One person you don’t want to piss off

April 6, 2008 by Jeff Jarvis
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Michael Arrington just told his Twitter fans that Comcast has been for 36 hours and he’s told after a half-a-lifetime on hold that it’s California-wide. Others pipe in with their troubles. I go looking at the news and find more problems on the East Coast. Here you can watch the Comcast revolt spread across Twitter. Arrington is vowing “expend significant energy over the next three weeks trashing comcast.” Heh. Can’t wait to watch that. I also told him via Twitter that he should join forces with Bob Garfield at ComcastMustDie.

I’m willing to bet a few dollars that this could be the start of the first (or an early) consume revolt spread on Twitter (as the Laceygate revolt spread at SXSW): the instamob. I wonder whether Comcast is monitoring Twitter and whether it will be man enough to come in and explain what the hell is happening (without hold music).

  • http://david-damore.blogspot.com/ David Damore

    Consumer leverage vs firms is clearly increasing. Deliver value or go out of business. Consumers can communicate wrongs [real or perceived] much wider than in the past.

    The old rule was an angry customer might tell 10 people your firm blew it [or sucks]. That rule no longer holds true. There are blog writes who have the reach to communicate with hundreds, thousands and even millions within days.

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  • http://focusedperformance.com/unfocused.html Frank Patrick

    Hmmm…is this what i have to look forward to – just a few miles south of you, in Hillsborough, we’re about to switch over from Patriot Media to the folks that bought them – Comcast.

    …sigh…

  • http://alltop.com Guy Kawasaki
  • http://www.epartyunlimited.com/bill-ding-balancing-clowns.html Bill Ding
  • Wotan I. Espy

    I love Comcast as well. I see no reason they have to stoop to the level of responding to a single blogger’s post.

  • Phil Dewey

    Guy, Bill and Wotan, the problem with your speed tests are that Comcast has been faking them. You’re not really getting those download speeds

  • http://www.samjackson.org/college Sam Jackson

    Comcast reduced my household (02459, MA) to an unbearable hell of slow internet (more torturous than dial-up, no lie) a few years ago, despite our exorbitant cable fees. Despite many protestations and attempts by then to ‘resolve’ the problem, things never got better. We moved to RCN, and later FiOS; some RCN remains because of bundling, other randomness. But at least for everyone I knew back home with Comcast, things could be real trouble sometimes. VZW’s fiber makes me much happier–though Yale’s connection is not so bad, either–though once the load on that goes up, who knows what we’ll see… :(

    I always find it so interesting that even as Techmeme’d things get lots of traffic and attention, they get so few comments. O_o

  • http://www.samjackson.org/college Sam Jackson

    For purposes of comparison, did a quick Yale test as well. 17 / 13. Things vary by load, though… and local access. Oh well. Yay research universities!

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/256111802.png

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  • http://www.camworld.com Cameron Barrett

    My Comcast connection was down all day yesterday. Somehow I doubt I will get reimbursed for this outage. Luckily, Verizon just finished installing FIOS into the building I live in so Comcast no longer has a legal monopoly on me and my neighbors. Goodbye Comcast, I’m voting with my feet and taking my wallet elsewhere.

  • thank you comcast

    Anythong or anyone that silences that arrogant, racist, ignorant fool aka as Arrington has my vote.

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  • Joe

    We have not had issues with Comcast. Seems like you attempting to invent a viral revolt for an issue you are having… weak in my mind.

  • http://www.limahuli.net/blog/ Paul

    Comcast’s high-speed internet quality in N. California is getting increasingly spotty. Their customer service has always been appalling; it’s just now becoming more evident as consumers realize they have options more satisfying than Comcast’s lip service.

    Friday night saw Comcast’s bandwidth choking up and down Northern California– for a taste of the outrage check out the posts on the lower part of this page:

    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20026267-Anybody-else-in-Mendocino-Co-Seeing-daily-SLOWWWW-downs~start=60

    What if all these people were on Twitter?

  • Jason McCartney

    Twitter blah blah blah Twitter blah blah Twitter blah blah blah Twitter Twitter blah Twitter blah spam Twitter Twitter Twitter spam Twitter blah.

    Somebody is really pushing the Twitter hype machine at the moment. They must getting desperate, maybe they’re about to go under?

  • http://www.markevanstech.com Mark Evans

    Maybe Arrington can come up to Canada, and help us with Rogers and Bell.

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  • http://www.myinsurancedeals.com Daren Singh

    seems like help comes to you when you blog the problem you are having. I lived in California for 10 years and do not remember having any major problems with comcast….besides the price of their services. My internet service from them was fast but it came at a high price…

  • http://www.comcast.com ComcastCares

    Hi Jeff
    At Comcast we do monitor twitter as well as forums, blogs or website where a Customer may share their experience. We view this as another channel similar to email, phone or chat. In fact shortly after the initial discussion started I reached out to Mr. Arrington, as I have to numerous others on the internet.

    Of course we also need to make sure we get it right the first time which unfortunately we didn’t when you first called in. We are working to do just that. We are listening and I am sharing all the online feedback I get with the head of customer care.

    Frank Eliason
    Comcast

  • http://www.buzzmachine.com Jeff Jarvis

    I didn’t call in. I’m not a Comcast customer.

  • http://www.comcast.com ComcastCares

    Certainly a typo – I was up late last night monitoring Twitter.

    Thanks for pointing it out! I do want to thank you for your great blog website. I do enjoy reading it.

    Have a great week!

