Woot — signed up for the motorcycle safety corse to get my Class M (allows you to legally drive a motorcycle).
I’m supposed to be taking the course the first Sat/Sun of August. Now I just need to get my helmet and all that stuff then after the class I can finally go get a bike and enjoy riding it around.
(for those of you that do not know, I’ve wanted a motorcycle for many years now, ever since riding dirt bikes as a kid)
One day I want to be involved in the making of something like this, heh:
Somewhat reminds me of this.
Well, I haven’t actually received another paper bill yet to have it confirmed, but I spoke with the supervisor at Comcast again and she said it had been applied to my account. So, that’s good to hear, and I’m pretty sure I can trust that it’s been applied based on our conversation. I feel sort of bad because she has been working hard to resolve my complaints and following up on my credit on her own. If only all of their customer service rep’s could care as much as she does, I might not have canceled my cable modem and phone service with them. Anyhow, I figured fair is fair, and that I should make it known that things appear to have been resolved at this point.
[see here for previous chain of posts for what this is about]
So I’ve decided to give Skype a good try-out after canceling my Comcast landline and so far I’m pretty happy with things. I’ve tried the service before, and it was satisfactory, but the costs on it are getting hard to turn away from now.
I’m not entirely sure why I’ve become so infatuated with saving money in every way possible, but I have, and one of the ways to do that is to go towards pay-as-you-go type services where it makes sense. Skype appears that it will cost me roughly $6/mo + $.02/minute. That’s really not too bad. If I get to where I’m spending over $2.95/mo in phone calls, I can sign up for a subscription for unlimited domestic calling. That means $9/mo for unlimited calling which isn’t too shabby.
After reading some reviews and whatnot I settled on the phone pictured, it’s the Netgear SPH200D. I was able to pick it up on-sale at Best Buy. It’s not a full-on WiFi VOIP phone, as it uses a base station (excluding it from being mobile), but it does perform well from my very limited testing so far. I’ll have to update if I think about it later after having had more of a chance to use the phone. So far I called my cell phone so that I could hear for myself the sound quality and I called my mom (she always gets to be the guinea pig for my new devices). The voicemail was clear. I called the phones directly and took turns holding one to my ear while speaking into the other. I could hear no abnormal hesitation between my speaking into one and being heard in the other. My testing partner (aka: Mom) said I sounded clear and she wasn’t hearing any hesitation between us conversing.
Of course there are downsides to using Skype, but I find them acceptable. For instance, I can’t dial 911 from it, or if the power goes out I can’t use it, or obviously if my internet service goes down, I can’t use it either. Actually, if I had a landline, the particular phone I chose can connect to that as well, and whenever you place a call, you can choose whether you want it to go out over your landline or over SkypeOut. I also have a cell phone to cover 911. Not perfect as, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn’t display an address with Enhanced 911, but considering all the years I’ve gone with pretty much only a cell phone as my phone, I think that’s ok.
You might be asking why I’m even trying to have a landline if I’ve made the jump to solely using a cell phone for so long. Well, in my previous residence, I had a lot of trouble getting a signal on my cell phone, largely because of where my apartment was in the building. I was hoping that issue would be resolved once I moved, but that’s unfortunately not the case. I’m typically riding one signal bar on my iPhone with AT&T at home. It’s become quite frustrating really. But I’m finding ways to work around it. My family all calls me on my GrandCentral number now, and my friends are finally starting to switch over (you change your phonebook yet Jeremy? Hmm!? That’s right, I’m calling you out). This allows me to pick up on whatever phone happens to work best at the moment, whether that’s my office line, cell, or now my Skype line.
Anyhow, if you don’t have my GrandCentral number (the one that rings all my phones), get in touch with me so I can give it to you. The iPhone may be going away one day, meaning that number won’t be available anymore.
As you may have seen … I’ve been in an ongoing battle of sorts with Comcast lately. Today I received a bill in the mail for ~$460. I called to ask a question about my bill and navigated through the automated system, choosing options to get to billing. I got someone on the phone and stated simply, “I would like to ask some questions regarding my most recent bill.” He got my phone number and then said he’d have to transfer me to someone that could help me with that. Then a lady answered the phone, I again stated that I had a question regarding my bill. She said she would have to transfer me to someone that could help me with that after getting my phone number and confirming my identity. I asked her what department was she with because I’d already been transferred. She said something like she’s just first tier support or something like that, I had to ask her to speak up previously and she barely started speaking more loudly, so I was having trouble hearing her. She then placed me on hold and transferred me … to an automated system asking me to put in my phone number. So I hung up and dialed the number of the supervisor I had from earlier. I got her voicemail and left a message asking her to call me back. Then I called back in to 1-800-COMCAST. I again navigated the automated system, choosing the options for billing, etc. Another woman answered the phone and confirmed my identity, then said she’d have to transfer me to someone that could help me with that. I told her that I needed to be transferred to an actual person and that I kept getting transferred. I finally gave up on having faith in the ability to transfer me successfully and asked for her supervisor. She said she would transfer me to a supervisor in billing. I told her that wouldn’t work and I needed to speak with her supervisor. He got on the phone and finally got me someone that could speak with me about my bill.
