Ditchin' Comcast

[deejayoh]

After years of complaining, I finally had enough of comcast today. I have my bill set up for autopay with a credit card. I have done this for over two years. In August, for some reason they rejected the credit card and did not process the payment. So I gave them a new number, and thought that was that. Today, I find out I am 2 months behind on the bill and have been assessed a late fee. I call them up, explain that they had *all* the info they needed to process payment, and that they should refund the late fee. The guy tells he can't, and it is my fault because I didn't do a "one time manual payment".

So, I paid the bill, hung up the phone, and called DirectTV.
Premium Package + HD + DVR for $49.95/month vs. $90 from the comcast robbers.
Next call was to Earthlink who resells comcast cable modem service. $45.95/month with first three months @ $29.95 vs. $42.95 from Comcast + another $12 if I didnt have the bundle

So in order to preserve a $5.99 late fee, the comcast "service" representative lost a customer paying somewhere around $1700 per year for cable + internet. And I am going to be saving around $500 on both services in the next 12 months

That's Comcastic!

[perfectfire]

I've been wanting to switch away for a while, but dsl and satellite providers load up their price sheets with so many rebates and one time discounts it's almost impossible to tell what the real price will be after all of the temporary price reductions run out.

[WestSideBilly]

DJO, as a long time Comcrap customer*, let me tell you... you're going to miss the inferior picture quality, excessive compression, horribly balanced audio signal, and all the other "features" that only a monopoly could get away with charging for. You will absolutely hate DirecTV's superior HD service and DVR (I assume you got the HR20), mainly because you will want all the hours you wasted watching Comcrap back and you can't have them back.




* We only have Comcrap because my roommate gets it for dirt cheap. But every time I haul my butt out of bed to watch a 5AM F1 race on Comcast's joke of a feed (not even HD!), I think it'd be worth the $100 for DirecTV.

[deejayoh]

[david_mcmanus]

I got a new Samsung 52" LCD TV over the holidays and the HD programming coming from Comcast, especially sports, has significant macroblocking. I've already had Comcast out to take a look at my signal and they say it's as good as it can get. I haven't heard any people who have Verizon FIOS who've had this issue. Can anyone speak to this? If this is typically how HD programming is, then I'll return my Samsung and get the cheapest brand possible, since the picture quality won't matter if I'm so dependent on the provider. BTW, other input sources (like Blu-Ray) look effing fantastic, so it's not the TV!

[perfectfire]

T-minuse one month before I ditch comcast here. And not a moment too soon. I'm going over the air on a home built Win7 media center. It's going to be awesome.