Comcast Awarded the Golden Poo Award 286
ISoldat53 writes "The Consumerist has awarded Comcast the Golden Poo award for the worst company in America. From the article: 'After four rounds of bloody battle against some of the most publicly reviled businesses in America, Comcast can now run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and hold its hands high in victory — it has bested everyone else to earn the title of Worst Company In America for 2010.'"
Well deserved (Score:5, Informative)
Almost $800 to watch TV. (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. Comcast is the worst. They also:
- kick off users for exceeding undefined GB download limits
- sell 25 Mbit/s lines that are actually only 5 Mbit/s - no better than DSL but twice as costly.
- force users to switch to Digital Cable which is incompatible with VCRs or DVRs
- And even if said boxes were compatible, the Digital boxes don't allow the user to tape one show while watching another live.
- Hold a Monopoly and bribe politicians to keep out competitors
- Bought out NBC Universal, so Comcast can censor any anti-comcast dissent from NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, Syfy, Telemundo, and so on.
Worst.
Company.
Ever.
Lending their name to a new verb... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Surprise Surprise! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Surprise Surprise! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Surprise Surprise! (Score:2, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm a Vz employee, and yes I'm invlolved with the FIOS build-out.
Is FIOS available anywhere on/near your street? If Fios is in your area and the apartment owner is willing to sign a contract with us, we will be glad to come in, place cable, retrofit internal wiring etc and make FIOS available to your complex. Believe me, we want all the MDU's (apts/condos/town houses) we can get. . .
As a former employee... (Score:5, Informative)
They are actually proud of this. We used to have meetings on how to screw the customer or limit service calls. The forced digital rollout of the lower channels is the holy grail. if they can force everyone to have to have QAM tuners, then they can force encrypted QAM and simply never do a disconnect again. This will allow them to lay off 90% of the workforce and the last 10% stay as contractors.
Did not pay your bill? box deactivated and you no longer have cable tv. no need to roll a truck.
and yes they ARE working on that.
Re:OK, OK... (Score:5, Informative)
The Golden Poo award is a vote-off between 32 nominees, akin to March Madness.
Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, Capital One, AIG, were all part, and voted out of the winning.
Re:As a former employee... (Score:2, Informative)
Honestly this would be a blessing. I contacted comast two months before I was scheduled to deploy for the Air Force. They day of the scheduled termination my cable and internet quit working...
2 months layter they were still BILLING ME because they "couldn't" stop billing me until some lazy sub-contractor got to my apartment building and physically disconnected the cables. It took 2 calls to customer support, and billing, and finally a letter to the BBB to get them to stop billing me and refund the money.
E.S.A.D. Comcast.
Re:Almost $800 to watch TV. (Score:2, Informative)
>>>It's quite well publicized that the download cap is 250GB per month
Bzzzz. Prior to 2008, the cap was unknown. Instead users would just get a call: "You are in the top 5% of highest users and we are yanking service." When asked to provide a specific number, Comcast never did. - Then the FCC stepped in and said "no no no" and comcast came-up with the 250GB number, only because they were caught.
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>>>No, you are not forced to switch to Digital Cable -
I received a notice that I either switches to digital cable (i.e. one free DTV box, plus $5 per month for each additional box), or I will lose all channels above 15.
So yeah I guess technically you're right - I'm nott "forced" to upgrade. I just have no real choice.
.
>>>Try getting your facts straight
My facts are correct. It's just that I don't share your opinion. And that makes you mad. :-)
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>>>if all, or even the vast majority of Comcast customer's had such horrible experience, they would be hemorrhaging subscribers
>>>
What part of "monopoly" did you not understand? There's noplace to "flee" to.
Re:As a former employee... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not. Im talking like they want to encrypt everything to not have any labor costs.
not to lower your bill, but to increase dramatically profit margins while eliminating the nasty evil scumbags that have their own DVR. Oh and gain back the charge per tv in the home they used to enjoy.
Cable box on each TV with it's $5.00 a month charge.. suddenly they have the per TV fee back.
Re:Almost $800 to watch TV. (Score:4, Informative)
>>>each one after that is $1.99 - and this is National pricing.
Now this is interesting. First off, how would you know it's "national" pricing? I guess you'd only know that if you worked for Comcast, because your average customer wouldn't have any clue.
