Comcast tried to strong-arm me. Smart companies recognize their loyal customers and work to retain them. It just seems counter-intuitive to me that Comcast focuses intensively on luring new users while simultaneously dismissing their bread and butter customers. I do wonder if they spotted my zip code and decided my available options were limited. very short term thinking tho.

Appropriate given his name, thecableguy is wrong. When a A/V signal is compressed, there is loss of resolution. What Verizon claims, and may be accurate about (not available in my area), is that the data-transfer rates they offer are so high that they can distribute many channels without having to compress the signal significantly. With cable and satellite, the only way to fit all the channels within the alotted bandwith is to compress the signal and believe me, you can tell the difference when you compare an OTA feed with a cable or satellite feed of a local HD channel. Sure, the lines of resolution are fixed for a given channel but thanks to compression you may not be getting all of the original information.

Just another quick vote in favor of pulling the plug. No TV in my house. I have Verizon FIOS 20mb for $50/month and I settle for DVDs and free Internet entertainment. A few podcasts on iTunes, some interesting clips on Youtube. I got a Joost invite just to see what it's all about. Interesting but not essential - wish there was more up-to-date content instead of back-catalog material. Life is short and it's nice outside. Your job may not let you abandon TV, but I think a lot of Americans would do just fine without it.

I had U-Verse for 2 months now. A LOT cheaper than Time Warner(now Comcast in Houston) High-speed and all channels(more than TW) $109/month with free DVR & 2 boxes. Local HD is free, don't remember how much HD package is extra.

Mine was DirecTV. After repeated technical issues, customer service nightmares, and extremely infrequent use even when it did work, I pulled the plug. Actually they pulled the plug -- they stopped sending a bill, and then suspended my account for non-payment. I didn't even notice for weeks! I intended to go back to basic cable, but I didn't miss it enough to do even that. My occasional TV fix is more than satisfied with Netflix and YouTube. Broadcast TV is in a death spiral. Just pull the plug.

File a complaint with your state's commission that regulates cable. There has to be a channel for complaints with some overseeing body. This site's comment form is not colorblind friendly.

Guys, Please stop with the $2k for tv line, about $550 of that is for internet. I dare you to tell me internet access is a waste of space on this site. :)

I'd sure love to have an option other than Concast, but since we have non-white people of middle to lower income levels in our neighborhood, Verizon has no plans to service us. Thanks Verizon. -Tom

Hey Hal - yeah, I think cold turkey is probably a reasonable option for a great many people. :) Alas, just not for me, unfortunately, since I have to watch a lot of content during the first run. but it's really interesting to read all these posts and hear how users have customized their consumption. And when I think about that 2k/year and how much it would earn invested in just an index fund, you probably have a tidy nest egg at this point. :) Hi Blixt - sounds like we have similiar Comcast usage. FIOS is "kicking their butt" hey? Shading my eyes, scanning the horizon for Verizon here. :)

Years ago, I wrote a column about how Comcast scored on the ACSI consumer review: they actually were LOWER in consumer satisfaction than the IRS! When I realized my crap Comcast service was the norm, I dropped them. I went to DirecTV, and have never looked back.

I switched to a $150 antenna on the roof 4 years ago, and haven't paid a dime for television since. Sure, you don't get all the fancy channels, but let's be honest -- there ain't much on anyway. My HDTVs (which I paid for by NOT giving my money to Comcast and CERTAINLY not Verizon) have the exact same crystal clear 720/1080 picture yours does, and I even get channels Comcast doesn't offer ... my advise is to cut the cable and go old school. Nobody I know has been disappointed with saving $2000 a year, and in all honesty -- you can get everything else you need from the Internet.

You know, cable tv is not an essential necessity. If you don't like the companie's policies stop giving them $2k per year and be merry. There's plenty of things to do besides watching tv. It is pathetic.

