Pittsburgh Family Cheated by Comcast

written 28 Jan 2008 in the early afternoon

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Update: The power of the Internet rarely ceases to amaze me. Only a couple of hours after posting this, not one but two representatives from Comcast contacted me, and another my wife, asking how they can resolve the situation. Apparently a technician will be calling Olivia later this week to test our line and work to improve the service in the future. I must say that this impresses me very much, because not only does it mean that Comcast is actively searching the Web (and how efficient!) for disgruntled customers, but that they are actually concerned with resolving the issues.

In a blanket effort to further alienate customers today, Comcast in Pittsburgh, PA completely disregarded a Pittsburgh family’s requests for support. The family was attempting to connect to various websites, including the father, Nathan Swartz, 28, a Web designer who needed to connect to a client’s site to work as well as his wife, Olivia Meiring, 30+, who was attempting to access popular time suck, facebook.com.

Meiring, who attempted to call Comcast but was given the runaround by their telephone system for so long that she became frustrated and hung up, says she accesses Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. But today, their will be no keeping in touch for Meiring or any other Comcast residents in the area. Nathan Swartz then attempted to contact Comcast’s technical support via online chat. Here is a summation of the story:

Nathan: Our internet access is limiting what pages we can view. For example, I can bring up google.com and others, but not facebook.com, lippisreport.com, mediatemple.net or sony.com.
Curtis: Hello, Thank you for waiting. I will be more than happy to assist you.
Nathan: k thanks.
Curtis: Try clearing your cookies and temporary files then restart your computer and see if that helps.
Nathan: No, that’s definitely not the issue. I know this because: 1. I’ve never ever been to sony.com before and so my computer would have no cache or cookies from those guys. 2. Sony.com, lippisreport.com, mediatemple.net - these are all sites hosted by Mediatemple.
Curtis: did it just start happening?
Nathan: Yes, it just started happening. Mediatemple is a very informed bunch, and they’ve indicated that the problem lays with my ISP (Comcast) blocking the route from my computer to their servers for some reason. Both computers in our house (one’s a Mac, one’s a PC) and two iPhones can’t connect to these sites either.
Curtis: ok because it appears that we’re getting reports from other customers in your area with the same problem…looks like we’re having issues on our end at the moment unfortunately
Nathan: Is there an estimate on when this will be fixed?
Curtis: no unfortunately Curtis: Is there anything else I can assist you with today? Nathan: I’m a little daunted… as Comcast is unable to deliver service I hope that will be reflected in a discount on my bill.

Analyst has closed chat and left the room

Also, don’t forget that Comcast is one of the largest opponents of Net Neutrality. That means that they want to continue charging you for access to the Internet, but then charge you more. Unfortunately, aside from Verizon, who is even more evil and provides a lesser service, the options are few here…

Filed Under: rants
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2 people chatting it up...

  • unknown user pic

    I hope you got satisfaction from Comcast.

    2 weekends ago they were blocking anything from google (gmail, goole.com, blogger). I spent almost 2 hours on the phone and later that day access was restored.

    This weekend I cannot send message from my work email account (but I can read messages, so I think that the uploads are being blocked?) I also can log into facebook, but then cannot do anything. I am currently too defeated to complain, having just been through this with Comcast about google and now figure that Comcast is just going to block any site that I use frequently.

    - Kathleen | 11:07am 23 Feb 08

  • I hear you Kathleen. They finally straightened things out for us, but I would recommend you check out savetheinternet.com and do whatever you can to help stop Comcast from these illegal practices by supporting Net Neutrality.

    You can sign a petition, send a letter or make a donation, but whatever you can do, it’ll help to keep Comcast in check. They’re as bad as Verizon anymore.

    I had heard about a new option for Internet in Pittsburgh but I’ve been out of town for a week so I can’t remember the name of it…I’ll try to look it up and write something up on it.

    - nathan | 08:44pm 28 Feb 08

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