    Frank Eliason
    Comcast

  • http://www.camworld.com Cameron Barrett

    So, some dude from Comcast leaves me an email via my web site contact form saying that I should contact them to get reimbursed for the outage (because he saw my note in the comments above). Um, hello….why should this be a reactive thing that I must do. Comcast *knows* which of their customers had a day-long outage; they should automatically reimburse ALL OF THEM, no questions asked.

    Talk about an inconvenience. Why should I have to jump through hoops to be reimbursed. Comcast knows they fucked up, and they should reimburse ALL of the customers, not just the ones who specifically request it.

    I give them credit for trying to put on a better Customer Service face but it’s still not good enough. Not when FIOS is eating their lunch because Comcast’s network simply can’t scale as well as Verizon’s fiber. Try harder Comcast, try harder.

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  • CindyWest

    I loved Comcast until I had an experience about a month ago that fried my beans.
    After, a week long interruption of service, they sent a serviceman out, he thought the problem was an outdoor problem at the cable box. I took off a half day from work for him to tell me this? All the while, I am maintaining that it is the modem that they installed about 4 year ago. The signal kept on dropping at that point. He said, yeah we don’t even use those modems anymore, but he didn’t take the initiative to switch it out, instead he sets up another service call for Saturday. But who am I? Just a homeowner at the mercy of a cable company. A repairman was scheduled to come out on Saturday around 1PM…at 1:30 I called to see if he was showing up, they transferred me to the local dispatch office, I get a gal on the phone ranting about “How they shouldn’t have routed my call to her”. After 30 seconds of abusive rants, I calmly said to her “It sounds like you have an internal issue here, I am a customer just wanting to know when the repairman is coming out”. After a moment of silence, she said, she would have to check with her supervisor and would call me back in a few minutes. 1 hour went by and no call , so I called Comcast back, the gal on the other end of the phone was very nice and said, I don’t show that you even have high-speed internet with us. ” I teasingly said, then you owe me a lot of money because you have been billing me for 4 years and unless this is a phantom modem I looking at, someone has manipulated my records. She finally did find out that it had been removed but wouldn’t go as far as to say how it happened.
    So after getting the cable mac address reregistered, she informed me the repairman would be out on Sunday to look at the outer box. He showed tightened a few things and thought it looked ok. After 3 more weeks of intermittent dropped signal I called Comcast back and demanded a new cable modem. Been working like a charm ever since. Wished the customer service would have worked as well as my new modem.
    Maybe I should send them a bill?

  • http://www.affectstrategies.com Yasmin Bendror

    I think there is a higher message for this fantastic Michael Arrington/Twitter story and I blogged about it: “Corporations take note: twitter is here” at http://www.techaffect.com

    Its about giving these huge (often monopolizing) companies a big wake up call: To start actually monitoring and taking heed to what your valuble customer base is saying through social media outlets like Twitter and the blogoshphere. Its so easy to do, customer service can be vastly improved, and the payoff is be huge: happy customers means more business.

    To me, its a no brainer.
    Yasmin

  • madksman

    Tonight the “comcast” internet went out [for the hundreth plus time in 2 months of new service] except this time after 2 fone call’s to comcast i was informed “i had exceeded 416g in 30 days” bandwidth d/l abuse. the low life bastards didnt even bother to call our home # to talk to us just cut us off! when i talked to the moron “wes” what was an acceptable d/l # was he said it doesnt exist?! they check the top 1/10 of 1% and decide that you have downloaded too much ie abuse of their “allways on” service… my ass!
    so when i asked how they came up with 416g d/l he said thats what you d/l’d. i said ok so how much can i d/l then? again he goes thru the bs formula i posted. [was like talking to a republican lots of talk but no brains...just retoric they cant explain they believe in only told to repeat to the non believers]

    heres my solution after giveing up att after 10+ years perfect service..just slow as hell so we went with comcast, and have had over 2 months of non stop hell of service.. over 3 service calls for the same problem and each time they did something different…15 service calls + in just 2 months for various problems with they crappy system. finally they get the internet to a 1 a day disconect…[as if any customer with a brain would/could stand that...{this comeing from a perfect conection albieit slow dsl line} theres no way im gonna put up with this crappy service. then i get this wacked out disconect! enuf!

    comcast if you really moniter blogs ...... grab a box of salt and a glass of water!

    im gonna cover all the internet box's and cable box's with water and then coat them with salt... and shove them up your collective a$$hole! you can take your crappy service and go f#ck yourself's .

    and to any comcast customer with 1/4 of a brain..[id say 1/2 but ur allready screwed] vote with your feet drop these internet nazi’s like the comunist’s they are.

    when they get the message in $$ that people are tired of haveing their internet “tweaked” ie: hacked and limits that they dont tell you about then youll understand why i’m so freaking pissed off!

    they say after “4 dead in ohio” americans lost the urge to fight…..yeah maybe… but im gonna send these a$$holes a message they wont forget my lack of $$ a monthly screw for crappy service!

    oh and if any of you so called “wanna help comcast bastards wanna get hold of me” ya best be able to tweak your system so that people can do what they please and not what u allow in fine freaking print!

    its like the electric company shuting off your power cuz you plug in a dildo… sorry i didnt ask you to watch me i want internet not big brother!

    foad comcast i hope you get bought by microsoft and sold off for scrap!

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  • wood

    I found out that if you will be nice to the comcast technicians they will help you otherwise you know what i mean. Besides they are people who are knowledgeable and they don’t own the comp. but they certainly can help…..they did help me in my case even the issue was my created.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000185539654 Melody Hartwell

    I just had the worst technician come to my home. He would not speak to me, while looking me up and down over and over (I’m a woman) AFRAID TO COMPLAIN.