An open letter to Comcast (and Marmit, my Customer Service Rep for today):
Dear Comcast,
When it comes to Internet, I haven't really had much of a choice in the past. Either Verizon wasn't available, or there was already an existing ISP in whatever hovel I was renting, so it was either you or the campus wifi, which had a useful off-campus radius of about 5 nanometers.
I like to think we've had a pretty good relationship these past five-ish years. I always paid my bills on time, and despite your significantly less than promised speed of 25 Mbps, you always gave me, at least, a stable Internet connection. Sure, I might have slighted you a bit by calling you up to let you know, "No, really, I don't need any cable," and then once more than I bought my own modem, thus eliminating my need for your $10/month rental fee, but I really thought those were minor things. Apparently, I was wrong, and being the vindictive ex-girlfriend that you are (which - c'mon, man - you're not even an ex), you decided to get back at me, big time.
Let's rewind a second, though. So, I moved out of my old apartment close to 5 months ago, now. Being the dutiful customer I am, I called you up to let you know that I wanted to move my service, not shut it off.
-Them: "We can do that for you, ma'am! Also, I see that you have your own modem. Would you like to do a self-install when you move?"
Heck, yeah, I do! I don't want to wait between the hours of 12-6PM for a service technician! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
So, at the end of May, I checked up on my account to pay my bill. Huh. $0 due? That's funny. Oh - oh, I see, I get a credit from my prorated last month. Awesome.
June ends. I haven't received my usual email tickler for my bill, so I log on again. Still $0? Weird. Oh, that credit is still showing up. Ok, I guess.
July - nothing.
August - nada. What? Still? Part of me wonders if I should call you to see what's up, and in your defense, I really should have. But the other part of me figured that if you really wanted my money, you'd call me up or drop me an email like the money-sucking vampires that you are. I was wrong.
I come home to a notice sitting in my mailbox:
Final notice? What the? I didn't even get a first notice. Instead, you slap me with a bill and a threat.
So, I decide to log onto my account one more time.
"The username and password do not match."
...W...what?
"The username and password do not match."
Bullshit. I logged on with that password a week ago, but whatever, Comcast. I'll play your game and reset my password. Which, apparently I HAVE to do through a customer service rep. And because calling your 1-800 number makes me want to murder babies with my teeth, I decide to try the online chat instead (which, has actually been pretty successful in the past.)
Dear Marmit, my super friendly CSR:
Despite your willingness to give me all the help I needed, I was not too pleased when I started talking to you this morning. I had half a mind to lay it all out, but I stopped myself. This is going to seem really awful on my part, but honestly, do you know what helped? Imagining that you were a marmot with an Indian accent.
Oh, yes, I could have railed and whinged at you, but instead, I played it civil. Why? Because, I sincerely don't think you would have been able to solve the real issue at hand - the fact that my bill is effed to high heaven. At any rate, you got my my new password and my new username which I suddenly magically now need to access Comcast.
See, Marmit, here's my hypothesis.
Despite the fact that I told Comcast that I didn't need to close my account, when I decided to self-install, they gave me an entirely new account when I moved, with a new account number and everything. Only they never told me. And regardless of the fact that they created an entirely new account, they saved some of my old billing preferences, which included Eco Paperless Billing. Yet, they didn't put my primary email address on the new account - the one that I use to log in and check that my bill has been paid. So I never got any email notices about a bill being due.
ಠ____ಠ
The sad part is, I can't prove this. I cannot prove that which doesn't exist. I can't call you up and say, "Look at these bills that are not here." Furthermore, I'm really, really bad about being assertive with customer service on the phone, and I have not the cojones to yell at someone for this oversight, then storm off and threaten to go to another service provider.
Comcast, why does it have to be this way? Couldn't we just go back to our days of innocence and endless Netflix marathons? But no. You have to assert your dominance like some primal D/s role-play. And I'm just going to sit here like a ninnymuffin and take it up the bum.
Your Internet-addicted slave,
Victoria
Until the next.
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