Mediacon and the (half) week from hell.
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Loading ...I’m no stranger to the absolute patheticness that is Mediacon, but let me tell you, the past few days have driven that pathetic nature to levels I never thought it could go.
The whole thing starts off with me getting an HD-TV (a new one, the 26″ just wasn’t good enough for me, don’t ask 
).
Friday, Mike and I head on over to WalMart, getting me this TV. Good stuff, I love it, it’s fan-fucking-tabulous, a 42″ Vizio plasma (only 720p, 1080i, but that’s ok). Of course, I had to upgrade the entertainment center as well (wasn’t putting the TV on top of the old one), so there’s more money out the pocket.
After thinking about it a bit deeper, I realized that I had money on a card to do the whole thing, and bought a (second) tivo box for the front room, this one being HD, instead of just standard def. It took cable and made it look just so much better.
After taking account of my account with mediacom (was spending 135+/month before Saturday), I realized I was just pissing money away on a company that wouldn’t ever change, or satisfy my needs. So, I called and had them change a few things on the account itself
- Drop the 8m/s cable to 3m/s (who really needs 8, anyways?)
- Drop HBO (only watched for Entourage)
- Swap out the box for a cablecard
- drop a bunch of useless fluff
This dropped me down to around $100/month , and I scheduled an appointment for today (1-5) for them to bring the cablecard out and pick up the box.
Keep in mind, this was all done on Saturday night, and I confirmed it, not once, but twice. Monday night, they had an ‘auto’ system call me, and I went through the steps to confirm that I was going to be here and I wanted the setup changed. THEN, I called them to confirm and ensure that they were using Multi-Cast cards (in which case I’d only need one), and everything was confirmed properly, or so I thought!
This afternoon, after the individual was supposed to be here (1430), I get a call saying that they had no cards left. WTF? WHY did they schedule the apointment then? Because they’re idiots, I tell ya. Flat out idiots. I asked when they would have more in, Jeremy’s response :
Not until Tuesday
I told him that was unacceptable as this had been scheduled for days and I wasn’t going to go without digital setups until Tuesday. His response? There’s nothing I can do. My response?
Have a manager call me immediately
NOWHERE in that conversation did I authorize this clown to reschedule anything, and absolutely NOWHERE did I say I was ok with him moving things around at ALL!
3′ish comes and goes, no call from manager, so I called the 800# again. I tell them what they’re going to do, and they basically throw a fit. Why? Well, they don’t like being called on their screwups, and they CERTAINLY don’t like having to pay for them! I told them that under no uncertain terms someone WAS coming out this afternoon. If they didn’t have the card, fine, then they were going to remove the card from the account, as well as all digital additions, and then take the box. If they DID have the card, that was ok, too, but they were coming out this afternoon, no matter what.
The response from the ‘phone supervisor’:
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to reschedule this, there is nothing we can do
Again, I told them that I wanted to speak to a LOCAL supervisor and that they were to call me THIS AFTERNOON.
Another hour’s worth of waiting, I called the toll free # again, and informed them that they were going to be taking things off of my account immediately. Those things were the extras that would have been covered by the cablecard (with digital channels, etc), and that they were going to come out on Friday to pick up the box. The guy’s response:
We will have to charge you for doing this
Of course, I am having none of that. Had they done their job in the FIRST place, they wouldn’t be making an extra trip, but since they refused to do so, they are.
After talking to the CSR, I found out that Jeremy re-scheduled the appointment INSTEAD of following the customer’s explicit instructions (have the supervisor call me), costing me on their “guarantee” (it’s only $20, but that’s not the point), and getting me into a position where I have to pay someone to do their job, which , of course, is horrific.
Lessons to be learned by Mediacom here:
- ALWAYS make sure you have enough product when making an appointment!
- ALWAYS listen to the customer. NEVER just ‘assume’ anything. The customer is ALWAYS right
- Have JUST a bit of decency. If you KNOW that something is going to be running out, don’t WAIT until the last damn minute, call the customer IMMEDIATELY
I can’t believe that I’m still doing business with these fucking idiots after 7+ years. If they weren’t a fucking monopoly in the area, I’d have dumped them LONG AGO, but, unfortunately, where I live, they ARE a monopoly, which is WHY they get away with charging $45 for ‘advanced cable’, which is complete shit anyways!
Long story short:
If I wasn’t tied to tivo so much (standard dvr does NOT work for shit, and can’t do HALF of what tivo does), I’d have dumped mediacon long, long ago. These guys are the mere definition of a poorly run business. If you can get away with it, stay as far away from Mediacon as possible!