It turns out my account has not been credited as I had been promised nearly a week ago. She was able to tell me that there were notes on my account from the supervisor that had called me back on Tuesday and left me her desk number. The note said she hadn’t noticed the credit I told her I was supposed to be receiving and that she was investigating it further and planned to call me regarding it. So I’m left waiting for her to call me back. It is good that she’s attempting to be proactive about it, but it’s too little too late I’m afraid. I told the person I was speaking with that I wanted to go ahead and cancel my phone and cable internet service. You’ll never guess what she said … that’s right, I had to be transferred to someone that could help me with that. Heh, I should have known that one was coming.
Anyhow, I got the two services cancelled, and I’m considering canceling the entire account. I can use my AppleTV to get HD movies, and I can use Netflix/iTunes to get TV series when they hit DVD. It’s beyond poor customer service now, and is well in the land of absurd.
Comcast … /sigh
On the upside, DSL has been installed. Amazingly it has, so far at least, been nothing but a pleasant experience. I called in to order it, no problems there (although that’s nothing special, they’re always GREAT at customer service when trying to sell you something). The guy came out to install it in my house. He was pleasant, and actually fun to talk to. We had minor difficulties getting the activation program to run on my MacBook, but then we ran it on my PC and things went through quickly. My router was acting up, likely because we’d been flipping it between computers and shutting it on and off so much, so I let him go before I had it working with my router. Shortly after he left I got the router working and called into technical support to get some help with making it work with my DSL modem. They had no problem with the fact I wanted to get it working with a router. The phone support simply asked me for the model on my cable modem and the model on my router, and quickly guided me through the steps on both devices (yeah, he even knew every place I needed to click in my routers config) and things were working great. I get the full bandwidth on it (luckily I’m near a central office apparently, which I didn’t know until the installation guy told me) and things have been smooth so far.
So, I’d have to say, two thumbs up for Verizon and their DSL service. I’m even considering getting phone service from them now. However, two thumbs down on Comcast. They’re having trouble even keeping my cable TV account at the moment.
So, you may remember my comments regarding Comcast, and my … dis-taste for their customer service. A day or so ago, I received this comment from a representative of Comcast. I was fairly impressed that my little blog drew their attention.
I decided to go ahead and respond to the email address that was provided in that comment, and within 15 minutes or so I had received a reply asking for more information about what could keep me as a customer. I replied back, sharing my stories of things gone wrong throughout the life of my account with them. That was yesterday. Last night when I got home, I realized I had some voicemails on my home phone but didn’t get to check them. Today, I received a phone call from a customer service supervisor with Comcast. She said that she was contacting me regarding my corporate complaint and wanted to see if I had received her voicemails from the previous day, along with asking whether there was anything further she could do to resolve the issue. It turns out the voicemails from the previous night were hers. She had left me her office number, along with the office and cell phone number of a Network Engineer supervisor with Comcast. She apologized for the experiences I’d had, and asked if there was anything further she could do in terms of help or compensation. I told her I’d been told I would be receiving a one month credit to my service, so I was content in that regard. Despite my distaste with the company, I’m not trying to “pull one over” on anyone. I believe in being honest in regards to these things, so to me that means in terms of further compensation, it would be unfair. Maybe I’m too nice, but I need to stick to my ideals.
It was definitely interesting. On one side, it’s great that I somehow got the attention of such high level support (although I haven’t used it, but based on their eagerness to get the information to me, I’d say it’s likely not a joke). On the other side, it’s too bad that a residential user of their service had to be bumped up to what seems to be a corporate/executive level of support.
So as the title states, I’m left wondering, is this too late, or have they changed my mind…
Yet another feature not available to their paying customers. /sigh
Update 6/13/08: They’ve now enabled this feature for my account. Yay.
And I’m looking into Direct TV / Dish Network. Good-bye Comcast. I can hardly wait. At this point I don’t even care if it’s not a cost savings. As long as it’s comparable, then any of my money that does not go to Comcast is a good thing.
