Stuck Between Stations

Blast Comcast fast: at last, their past harassed

Today I was catching up on some old blog posts and I came across one written by my good friend Kevin Donovan over at Copyrightings, his blog about copyrights and other intellectual property issues.

His post was about Comcast’s recent attempt to keep the public out of an important meeting at Harvard. They paid people to fill seats, and some were photographed sleeping through the meeting about their data transfer policies.

Kevin encouraged readers to go to Comcast’s “Contact Us” page and write to them. I wrote to Rick Germano, SVP Customer Operations. Here’s what I had to say:

Dear Mr. Germano,

I cannot believe your company paid people to sleep through one of this year’s most important discussions about the regulation of the internet. I am interested in hearing why you think this was acceptable.

Additionally, I will be asking my parents (who defer to me on issues of technology) to cancel their Comcast service. Comcast’s embarrassing customer service, extended delays, antagonistic and illegal regulation policies, and disrespect for the people who really wanted to be at that meeting at Harvard are reason enough.

I anxiously await a reply, but I’ve already accepted the fact that I won’t get one — at least one actually from you.

Thank you for giving people the ability to contact you. I respect that.

Alex Klein
Duke University ‘11 

So, do you think I did a good job expressing my anger while remaining respectful? That was my goal…

I encourage you to do the same if you feel strongly about this issue. Click on the picture of their van to go to their Contact Us page. Let’s “drive” Comcast to make some changes!

UPDATE (March 10, 2008, 1:07am): I still have not heard from Rick Germano or any of his minions. Here’s what his auto-reply promised me: “Please expect to hear from us within just a few hours.” This is just sad. I wonder if there is a list of the worst customer service. Here’s a list of the best.

UPDATE2 (April 28, 2008, 12:41am): I have yet to hear back, even after numerous attempts to contact Mr. Germano. But I update for another reason: interestingly, this post, out of over 250, is the most popular post on my blog. It seems that many people out there are equally as dissatisfied with Comcast — perhaps for their seat-squatters, but also a possibility is their terrible customer service and support.