Software Engineer Forced to Sell Home After Comcast Lies About Service

[StewShearerOld]

Software Engineer Forced to Sell Home After Comcast Lies About Service

Software engineer Seth Morabito has been forced to sell his home after Comcast falsely claimed it could supply him with internet service.

While for most <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135870-Broadband-Speed-in-United-States-is-Up-But-Still-Lags-Behind-World-Leaders>the internet is simply an avenue to time-passers like Facebook, Twitter and Netflix, there are many for whom it's an actual necessity of work and life. Software engineer Seth Morabito, for instance, relies on the internet to telecommute and do his job. That in mind, when Morabito bought his first home earlier this year, he made sure to contact Comcast to make sure their local services extended to his new "dream home." While the company wouldn't give him a written confirmation, in two separate phone calls the internet provider affirmed that it did. Unfortunately for Morabito, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132223-Comcast-Announces-Plans-to-Merge-With-Time-Warner-Cable>Comcast lied.

What ensued probably has to be one of the strangest and most frustrating <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136157-Comcast-Really-Doesnt-Want-Tech-Blogger-to-Cancel-His-Internet-Service>customer service fiascos in recent memory. Over the course of nearly two months Morabito found himself locked in a vicious cycle of contacting Comcast, meeting with service personnel and dealing with an ever-evolving web of order numbers and conflicting statements. This all came to a head when Comcast engineers determined that his house was a whopping 2,500 feet from the nearest accessible Comcast plant. After further assessment the company determined that it would cost between $56,000 and $60,000 to complete the required extensions. Finally on March 18th the company called to inform him that it would not be doing the extension. "No ifs, no ands, no buts," he wrote in a blog post. "They just won't do it. They won't even give me the chance to pay for it. Too much effort on their part."

Left with no other viable options for reliable internet save for an expensive mobile hotspot with severe data caps, Morabito has been left in the sad position of having to sell his new home and move. "This whole thing would have been avoided if only Comcast had said, right at the start, that they didn't serve this address," he said. "Just that one thing would have made me strike this house off the list." We've reached out to Comcast to see if they have any official take on the matter.

Source: Loomcom


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[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

See, if somebody had the audacity to do this in Europe, they'd be liable to pay for any damages you might have suffered as the result. Things like cost of moving or if you lost money by having to resell the house etc.

Somebody needs to put Comcast down. This is the kind of stuff that huge companies need to be broken up for. There's no excuse. Monopoly is obviously hurting the end consumer. Comcast needs to be broken up into at least 3 smaller companies.

 

[Mike Pothier]

Get a lawyer, sue their asses till they bleed money.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

That's fairly classic Comcast, yet with a new spin. I wonder how their next high-profile dickbaggery is going to play out. I hope Mr. Morabito finds better luck with his next house and that he doesn't have to deal with Comcast.

Edit: Wow that blog was hard to read all of the way through without getting angry myself. The sheer amount of incompetence he weathered is astounding. I really feel for this guy.

 

[Boba Frag]

'Software engineer Seth Morabito has been forced to sell his home after Comcast falsely told the company it supply him with internet service'

Ok, asshole time: I realise that stories have to be written quickly, but that sentence is... problematic. I wonder about the site's editing capability. It's just something I've noticed a fair bit of late.

OT: Ugh, good grief, that poor guy was really put through the ringer.
How are these fucking clowns even in business any more?

 

[J Tyran]

Poor bastard, these companies make me angry at times. I hope he has proof for the service "quotes" and that things like that are as legally binding in the US as they would be here, so he can sue them for damages over the expense and hassle and any lost income.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I read about this poor guy on the Consumerist yesterday. After fucking around with Comcast, he tried CenturyLink, whose listed his address can get service from them. They call back the next day after he called and set up an appointment, only to tell him that they aren't adding new customers from his area. And just to prove Comcast isn't the only ISP company that won't put money into better record keeping and customer service, they billed him $100, and played hopscotch with the managers who were supposed to look into his problems.

Competition? Yeah, they want the maps to look like there is competition, but they don't want to actually spend money on the infrastructure for it to really exist (or the money on maintenance and out techs for individual customer issues).

It get's even better. Besides some other providers (microwave wireless that needs line of sight, which is blocked by a new building, and hyper expensive T1 lines), there is a public broadband utility that possibly could reach his home. (You'll love this next part. /sarc) The problem with that is they not allowed to expand because of one of those laws blocking such growth, the kind of laws that major ISPs lobbied many state legislatures pass. Comcast and CenturyLink, each, screwed him twice over.

My family also has had issues with Comcast's sales customer service reps giving false information before. They (incorrectly) diagnosed our issue over the phone, thinking it was because light vehicle traffic on the lawn that our internet (and VoIP phone service) would intermittently cut out, told us to buy a pipe (not expensive, maybe $10) to bury a new line and would send out a guy to do it. After several techs came out to redo the line over and over, they sent out a business tier tech that found a faulty connection at the other end of the house. That was the whole problem.

