Category: Ranting

Melissa, thanks for reaching out via twitter. I doubt you guys can actually help, but I’ll tell you the story anyway in hopes you can bring up my issues in some sort of “the pulse of our customers” meeting.

It all starts with my wife and I being happy Comcast customers. We had basic cable and economy tier internet. However, we were getting speeds of 8mbs down and 3mbs up. Life was great. Then we decided to save some money, so since basic cable had gone up from $15 a month up to almost $18 and 21 after taxes, and we were leasing a modem for 5, we could save $26 a month if we bought our own modem and got rid of basic.

So that’s what I did. I bought a Motorola Surfboard DOCSIS 3 modem that had good reviews, installed it, called comcast and activated the new modem, and canceled basic cable. Then I ran a speed test. A dismal 2mbs down and .3 up. WHAT!? I was furious, this new modem was supposed to be awesome. So after talking to customer support I learned I was getting exactly what economy tier is supposed to get. So realizing I was just lucky before, we decided to suck it up and try our new low cost and completely honest setup. (However I really had no idea we were getting more than we paid for before and I was very tempted to hook up the old cable modem and have them reactivate it b/c for 5 a month that’s an awesome speed bump)

After a few days of internet activity on the real economy plan, even my wife mentioned, this isn’t very fast. Our video chats with friends and family were jittery and broken & our streaming netflix took a nose dive in quality. So last night I decided we had enough and I would upgrade to the performance tier so we could resume life as usual. I chatted with Ronald for a while, and he was very nice. I offered to pay 30 a month for 12 mo for performance tier. He informed me he wasn’t able to do custom promotions. I asked what he did have available for 12mos b/c previously I would call in every other 6 months to get the new promo pricing and I was tired of doing that. So ideally a low price forever would be great, but I’ll take a 12 mo promo over a 6 mo promo. Anyway he says there is a 24.99 a mo for 12 mo promo in the system, but it was only available via 1 800 comcast. So I said thanks and called 1 800 comcast. They had no idea what I was talking about and I was annoyed. It took a bit of time to get Ronald to get me that deal. So I jumped back on chat. Asking for Ronald. Someone else told me oh you need to call 1-866-565-4863 that is the promo line and they have better promos than chat or 1800comcast can offer. And I thought finally the secret! And then she said they are only available during business hours.

This morning I called 1-866-565-4863, and it sounded just like 1 800 comcast, and with high hopes I asked the guy about the 24.99 a month for 12 months deal and he said “We can’t make that deal Mr. McCulloch” and I said why does online chat keep telling me about it then!? And he said he didn’t know. I asked him if there were any 12 month deals he could offer, and he said no. So feeling beaten and annoyed, yet still not willing to call Qwest or DIGIS, I again got on chat looking to get the 19.99 deal only available online. So I started my chat with IVN who informed me the 19.99 deal is only available to cable or voice subscribers…. after some awkward silence via the chat window he told me he found a 24.99 for 6 months deal, so that’s what I signed up for minutes before I saw your reply on twitter.

Am I happy with the outcome? Well I’m glad I’m not paying 45 a month for a full 12 months… I’m mainly annoyed at the lack of clarity around deals. Life would be perfect still if I was still living in my 8mbs down / 3mbs up for 24.99 a month world. B/c for now I’m paying 420 a year for service, 6 months on a promo and 6 months off. Then next year I have to call to get another promo, or cancel. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just pay a consistent lower amount and tell everyone how much I love Comcast?

So that’s the whole story for what it’s worth. Hopefully it helps you guys in some way. What I take from it is, people love the service you provide b/c it’s clearly better than other alternatives. However it’s priced too high for people who live longer than 6 months. Isn’t there a happy medium for people who are loyal customers?

Thanks,
Pace McCulloch

Ok so two geeky posts in one day, I know… at least Amber is nice enough to comment on my lame techie things. Thanks Amber!

So I’m a big fan of HowItShouldHaveEnded.com, they make short cartoon spoofs about how movies should end if script writers had common sense. My absolute favorite of all time is a newer one I just watched, about Transformers 2.

Watch it now, and check out their other ones, Lord of the Rings is pretty hilarious too.

Here is the Twilight one b/c it had embed code, and the others didn’t… I never saw this movie, but I still chuckled at this.

So the awesome crew over at story of stuff just took the time to explain something I’d never heard of. And since it was presented in an animated movie, I believe it. Here’s the teaser for it:

Watch the whole story!

I just wanted to say that I am SO SO SO glad that we’ve only had 2-3 snow days here thus far. I do not like snow ONE BIT, and for that very reason, I do not intend to live in the state of Utah (or any snowy state for that matter) for the majority of my lifetime. I might even have SAD because when it’s snowy and dark out, I want to lie in bed and be lethargic/depressed.

I used to think my mom was crazy when I would beg her to let us move from Sonoma County to somewhere snowy like Winter Wonderland Tahoe, and she would say, “NOOOOO thanks.” But now I know why– it’s cold, chilly, freezing, causes car accidents, creates shoveling work that breaks one’s back, makes one not want to go anywhere, makes it so your “Energizer Bunny x10” child can’t play outside without a long bundling-up process only to come back inside 4 minutes later… I could go on and on, but I will not. I’m just not a fan of the white stuff. Or the yellow stuff either.

Back to my main point– I am happy that it’s not snowing for now!

SO you might think this is a post about how Charlotte is scared of going to sleep… but no, I’m actually more scared that I’ll be raising a daughter who will be looking at photos like this, and thinking she’s fat. Photoshop, such as blessing and such a curse. And so entertaining when crappy photos get published.

Check out this cover’s whole story here.

And check out one of my new favorite sites: photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com

Of course this goes right along with the Story of Stuff, and again, it’s all up to us.

Thanks Cynthia

I found this on someone else’s blog, and thought it was interesting. I have noticed that people here in Utah call it “pop.” I’ve wondered if it’s weird for them to hear me say “soda,” because I sure think it’s weird to hear it called “pop!”