The funny thing is you can go to any anti-Verizon site with long term Verizon customers and you'll read the same crap (just a fact, I too eagerly await the FIOS service in my area, if for nothing more than the added competition). I have Comcast, and called to inquire about an HD box. They said it costs $20 a month. I said good bye. They said hold on...now I have the same package I did before, with the HD box, and all the HBO channels for $1 less a month. Crazy.

All the shows I watch are on broadcast TV in HD. So, I have a nice HDTV in the house and also a Sony HD-DVR (paid $499 for it 2 years ago). No monthly fee whatsoever. I get about 12 HD channels in pristine quality. That is all I need. I also have a HD tuner for my mac and I can record stuff to my hard drive. My DSL+local phone = $40 through AT&T. I have a netflix subscription for $10/month. That's it.

I think everyone should send a message to the entertainment industry by disconnecting. Stop watching TV (except your local broadcast channels for news content if you must). Stop wasting time watching every stupid, crappy movie that comes down the pike. Stop agreeing to sell your soul to be mindlessly entertained. Give the corporations the message that WE are the ones in charge, not their indentured servants. Anyone with me? :-)

To SS - good catch. yeah - that's Stan Lee, at Sci Fi Channel's Comic-con bash. I covered Comic-con for Multichannel last year. To Billy and other FIOS users, please return and let us know how things go. To Murph-grrl: yeah, the trees. :( it's a problem. The trees stay. To Kevin: well, this is the work I'm paid to do, critique television and related media issues. I think my experience matches that of many end users. Multi has a big industry/executive audience. It's important that consumers have an opportunity to speak and be heard. Viewers could turning away from television in significant numbers because of problems/hassles w/ their providers. It's something, imho, network execs. should be concerned about.

I'm getting Fios installed tommorow and I'm not sure what excites most about it. Ditching Coax for pure Fiber, or the feeling I will get from marching into the Comcast office and finally ridding my relationship with Comcast.

I also got rid of comcast. I do miss the HD channels, but it's not worth $1000 a year. I got apple tv instead, and while it's not HD (it's hd ready, but the content is 480p tops) it's good enough if you only watch a couple shows. Saves me $900 a year.

Mary, 2K per year for what. Turn it off, go cold turkey, I think you can find better alternative entertainment alternatives for the 2K in your budget. Twenty years ago I cut off time warner and never regretted it. Get hooked on DVD's, DSL and a whole slew of other alphabet soup products. Get that cable wire out of your wallet.

I dropped Comcast a few weeks ago for FIOS as well. Of course, Comcast offered to lower my bill well below my already lower FIOS bill. I've been so pi$$ed with Comcast for years that it was just the principal now that I got rid of them. I've been ripped off for so long! I think I'm paying another $10 a month to Verizon after Comcast offered me a much lower bill. To the comment earlier about Verizon marketing a better picture but not being able to do it...that is untrue. Comcast compresses all of its HD service and any channel below 100 is being received digitally, but rebroadcast to the Digital box. So, while digital, any channel under 100 still looks like analog cr@p. I get twice the amount of HD channels now and because Verizon does not compress their channels, I do not get that pixelization every time I change the channel. As far as the FIOS Internet service....it completely rocks compared to Comcast. It doesn't slow down any longer at night like Comcast when all the kids get on the shared network in my neighborhood. I always have a true 5mb up and 2mb down. And, Verizon will be bumping that to 10mb down and 2mb up shortly to beat Comcast in their marketing. Verizon is starting to play the my d!ck is bigger than yours against Comcast and they are going to win. Everyone in my county it seems is raving about FIOS. Finally competition!!!!!

They do the same thing on the low end as well. I signed up for the basic package + a few "extra" channels. The final cost after cable box per month was around $35 per month. When it was first hooked up I received all the channels I was paying for and enjoyed it very much. Then a week and a half later all channels except for the bottom basic channels were no longer "authorized". I called Comcast and after having 3 different technicians come into my apartment, replace the wiring and the cable box - I was finally told that I'd have to upgrade to the $60 per month package in order to receive anything but the bottom 13 channels.

