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Comcast Awarded the Golden Poo Award
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.'"
That's Xfinity, you insensitive clods!
A black hole is where God divided by 0
I have dealt with several different cable and internet companies and I have to agree that IMO Comcast is by far the worst. Their prices are outrages when looking at what you get compared to what you pay. On top of that their tech support has been severly lacking. Honestly I am paying $110 for half of the services I was getting from Verizon FIOS and I was paying only $90 from VZ. The only reason I have comcast again is because unfortunately when i moved FIOS wasn't available for my Apartment Complex. Those who defend Comcast really need to look at the price comparisons and customer service reviews between them, FIOS, DirectTV, and hell even Dish network. Now I know a lot of people have local companies that they go through as well FYI I used to have Adelphia before comcast bought them. So in the end YES COMCAST DESERVES THIS AWARD.
Awesome!
Pretty sure they won it last year too!
There is a war going on for your mind.
"We'll be there between 8-12, and we'll call you the day of the appointment. If you do not answer this phone call, the appointment will be canceled." - An automated message prior to a service visit from Comcast Yea, CANCELED! So, if I'm on the phone, in the bathroom, or otherwise incapable of answering this idiotic call in a 4-hour bracket, the service is canceled. This has happened to me before, months ago, and I yelled at several people about this to no avail. Today, we actually had a service call for work... answered the phone call, and even after waiting 4 hours, they're still not here. Comcast's only success is ABSOLUTE FAILURE. Someone please take this company away.
Worst Cable Company Ever!
He called the shit "poop".
There's no problem with Comcast at all, as long as your internet activities don't reach beyond e-mail and browsing a few web pages every day.
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Unfortunately, as long as Joe Sixpack and Jeb Nascar continue to pay the monthly bill, Comcast isn't going anywhere.
The only reason I have comcast again is because unfortunately when i moved FIOS wasn't available for my Apartment Complex.
Yep. This is a fine example of what happens when you allow monopolies to exist. They give terrible service at high prices and laugh in the face of 'Golden Poo' awards because they know most of their clients have no alternative.
So they suck. And they rake it in.
A fundamental paradox of capitalism is that in order for the economy to reap the benefits, every business must compete jealously, but no business can ever be allowed to win.
comcast sportsnet chicago IS good and only 20% owned by comcast.
And it's on DIRECTV as well!!!!
In the gaming community, I've noticed a trend where people will drop offline, then reappear, explaining that they'd been "Comcast'd". Take that as you will.
WTH? 2010 just started. We have another 7 months for them to sink to new lows, thus setting the bar for oncoming years...
This prize should not represent the oncoming years expected corporate behavior from past customer atrocities!
*This message brought to you by ACME products. Not a division of Disney Co.
.. that make fun of the change to Xfinity.
I have Verizon Fios, and it's great. They don't block port 80. They don't bitch at me if I download a new Linux DVD ISO. I get all the channels I pay for, and their HD is pretty good (although they've ratcheted up the compression since the infamous frame-by-frame comparison to Comcast... *cough*... Xfinity).
The on-demand and DVR functions are what I use the most, and I'm generally happy with the service.
Then again, for $200/month, I expect to be happy.
...and still count the problems I've had with them on one hand, including the massive @Home outage.
Meanwhile, I love the 20Mbps connection that's more reliable that most of my client's DSL and T1 lines. And two years ago they rolled a truck to fix a problem caused by a repair crew working on a different issue about 45 minutes after my phone call.
Comcast Here Is My List of Ideas to be better.
Lower your prices not that much a but a little bit (The box rent part is the real bad part)
Don't mess up csn chicago with the nbc take over. But keep up with VS takeing our feed in the playoffs. Also can we get nhl extra in HD next year?
also open CSN / bears VOD to dish, directv , wow. rcn, and u-verse.
VS ALT HD ALL SYSTEMS
Put CSN + back on the DTA's. Why not use INFO SD mirror of INFO HD / CSN + HD and make CLTV full time?
WOW can have CSN, CSN + and CSN + 2 on analog so why not on a DTA on comcast?
Good job with letting others have CLTV
add CLTV HD or at least put in on INFO HD / CSN + HD
NEXT TIME CSN + 2 HD and not just make it sd only
Put speed in starter for the full Chicago area why is part in starter and part in sports pack?
also why is fox movie in the sports pack?
Let all other systems have the Chicago Wolves games that are cocmast only at this time.
have a guild that does not look like crap on a HD tv.
