Crumpled Notebook

So, I officially moved to my new place 43 days ago. For approximately the last 40 days, I’ve been trying to get internet hooked up in my apartment. Today, on the 43rd day, and after talking to about 7 people from Comcast and 5 people from ATT&T, I’m still without internet and have yet another installation scheduled.

How hard can it be to get internet? I mean, afterall it is 2007 and I live in a city of sorts. It’s not like I’m out in the middle of Montana on a farm. All I want is DSL or Cable internet.

First, I call up Comcast, who was my current cable and internet provider at my old place. Seems simple enough to transfer service. You can even request it online, so I do. This is where my trouble began. When I did the little chat confirmation with their rep, they told me I couldn’t transfer service here because their was already existing service here and it is a business account. Ok, that makes some sense. My apartment is on campus at (my employer), which is a business. I was told I would have to go to the local office with a letter stating that I live here to get service in my name. So I play along. I get a letter from my employer (which gives me my apartment) stating that I live at the specified address and take it to the local office. When I get there, I’m told they can’t cancel the account because it’s 20+ years old and apparently it’s free due to an educational discount. I asked if it was (my employer), they stated no, and told me the name of the school. The school they told me was a school that up until the end of last summer, leased the south end of our campus. However, they were no longer there and we are indeed the property owners. I explained all this to them, and they still refused to cancel the account, even though they weren’t getting any money from it and they were servicing two abandoned buildings. They did however give me information on how to contact educational services to see about getting the service transferred.

Step 2: I called the school who used to be here to ask them to transfer their service to their new address and cancel the service here. They agreed to do that and had just overlooked it when they moved. Both the school and the education department with comcast contacted me to let me know that had been done about 4-5 days later. Everything should be clear for me to get my internet. I hop back online, and once I get to the chat confirmation, I am told there is still an active account, even though, the school, the education department, and one other person at comcast, not 5 minutes before that had told me the account had been cancelled. I was told I would have to…yes, take a letter to my local office stating I lived there. None of my questions of why 2 different Comcast employees had told me the account was cancelled could be answered, nor were any of my grievances heard. So, I patiently waited another 2 days to try again. I fill out my request online again because I felt like I shouldn’t be talking to people directly in case I got angry. When I got to the confirmation chat again (this is where all my trouble in the beginning seemed to be), I was told Comcast was having technically difficulties and they couldn’t process my order. However, I was welcome to go to the local office or call the 800 number. I asked if going to the local office at 10pm was a good idea. She didn’t respond :) I asked if I could try online the following day and was told I “can try that if I want.” I decided to give in and call the 800 number and talk to a real person. It was a very pleasant call. I was told this could be done with no problem, everything was taken care of and a technition would be out the very next day, which puts us at about June 18th. Yes, it took nearly 3 weeks to get the old account cancelled.

June 18th comes and the tech arrives as scheduled. He takes a look and tells me it needs to be rewired and that he would need his supervisor to help him. I was agreeable to this. He told me he would be back the next day to do it and would call before he came. June 19th came and went with no phone call from anyone at Comcast. June 20th also came and went with no contact. On June 21st, I called Comcast again to find out why no one had come back to finish the job or had called if there were any problems. No one seemed to know why no one had contacted me, however, I was informed that since this was a business account and needed 14 hook ups, it would have to be processed by their business department. I explained that I did not need 14 hook ups at all. I needed 2, and would be happy with one at this point. I was then routed over to their business department who explained to me it had to be a business account and would cost around $70 a month for internet alone. I told her I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. That this was a residential apartment and the account would be in my name. She stated she would send someone out to do a site survey, that it would take up to 10 days, and that way for future reference, they would know if it was serviceable.

