Fuck the robots: I'm at war

A tweet thread describing my interaction with Comcast/Xfinity. You will see in the narrative what happened, what they did, and why I’m posting this publicly.

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John, I thank you for being a human and actually communicating. I appreciate you, and what I'm about to say is not about you. None of this is your fault.

But no. This is not a solution to the problem with Comcast/Xfinity.

Please brace yourself; I'm going to get very direct.

I spent forty-five fucking minutes of my time, losing clients, trying to find ANY way to get in contact with a human. Why? Because the company you work for has deliberately set up roadblocks to stop paying customers from being able to talk to you.

You know this is true. I know that you cannot say anything for fear of losing your job, but you know what I'm saying is true.

Comcast has chosen, consciously, to make a phone number almost impossible to find. When you do find it, Comcast forces you to interact with a robot. That robot actually refused to allow me to connect to an agent. Yes.

Try it yourself.

I went through page, after page, after page, of "help" suggestions. Nothing.

Let me tell you why I needed a human.

1. I am not stupid. I am 50 years old. My generation invented personal computing. I have been on computers since age 10.

2. I understand that it is more efficient to help myself if I can, so I read any company's FAQs and try their suggestions before I resort to calling someone. I value your time as a worker, and mine.

3. I knew that I had a problem that none of the FAQs would answer. How did I know this? Because it wasn't listed, and because I'm an experienced computer user who understands the difference between user error (my mistake) and a company's system that has some corrupted code, or some "switch" that is not accessible to me that got tripped.

That is what happened.

4. My problem was that my account was not receiving any emails. This account is 22 years old. It gets approximately 45 emails per day. There has never been a single day in 22 years that this account did not receive email.

5. This is not a problem that any telecom company anticipates. You know this is true. You know that it does not appear in FAQs on Comcast's site.

Once I finally got a human--by circuitous means of tricking the Comcast AI into connecting me to someone by text; no, no one would even use their voice to speak to me---a worker very politely and very quickly solved my problem. I appreciate him.

But for this to happen, I had to waste my time, try to control my temper, and I had to trick your blasted system.

Your company has deliberately set up an obstacle course.

I am FUCKING FURIOUS. I have had enough. I have been through this too many times with Comcast and other telecom companies.

I am not satisfied. And I am not dropping this. I'm going to cause wasted time, frustration, and money for Comcast. I am going to feature this on my weekly show.

This post I am writing to you is going on my Substack.

I am going to do everything I can to show Comcast the contempt and frustration that your company showed me.

How dare this company charge me the usury rates it does for this treatment?

John, none of this is directed at you personally. You're kind to respond to me, and I know that you have no control over these decisions. Thank you for being a human.

But no. This is not OK, and it's not over.