@Stu: No offense Stu but 2 years? It is a bit your fault there. Not catching a mistake like that for two years means you weren't paying attention. It is Comcast's fault for not removing the service as requested but let us say that this was a screw-up on their part - you still let it go for 2 years! That is a screw-up on your part too.

This has nothing to do with your story but with your picture when I click on the read more link. Is that Stan Lee sitting in the background of your picture?

Get this -- we signed up for digital cable when we first moved to our Comcast-serviced area because there was a special promotion. At the end of the promotion period, we turned our boxes back in and (I thought) canceled digital cable. Comcast thought otherwise. They continued to charge us for digital cable for the next two years until I called to have it re-added to our bill (got a new TV, wanted the HD and digital content...) The *first* lady I talked to was as nice as she could be, and apparently applied a $381 credit to our bill -- the cost of the difference between the package we SHOULD have paid and the package we WERE paying. Of course, what she *didn't* explain is that we would only actually receive credit for 6 months of the two years. When I called to ask why we received a bill, the not-so-nice customer service rep told me that it was MY fault for not catching this sooner. Well, I told her that 1) she doesn't get to talk to me like that and 2) it's Comcast's fault for not removing the service when we requested it and that I expect a certain level of competence from companies that I deal with. In the end, she dropped the cost of our cable modem in half for the next 6 months, which (combined with the credit we did receive) almost makes up for the extra money we paid. Still, as soon as there is a viable alternative, we're jumping ship.

Mike, Connecting to the open access point of a neighbor is *NOT* illegal. True, it does violate the TOS of the person paying the bill, but I'm certain that for the moocher criminal law is a gray area at worst.

Who has enough time to watch all that television? Cancel everything except your phone and internet!

@Walter McGowan I'm sure you are very happy with your new service from Verizon, but it is sad to see that you have so wholeheartedly bought into the propaganda that FiOS somehow magically provides a better signal or picture quality than any other TV provider. Verizon is providing you the same content at the same resolutions as Comcast or DirecTV or DISH or whoever. Broadcast TV is 480i or 480p and HD is 720(i/p) to 1080(i/p). There is nothing Verizon can do to make that look better.

What a trite article. If you're silly enough to pay $2K+ a year on mindless TV, why don't you just go ahead and a get the bigger package. That way, you can spend even more time sitting on your ass watching TV and ignoring what's going on around the world, (or at minimum spending any time to change what's wrong with it).

$160+/month? Man, I'm glad I don't have a cable monkey on my back. Comcast only in my neighborhood but I run a MythTV broadcast HD box and it's all the TV I want to spend time with. The only local news here that currently broadcasts 16:9 HD proudly states: "High definition: brought to you by Comcast!" Not in my case buddy.

There is nothing comcastic about comcast. I saw their "so easy to move your service commercials", and have been living a hell because they cannot even move my service to my new appartment that is only three blocks down. I had to pay extra even though a previous call to their representative told me there would be no fee for moving my service to a new address. NOt only is this annoying...but they still bill my old address, with the same name for some $12.00 they claim i own...which is fine..i urged them to compile my bill and send it to my new address. It has been 5 months and i have given up! I have also heard from trumors.com that most employees at this company are trully unhappy and this reflects their service. UNfortunatly i used to have satellite cable...and it used to go down when it rained????????????? did they ever fix that?????????

Great news. I had Verizon FIOS installed yesterday. Comcast is being cancelled today. More channels, higher quality picture, faster internet - and it saves me about $400 a year. Many in my neighborhood have already upgraded.

I feel your pain. I threw a nutty the other day when we got the kind postcard telling us that we'd have to get the additional Sports Package to get NFL Network (which used to be part of whatever we have now). Because the $105 a month (or $130+ a month in hockey season when we buy Center Ice) isn't enough pay for those criminals. And unless we want to cut down trees (we don't) we won't get DISH. We had them out when we moved into the house because Comcast in our area offered nothing at the time. And we were told the trees had to go. I don't think so.