SBC/ATT: At this point I’m thinking going with DSL would be easier. Yes, it’s not as fast, but I really wanted internet soon. Since my home phone is tied in with our business account, I first asked our accountant how the previous couple who lived here did their internet. If they paid our office each month the cost or if it was in their own name. She stated we didn’t pay any internet bill for the apartment and they didn’t pay the office for internet or anything. So I call up ATT/SBC to get some DSL. I was quickly told that it would have to be in the name of the business associated with the phone number. At this point, our office manager pulls the bill for me and we find out that there is indeed internet in the apartment and it has been active ever since the last people moved, it was never cancelled. HALLELUJAH! I already have internet! I get back on the phone with ATT and go through the process of reseting my modem which I had from a couple years ago with them. They tell me there is an email address associated with the account and that I need the password for it. I see the email address on the bill, but this is the personal email address of the prior tenants. It was an address I wasn’t sure if they still used or not though. The ATT tech tells me he can reset the password on the account. I ask if they they can disassociate that email address with the account, since it is a personal address and this is a business account. I am told that can’t be done. The only way is to reset the password. The tech resets it and we get the internet going! Two days later however, when I decided to move my modem and unplugg it, the internet connection stopped working. I was told the password had been reset and changed again. That makes sense if someone is still using the account. The ATT rep asks me for the address on the account to verify my identity. I give him our address and he tells me that is not correct. That it was changed to a San Diego address (where the old tentants now live). I explained the situation to him. He says if we disconnect the service and then reconnect the service, we can set it up with a new email address. I tell him I would like to do that and am them connected to the business department, who tells me DSL department needs to handle it, although after I explained they were the ones who transferred me there, they say they can do it from there. I am told it will take 5-10 days for the disconnection/reconnection process. In the meantime, I emailed the prior tentants of my apartment to explain the situation so they wouldn’t think someone was trying to hack their email address.

So I patiently wait for SBC. In the meantime, Comcast has sent out a tech to do a site survey. He seems to know what he’s talking about. He’s not old, but definately not a kid. He’s from the business department. He looks around and tells me that it can indeed be a residential account, and should be fairly simple to do the rewiring and finds all the places everything hooks into. He says they will contact me about installation.

A couple of days later, Comcast calls me pre-9am. However, I was working and didn’t have time to take their call. They all called again at 1pm. This was the lady from the business department called to see if I would like to go ahead with my business order. She called on a Friday and I was extremely busy so I didn’t call back that day. I decided I wanted to think it over over the weekend. They continued to call on Saturday and first thing and multiple times on the following Monday. I was annoyed by their hurry when they didn’t seem at all concerned with my hurry during the past month plus. I decided I would let them know that I decided to wait and go with ATT since it was already in the process. If I wasn’t happy with ATT or the speeds, I would go with Comcast down the road. However, before I had a chance to call them, I received a call from ATT…

MORE ATT DRAMA: ATT leaves a message for me asking what I decided about disconnecting and reconnecting my internet. What?!?!?! I called ATT back, the guy who called, directly, and left a message stating that should have already been in the process of being done. In the meantime, I called Comcast back as well and decided to proceeded. If I was going to have to wait for internet even longer, I wanted it to be good internet. I called the business department woman back to advised me she had transferred it to a local tech to be hooked up as a residential account and gave me his phone number. I called him and scheduled an appointment to get my service. He said he would be there the next day (today). This morning, ATT called back, said they didn’t know I wanted to disconnect and reconnect and that they could process it for me now, but it would take another 5-10 days. I told them I was tired of waiting, that it should have already been done and that I wanted to just cancel the existing internet service there and that Comcast was already scheduled to come out today. ATT guy said okay and didn’t try one bit to try and convince me not to cancel.

Comcast comes out today. The send one guy. I assume he knows what he’s doing since the work that needs to be done has been documented multiple times. 2 jacks, and a little wiring. He states he has no notes on the account and that he can’t do it. He wasn’t scheduled enough time and that it will take 2 people 2-3 hours to do it. I state, yes, I know this, why don’t you know this. It really wasn’t his fault because he didn’t have any special notes, however, you would think after a month and a half of trying to get this installed, they would have figured out what I needed. He tells me I might have to have it all put in with new wires, but he isn’t sure. I ask why he can’t get his ladder like the last guy and look. He doesn’t look. He is supposed to come back tomorrow with someone else, although they have no idea if it needs to be rewired or not.

At this point, I’m going to make Comcast finish it out. I’m not happy with them at all, but if I have to go through this, I’d rather get good fast internet out of it (and it was fast at my old place). At least, whenever I move down the road and someone else moves in, they shouldn’t have to go through the same mess.

But serious, 43+ days is just plain ridiculous.

Tags: att, cable, comcast, dsl, idiots, internet, ridiculous