So … Comcast Guy, having missed earlier appointments, finally shows up. This time around, Comcast had promised us a cable installer would appear between 8:00 and 11:00. They were almost right. He walked in at 11:15.
Five minutes later, Comcast Guy was packing up to leave. “You don’t even have basic cable service. There’s nothing I can do.”
Clyde was amazed. “What? But you’re here to install our service!”
Comcast Guy shook his head. “No, I’m here to install the two cable cards you requested. I’m a cable card specialist. That’s all I do. Adding cable cards is an upgrade, not a basic installation. I can’t perform a basic installation.”
That didn’t sit too well with Clyde, especially given that we’d been fighting to get someone to our house for almost a month. One pitched fit later, Comcast Guy was in the cable closet of our building, hooking up basic cable.
This took all of fifteen minutes.
With basic cable activated, Comcast Guy began installing our cable cards … or, more accurately, began not installing them. The first card he tried to install failed. He pulled out more. He mixed them all up. One of the next two failed. He mixed them up again. Ultimately, he looked up and said, “These don’t work. I think there’s something wrong with this Tivo box of yours. It’s probably never worked.”
Clyde rolled his eyes. “It has worked for two years with Comcast cable cards. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you need to call somebody.”
And call someone he did. Comcast Guy whipped out a phone, dialed a secret tech support number, and chatted with a programmer — for two and one-half hours.
Three hours after he arrived, Comcast Guy stood and rubbed his hands together. “All done! They’re working!”
Clyde checked the television. No picture. No sound. No nothing. “That’s not working.”
Comcast Guy looked at the blank screen. “No, I talked to the people at tech support, and they tell me the cards are working perfectly.”
“There’s nothing on the television.”
Comcast Guy shrugged. “If corporate says they’re working perfectly, they’re working perfectly, whether they look like they are or not.”
Clyde is a very patient person, but I am happy to report that, at this point, he told Comcast Guy to take his cards and get out of our house.
Now, Comcast says they have a problem with every single one of their cable cards. “We’ll have to order all new ones. We don’t know how long that will take, but we’ll call you when we’re ready to come out and install them.”
More than a month after our first call to Comcast of Atlanta, we still don’t have anything but low-definition basic cable.
Mark,
Our cards went out yesterday (9-18). So far, all we get from Comcast is that they have a problem with all cards but they expect to have it fixed shortly (that’s the update as of 5pm 9-19.) We do have basic cable though but no HBO or HD channels. Here we go again. Dan
Deja vu all over again!
I remember the last time that happened in Jackson. The fix took days.
Meantime: Comcast sent us another bill. This one, in addition to being for the wrong service period, included charges for HBO, which we have never received, because they could not install it. 🙁