I am a new Comcast customer after having been a DirecTV customer for seven years. While Comcast may try to get their money from the customer by upselling every little item, it is better than the dishonest and unprofessional tactics to get revenue that DirecTV uses. I'd rather someone ask me to add additional services that be charged for something you never wanted like I had with DirecTv.

Just wait till FIOS comes in, things will change drastically. I am a Comcast subscriber with HD and Internet and the customer service is excellent plus they cut my bill (yes cut) by 15% and gave me HBO free. Why would they do this? Easy, FIOS is kicking their butt (quoting one of their managers). I've had cust service managers come to my house twice over the last year to make sure I was happy and the one trouble call I had was fixed the next day! I seriously doubt this would have happened if FIOS wasn't around. For now, I'll stick with Comcast because their HD signal is great and Internet is fast. Competition does wonders for customer service.

Frank, You realize that you have just admitted to a crime, right? In the process, you've also implicated your neighbor as violating his/her TOS with their broadband provider. (Assuming the neighbor is not running a dedicated line.) Lastly, if you've done this w/o your neighbors knowledge/consent, you're stealing from him/her. A better solution would have been to dump Comcast and subscribed to a different ISP, or started your own.

Comcast is not the only one putting the screws to the HD customer. Dish Network has known hardware issues that the customer is not to be told of, as well as billing issues that will make you scream.

Get rid of Comcast. I got rid of them and have never looked back. My internet went down and they told me it was my cable modem. I forked out for a new cable modem to find out it was not. After spending nearly half a day with technical support I got rid of them. Bought a Zyxel router and set it up as a bridge to use my neighbours broadband (Unencrypted). Works like a charm. Now just use an antenna for tv. Find myself reading more books etc.

I must admit I'm shocked about the prices you people seem to consider normal. $2000 a year for just TV? Give me a break! Don't you have satellite dishs? I really don't understand how anybody could pay that much for things you can get for free!

Typos happen. The company's real name is Concast. Agree ?

Like Chris, I've gone completely computer. I buy a lot of DVDs, download through Itunes, and watch off network websites (specifically Heroes on NBC.com). The last one is free, but relatively low-quality (but will tide me over 'til the DVDs arrive). A whole season of a good show goes for &$50, and takes me more than a month to get through unless I'm on vacation. That's all the content I want except sports, for say $30/month, plus it's rewatchable. If I wanted sportswatching capacity, MLB.com offers that for a price and quality I don't know about, and I'm sure other sports leagues do similarly. I think this is the future of content provision--over the internet, straight from the content companies' websites. Speed and quality will increase, the content companies will start charging on a pay-per-view or subscription basis for the good stuff/good quality, a large number of individual plans will proliferate, and the cable companies will be reduced to ISPs. On the other hand, At+t, through whom I get my internet, has customer service as bad as anything I've seen (complete with flat-out denials of advertised options, lying when they say they've changed my account in ways I've asked, incompetent front-line tech support, etc). If I thought anything else would be any better, I'd switch.

Comcrap, Crapcast. Piece of crap. Why don't people ever do anything affective about corruption in business and economy (that includes government corruption)? This world will end that way.

HI Chaser - thanks for the fb on your viewing habits. wow. you watch all your tv on the Internet. interesting. I watch some but not all. I haven't tried techavid yet, but the rec is appreciated. The fb on comments is appreciated, too. glad you were able to get through. Agree that more info is needed. We don't approve comments and only filter for obscenity. I can delete a post if it's just too far out of line but I haven't had to mod a message yet. Posts should appear immediately but it looks like there are still some kinks in the system. I'm having a helluva time posting tonight, too....will talk to tech about it (again).

Hmm trying to be helpful here but my post doesnt display. Should have some indication of poster having to wait for comment to approved or something? Anyway, you wondered if Chris would come back and detail his experience. Here is mine on how I save money and just pay for Internet and enjoy TV and Internet content all via the net. See techavid com . Saves me lots of money as I watch youtube and Joost to get my TV fix, as well as many other video content sites.