 

[PirateRose]

This is what happens when the sales personal are trained to only focus on a sales quota. They literally learn to screw people over to keep their numbers up and keep their jobs. The initial people who told him there was service, obviously didn't really look or flat out don't have the option to, and only cared about making that sale. Then you've got the other group of people calling, desperately trying to keep the numbers up and keep their jobs, again, with no clue at all that there is nothing available in that guys location.

It's the current state of capitalism, this extreme level of greed. Get that money, get it fast, keep it constant and growing, who cares the consequences of how you got it as long as you got it. A whole company can burn itself to the ground, but the people at the top they made their millions and billions by the time the company collapses. They don't really lose a thing.

 

[Scrythe]

And I thought the Verizon fiasco from 2006 was bad. The one where they insisted that 0.002¢ = $0.002.

This is a whole new level of disgusting.

Source: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com

 

[Baldr]

I'm sorry, but if your going to be conducting your job at your house, you should really be relying on Business Class internet and not Consumer internet.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'm sorry, but if your going to be conducting your job at your house, you should really be relying on Business Class internet and not Consumer internet.

I dunno if "Business Class Internet" is different from Comcast's "Business Internet", but it looks like that's what he initially tried to get:

January 29, 2015

This was our first interaction with Xfinity. Earlier in the month we had placed a separate order with Comcast Business for stand-alone Business Internet, but they said they couldn?t provide us with service, so they cancelled the order on us. They suggested that we contact Xfinity and get consumer TV and Internet instead. That sounded like a fine idea to us, we like TV! So that?s what we did.

We ordered our service on January 29th. We went with the Digital Starter package and the ?Blast 105&#8243; Internet service with a 2-year contract, very standard. They told us that we would have a tech visit us to do the install on January 31st between 10 AM and 12 PM.

 

[Baldr]

I'm sorry, but if your going to be conducting your job at your house, you should really be relying on Business Class internet and not Consumer internet.

I dunno if "Business Class Internet" is different from Comcast's "Business Internet", but it looks like that's what he initially tried to get:

January 29, 2015

This was our first interaction with Xfinity. Earlier in the month we had placed a separate order with Comcast Business for stand-alone Business Internet, but they said they couldn?t provide us with service, so they cancelled the order on us. They suggested that we contact Xfinity and get consumer TV and Internet instead. That sounded like a fine idea to us, we like TV! So that?s what we did.

We ordered our service on January 29th. We went with the Digital Starter package and the ?Blast 105&#8243; Internet service with a 2-year contract, very standard. They told us that we would have a tech visit us to do the install on January 31st between 10 AM and 12 PM.

I didn't read the original story. I find it kinda bullshit that a business class service would turn down someone then tell them to use the consumer side. They use the exact same plant. If you can't connect the house to the plant, then certainly the other-side not going to be able too. I think this part of the story is a lie.

 

[Kinitawowi]

While the company wouldn't give him a written confirmation,

Well, there's a red flag right there.

If they won't put it in writing, stay the hell away.

 

[Riddle78]

Pardon my foul language,but how the fuck are these assclowns still in business? If this shit is routine (I live in Ontario,and am served by Bell),then how the Hell didn't they get their asses sued into oblivion yet for apparently intentionally poor and damaging service?

 

[Jadak]

Get a lawyer, sue their asses till they bleed money.

Good luck at that given the acknowledged lack of written confirmation.

 

[Erttheking]

And my Dad honestly doesn't see the problem with killing net neutrality and letting companies like this having free reign over the internet.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

While the company wouldn't give him a written confirmation,

Well, there's a red flag right there.

If they won't put it in writing, stay the hell away.

yep I feel terrible for the guy, but from what I learned in business law, oral "he said, she said" is very hard to win full out what you're looking for. If he would've gotten it in writing *at all*, he would've had one golden ticket to sue land.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

That in mind, when Morabito bought his first home earlier this year, he made sure to contact Comcast to make sure their local services extended to his new "dream home." While the company wouldn't give him a written confirmation, in two separate phone calls the internet provider affirmed that it did. Unfortunately for Morabito, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132223-Comcast-Announces-Plans-to-Merge-With-Time-Warner-Cable>Comcast lied.

There's the kicker, right there. Telesales zombies will spout any old compant line to make a deal sound enticing, but until it's in writing it's not legally binding. While I feel sorry for they guy he essentially forgot to read the fine print and unfortunately has no-one to blame but himself. It sucks, but that's the way the modern legal cookie crumbles.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

>Double post shenanigans<

 

[Draconalis]

And I thought the Verizon fiasco from 2006 was bad. The one where they insisted that 0.002¢ = $0.002.

This is a whole new level of disgusting.

Source: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com

That was the first thing I thought of after reading this article as well.

There was a commercial I heard fairly recently that some company offered amazing lightning speed.

50,000 bits.

I did not state that wrong. 50,000 bit download...

That's like, .4 Mbs.

I honestly wonder if the script writer just didn't know the difference between a bit and a byte... or if the company was trying to sound fast, when they aren't.