In August of this year, we made a decision to move our business office to a new location. This was a cost cutting measure as well as a move to a nicer facility. At our old location, we had a T1 for Internet access and phone service which was costing us about $500.00 per month. A Comcast sales person stopped by and introduced Comcast's new Triple Play service for businesses: Internet access, phone service and cable television for less than $200 per month. Sounds great, huh? We signed up, it's now Dec. 2nd, and we still don't have our service complete.
It all started with the salesman, who said that the building we were moving to wasn't wired for Comcast. But Comcast was interested in adding a new office building to its roster, we'd be the first client in the facility and it would take 45 to 60 days to wire the building. We signed the paperwork on Aug. 11th and, based on the salesman's assurances, were expecting to have service by early October. We relocated as of Aug. 31st and our plan was to forward our primary line to our cell phone for one month until the service was put in. We've been in business for 12 years with the same phone number, as well as a toll-free number, and it was important to us that we retain the same phone numbers.
We checked in with the salesperson periodically, who assured us that everything was on schedule. When September 30th rolled around and the service had not been installed, we tried contacting the salesperson who was hard to reach at that point. Meanwhile, Comcast had a computer virus infiltrate their corporate e-mail system (this event actually made national headlines) and, when the salesman finally responded, he said he couldn't get into any of his files and it would be two weeks before he'd have access to everything. Keep in mind that we are still paying our primary phone service $500.00 a month because the lines are forwarded.
Starting in early October, we called Comcast every other day to see when the service would be installed. Then we were contacted by our cell phone provider, Verizon, regarding our usage. We had used 600 minutes over the amount for our plan and we had a big bill that was due. In other words, at that point we're paying double for phone service. The first month, our cell phone bill didn't increase at all, but due to the billing cycle, we were impacted on the second month. Verizon gave us the solution to temporarily increase our plan to include more minutes but, unfortunately, it wasn't retroactive. This added another $400.00 in phone charges for one month to what we were already paying. This caught up completely off guard since our cell phone usage is always several hundred minutes below the maximum.
After about 50 phone calls and several more weeks, Comcast finally put our phone lines in on Friday, Nov. 26th. However, we still have to wait another two weeks for our original numbers to be ported over (another fact the salesman failed to mention), which means we have to retain our old service and keep paying them for another two weeks until the process is complete. The cable T.V. is in too, but it's a joke. We only get local channels, C-Span, Disney and HLN. If we want the usual channels that are included in basic cable (TBS, TNT, CNN, MSNBC, Lifetime, etc.), we have to pay an additional $30.00 per month.
This was a costly lesson for our company, but we wanted to make others aware. Lord only knows where we'd be if we hadn't been persistent with our phone calls. One would think that a company as large as Comcast would have better customer service, but you know what they say when you assume. If a Comcast salesman offers your business what appears to be a good deal, be skeptical and know that the rosy picture he is painting is likely a mirage. Let the buyer beware!
No comments:
Post a Comment