Business is business, write your congress if you want to really do something about it. Being snarky to people over the phone and a blog post filled with pop-cultural references isn't going to do anything about your problem.

Time Warner is doing the exact same thing. I had the full package (platinum , i think is what it was called) which meant i received all the channels, except for the spanish ones. Then one day i notice i'm not receiving ESPN HD. I look around and see that Universal and a couple of other HD channels are gone as well. I call up and am told that my package is an old Comcast package (Time Warner replaced Comcast in my area) and would have to switch to Time Warner's package to get my HD channels back, which would have raised my monthly bill from $135 to $165. I watch ESPN HD a lot so i switched to the Time Warner package and immediately went to Basic plus, which is the cheapest, and got a Netflix subscription.

I hate Comcast, and the monopoly the now hold is simply and evil empire. I'm not anti-corporate or anti-capitalist, but this government (either side of the aisle) is a shill for punk companies like these. If I was "Pinochet for a day," I would throw the CEO of Comcast out of the back of a C-130 with the ramp down @ 20,000 ft, like Pinochet, along with other CEOs of companies that run byzantine bureaucracies. The government is a guest of The People, and these companies are chartered by government. Its time for The People to take the government back and restrict how badly these companies can SCREW us in their charters. Rome will have taken a lot longer to crumble into oblivion than the USA will, because the expression of large groups of people, the mega-corporations, are putting out shoddy product and fleecing people rather that pursuing world class excellence.

Hey Chris - if you happen to wander back here, would you mind giving us a few more specifics -are you downloading from ITunes, watching broadband channels etc.? Watching Current TV online? I know a lot of people who rent whole TV seasons from Netflix and watch them over a weekend - serialized shows like 24, Lost, Entourage, especially.

I left Comcast in 2002 when I wanted to add a 3rd cable box to our home. I was told that in order to do that I would have to upgrade my monthly package in addition to a box rental fee (which I would have gladly paid). I've been with DISH for 4 years now. Not perfect, but they at least don't try and shake you down when you want to spend more money.

There's a reason I don't have cable and have high-speed DSL from the phone company...and I don't even live in a Comcast area. Charter, our local cable co, is just as bad. -A

I dumped cable a long time ago just before Comcast took over out local cable service who were idiots as well. Now firmly entrenched Comcast is barraging me with special offers to get me to subscribe. I toss them all away unread. They are an arrogant company. They will never get one dime out of me.

Its Comedycast, what did you expect? I have more than enough horror stories about Comcast to fill this blog for the next 3-4 months. I ran the numbers and found that it is cheaper for me to build a computer, purchase the movie/TV content I want from the internet or DVDs than to continue using Comcast as a cable subscriber. In less than 2 years, I've made out on the deal vs. paying Comcast's ever increasing cable bill. Its just Comcastic!

Comcast lost all of my business recently as well. I decided on Dish Network, as they purchased all of the Voom HD channels, so they have a pretty good lineup. Luckily there are options for our TV, For our internet it's either Frontier, or Comcast... You have to decide who sucks less here.

maybe it's time to do less internets/tv watching and go outside and play instead. =)

I feel your pain Mary. Ive called and asked about HDNet and HDNet Movies and get nonsense for answers. Price increases, random problems. I cant get satellite, but like you Verizon lurks. The minute they arrive, I switch. They have the HDNets and many other HD channels as well. I cant wait

Mary - there are multiple options. If you can have Satellite service (DIRECTV and Dish Network) you can get good deals to get into a system, typically free HD equipment. They also typically offer more HD also and don't give you BS answers like Comcast. If either satellite provider has an HD channel you can get it everywhere you live, not just in huge markets. I know satellite TV is not available to everyone but if you live in a home that might be a reason or a decent option to switch to another provider, especially considering how Comcast treated you.