Well, I’m done moving now pretty much. I still need to unpack some things, but I’m totally out of the old place and have turned in the keys for it, etc. It’s been both a good and a bad experience.
I had originally hired Starving Students to do the move for me. I had scheduled the move with them in March. The local office was supposed to call me about two weeks before the move in order to get the specifics, confirm the date & time, etc. Well, about 1 week before the move, I still hadn’t heard from them so I called the local office. They said I was in the system but had been canceled for some reason. “Luckily” they still had room for me on the day I had planned to move, so he went ahead and uncanceled me and proceeded to go over the pricing. Most of it was what I’d already been told. It would have a 2 hour minimum, 1 hour on top of that, $75/hr, and then he told me there’d also be a 9.5% charge on top of the total cost for fuel. The fuel charge really didn’t make sense to me. I just don’t understand why a percentage on the total move would be added for fuel. Makes no sense in my opinion.
Luckily, I had talked to a neighbor a night or so before and he told me about a company he was using, Kid Gloves Moving & Storage. He said they’d treated him well and worked really fast. I called them and scheduled my move. That was one, of few good decisions I made through-out the process I later learned. They were great. They had told me to be ready to let them start moving me by 8am. They arrived at 7:50am, took a quick look around the apartment and started taking action. It was 3 guys, and none of them stopped moving until everything was packed. They followed me over to the new place, took a quick look at the inside, and then they started moving me in. They were finished moving me by 9:45am. That’s just shy of 2 hours for a cross-town move. No walls were touched, no items were broken, they were extremely professional.
The only hitch in the actual move itself was that the box spring for my bed couldn’t fit upstairs. So for the past week I’ve been trying different remedies. For the first couple of nights I just put the mattress on the floor. Then I had some slats cut for the bed, but they were constantly falling out (which can be quite loud on a hardwood floor). Then finally I found a bed store close by that was able to sell me a split-queen box spring. So tonight, basically a week after moving, I will finally be sleeping in a real bed. I’m pretty excited about that.
Until Friday (2 days ago), I was unable to get WiFi up in my new home. I’ve determined that Comcast is perfect example of how evil corporations can become in this country. When the technician came out to my house to do the “install” he was rushing everything. He also had obviously not been told anything about why he was at my home. I had all of my equipment, it was just a transfer of service. I even had everything hooked up, all he should have really needed to do is “flip the switch” that gave my home service, and then verify that everything worked. Well, in his impatience, he decided to swap my cable modem, because the one I already had was taking too long to sync up (he gave it all of about 1 minute max). Well, he swapped it out, we finally got it to sync, and plugged it into my Macbook, and with a little playing around, it was able to surf the web. Shortly after he left. I figured it would be no problem to then get it working with my wireless router. After all, I’m a pretty resourceful guy when it comes to “computer stuff” and all that. Well, my router couldn’t pull an IP off the cable modem. So for the past week I have had to take my laptop over to my cable modem and plug it in directly whenever I wanted on the internet for something (pretty much all the time). I tried all sorts of things, powering everything down, bringing it up one device at a time, making sure things were powered off for the “10 count”, all the typical trouble shooting stuff including making sure my router was cloning my Macbook’s MAC address.
Well, Friday night, I’d had enough. Thursday before I went to bed I had unplugged and powered off every device. When I came home Friday, I slowly turned on each device, giving each device some time to “boot” before bringing the next item on. It still wouldn’t pull an IP. So I called customer service. Ugh, I’m still so flustered from the experience that I don’t think I can explain it all here. Basically, I ended up having to call in 6 times before I finally was able to talk to a supervisor. No one was able to help me. While on the phone all night with them, it magically started working somehow. I have no idea what finally allowed it to happen
Basically, I’ve asked them to credit my account for 1 months worth of service (roughly $200) and I intend to seek out services to replace all things I’m currently paying Comcast for. I’ve had nothing but poor experiences with them for the past year, and I pay them way too much money each month to put up with it. I imagine I’ll just be outright canceling my home phone service, and I’m going to see if I can get DSL to replace the cable modem. As for television, FiOS isn’t offered in my area yet, so I may try to check out some of the Dish Network-ish type providers and see if I can replace them there as well. I just see no need to be paying so much money per month for what can’t even be called sub-standard customer support. It disgusts me.
I am a Web Developer located in Richmond, VA. Primarily, I work on the back-end of websites utilizing my database and desktop application coding experience from the past to achieve desired results for the user interface. Recently however I have started moving more into the UI realm, utilizing JavaScript and AJAX to allow for better performance out of the back-end systems.