Second, you forgot that prices vary from town to town. In my home it costs $63 a month, but in Baltimore the basic Comcast is only $39.99. Likewise, the costs of the DTV boxes vary. The cost might very well be just $2 in Baltimore, but here in the sparsely-populated countryside they are asking $5.
comcast intimidation (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote to a local news host about this but don't know if they ever followed up on it.
I'd like to preface this by saying I am a former Comcast customer, and switched to Verizon only because they offered (at the time) better performance at a lower price. I think it's good to have multiple companies competing for broadband access and don't wish either company ill.
That said, last week a Comcast salesperson came to our door. I have a bum leg so wife answered the door, but I could hear the conversation.
He tried to sell her on switching to Comcast from our current Verizon FIOS account. My wife said no thank you, we will be staying with our current service.
He wanted to talk about the advantages of switching to Comcast, and she repeated again we weren't interested.
He tried to hand the flyer to her probably five times during the conversation, and she refused to take it. During this time the salesperson got more and more upset. His voice got louder and louder and he became argumentative "Why won't you look at this? What is your problem?"
Wife finally had enough and closed the door. At that point, the salesperson screamed at her "You aren't going to have any choice pretty soon! You might as well switch now!".
Ok, again, I think competition is good, but... what the hell was that?
Re:Do they not consider DirecTV to be a company? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OK, OK... (Score:3, Informative)
What first set of rules were broken? There were no rules, that's the point. There was no such thing as credit default swaps, or even derivatives, before the 1990s.
Re:only 1/2 the answer.... (Score:2, Informative)
Please explain how the Community Reinvestment Act [wikipedia.org] forced banks to make bad loans.
As a final follow-up I'll quote Wikipedia:
The Community Reinvestment Act (or CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2][3] Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.
It doesn't force the banks to make bad loans; however, it does force the banks to make loans in situations where they have determined a greater risk of default (bad loans) and chosen to avoid these risks due to uncertain profitability. Essentially, this ... well, the definitions change now. "Forced to make bad loans" no, nobody says "this paper, this loan is going to default, you know it is, but you must sign it" at all; but they do say "this stack of papers, these applications, you know a significantly higher percentage of them will default, the risks are high, but you must accept them."
Nobody signs over any loan they're 100% sure will default; but rather than refusing to supply credit they're more than 30% sure will default, they have to supply credit even though they're 70% sure it will default based on their statistical analysis of the community, the particular person's income, the particular person's credit history, and the like. Note that these numbers are qualitative and completely made up; but the relationship (one being higher than the other) is very real.
Re:OK, OK... (Score:3, Informative)
You mean the loans that they paid off ahead of schedule, with interest?
Yeah. Big debacle there. If you want to complain about the recovery act, go right ahead. However, it's a bit foolish to single out the single most successful portion of the bill.
We gave loans to GM and the banks so that they could purge their toxic assets, and get back on their feet with the many legitimately-worthwhile portions of their respective businesses. So far, they've exceeded everybody's expectations, especially GM, which most of us had assumed to be moribund just a few months ago.
Re:only 1/2 the answer.... (Score:3, Informative)
You can read the act, too. I just put up that pic to show the democrats and Clinton really had no choice, the republicans made sure it was a done deal. I also linked to the act itself in other posts. It does not do what people claim it does, and it was not pushed through by democrats.
I never try to hide my biases. I make them crystal clear.
Re:Surprise Surprise! (Score:4, Informative)
Comcast - the good
Comcast -the bad
Verizon the good:
Verizonthe bad:
Overall, in my experience Comcast doesn't deserve the award. Though they are currently outclassed, my own experience with them has been great for years. It's only the price/performance that made me switch; before FIOS was an option, I was happy where I was.
Had a problem with Comcast... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OK, OK... (Score:3, Informative)
Do you mean the debt GM paid off with TARP funds? They paid the government back with it's own money.
Re:OK, OK... (Score:2, Informative)
I call bullshit.
Yes, GM did pay back 6.7 billion. Then again, they received about 52 billion. So yeah, go ahead and give them a cheer for paying some back, but they're definitely not the hero's that a lot of people are making them out to be.
By the way, the losses on the money the government gave GM look to exceed around 30 billion.