Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: This is where a consumer may file a complaint about Comcast with the FCC

Monday, March 28, 2016

This is where a consumer may file a complaint about Comcast with the FCC

Chapter VIII of Part 1 of Don Quixote is titled, “Of the valorous Don Quixote’s success in the dreadful and never before imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with other events worthy of happy record.”

According to Cervantes, the first encounter between the windmills and Don Quixote went like this: “Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”

“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza?

“Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well-nigh two leagues in length.”

“Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.”

Hat Tip: http://quirkyberkeley.com/don-quixote-and-the-windmills/ among multiple media sources…

Monday, March 28, 2016

In regard to a friend’s Facebook post on March 9, 2016 regarding Comcast customer service….

FCC Consumer Help Center https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/202654234?from=home

I was amused that many folks recommended FIOS. Take a memo, there is no difference between Comcast’s customer service and Verizon’s.

Actually, every time you see a commercial by Comcast about how easy it is to move an existing Comcast service from one home to the next when you move; please realize that it is excruciatingly difficult to move your service and when folks move is when most folks ‘cut the cord’ because the customer service involved in moving your service from one home to the next is so horrific.

Sort of like walking into the office of a service provider, such as a medical health care office and you are greeted by a large sign that explains that customer service is so important to them – it is because that office has horrid customer service – and some faceless bureaucrat exercised corporate creativity and decided to solve the problem in true Orwellian fashion by posting a sign.

It is called “paper performance.” Solving a problem by checking-off a box that says that the problem has been addressed. Of course, nothing has been solved and if anything the customer service gets worse.

All that said, several years ago I called the Maryland Public Service Commission about a horrid customer service challenge with Verizon and talked with a very nice person who explained that she understood my complaint and admitted that the PSC receives many such complaints, but there was nothing that could be done. In the end, I solved the problem by cancelling my land phone line and DSL service.

A close friend explained that calling Comcast was like having a root canal without anesthesia. Extremely painful, but once it is over you feel better… Whatever.

Currently, I have to call both Verizon and Comcast about a family member’s service issues and I am absolutely dreading it. I guess, you might say that both Verizon and Comcast have attempted to solve the number of customer service complaints by making it so horrid to call them that folks simply do not call.

Meanwhile, it has been said that the greatest hoax in life is the hope for safety. I simply have lost any hope that government or the regulatory agencies will address the horrid customer service of Verizon and Comcast. And sadly the marketplace will not solve the horrid service by Verizon and Comcast anytime soon. There is no incentive to improve the services they provide. Eventually it will be solved. But I am not holding my breath.

Maybe the only satisfaction that we may receive is to inundate the FCC with complaints. It may be a quixotic exercise at tilting at windmills but we may simply get some therapeutic benefit from the primal screaming. Just saying.

FCC Consumer Help Center https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/202654234?from=home

Filing a complaint

If you experience a problem with your broadband service, first try to resolve it with your provider. If you cannot resolve the problem directly, you have multiple options for filing a complaint with the FCC:

File a complaint online

By phone: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322); TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322); ASL Videophone: 1-844-432-2275

By mail (please include your name, address, contact information and as much detail about your complaint as possible):

Federal Communications Commission

Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau

Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division

445 12th Street, S.W.

Washington, DC 20554

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19330000-Paris Flammarion

Edward Hopper: Don Quixote, c 1899

18740000-Boston Lee Quixote