Mirror the HD channels to the same number as SD.
and one last thing LAY OFF ON THE HD compression!
For their fight against Net Neutrality alone they deserve the worst company in America award. Anyone that fights against a principal freedom, and takes that freedom away from the public deserves to be held in contempt. No amount of customer service friendliness can ever undo that damage, and that's what Comcast just doesn't get.
With all the stupid rubes in America, this does no good. Since their rebrand to Xfinity, idiots (and you wouldn't believe the amount of them) think it's a different company.
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Go ATT Uverse... much better service IMO
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So Comcast which rips off people and doesn't try to hide it gets this award? How about the banks that ripped people off, demanded bailouts, and continue ripping people off and bonusing themselves to this day? They're fifty times worse, but no one seems to care since they don't hinder us from watching Sunday Night Football.
Only when the creature comforts like entertainment are affected does someone really seem to notice or care... Golden Poo Award needs to be splattered over the Consumerist's face.
Couldn't have gone to a more deserving company. Comcast spared no effort at inconveniencing me at every turn when I was their customer, which was only because I had no other internet options beyond dial-up.
This is why choice is so important. Without choice, USA *IS* Soviet Russia.
Go fuck yourselves Comcast.
I would have to say Sallie Mae first for the golden poo Then comcast and then Charter Communications
We were lucky enough to do the reverse - switch from Comcast to Verizon FIOS. I have issues with Verizon too, but the price difference is significant. When I called Comcast to end their service they asked me for a reason. With great satisfaction I replied that they clearly were charging me too much due to their $22M video wall. I made a point of confirming that the agent documented the video wall in their record.
Comcast will not rest on it's laurels until it has won the Golden Poo awards for three years running! Then they will place the Golden Poo awards in the corporate lobby.
After three Golden Poo awards they qualify for the Golden Steaming Pile award where the trophy is four feet tall and comes with logos for their letterhead and stickers for all of their trucks.
Of course, those of us who are Comcast customers can suggest that they be given special dispensation and a special award granted before the three years running requirement.
Tisha Hayes
Are they not considering DirecTV to be a company? I don't see any possible way Comcast could take this award over DirecTV. Since I switched to Comcast, they have been straight forward with their billing, I get what I pay for, and if my gear craps out on a Friday night I can get it changed out on Saturday. I'm failing to see what's so terrible about them.
My switch was:
Qwest DSL (1.5Mb, ~$40/month)
DirecTV (~$70/month)
Total: ~$110/month
To:
Comcast internet service (22 down, 5 up, typically measures out to 30+ down and 15+ up) (~$68/month)
Comcast limited cable (channels 2-30, as I was hardly watching TV) (~$15/month)
Total price: ~$83/month
Also, DirecTV had the absolute worst customer service I've ever experienced, while Comcast's has honestly been pretty good.
They are rather secure.
Comcast Chicago sucks and has been that way for a long time.
As starting about 3-4 years ago they moved stuff for analog to digital and forced you to get cable box at $5+ /m each.
Round 1 was analog turn off city of Chicago.
1.5? was out side of city moving analog stuff to higher level digital with way less analog trun off.
For align time they have locked in CLTV
at least now it's open to any system.
Now they need to open up the Chicago wolves as well. (all games not just a few on WPWR)
As late as last year they had sci-fi in the high tear digital at the same time when other comcast systems had it in analog / starter.
they also put speed in sports pack as well. Other systems have in starter / analog.
Over priced HD and HD DVR boxes $16+ per tv? + higher base rates then Directv?
Almost no other company in the history of the world has ever so richly deserved the bestowal of the great and glorious Golden Poo Award!
Congratulations Comcraptic! You worked very hard to achieve your utterly disgusting record.
When asked for a comment, a spokesperson replied "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the cable company *snort*"
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
"I hear that Monsanto is asking for recount -- http://www.monsanto.com/foodinc/." he said satirically.
OK granted Comcast is horrible and I will never buy service from them, but The Worst Company in America? Has no one heard of Monsanto?
Did Charter get honorable mention at least?
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
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?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
spun, you post on this subject a lot. I am certain, if we ever met in person, we would have a lot to talk about.
However, your post on this subject is only 1/2 of the story. It is a fact that the Community Reinvestment Act played a part in the loan debacle. Fraud also played a part but I don't hear you complaining about the "liars" who lied on their loan docs.
To explain "the great recession" without mentioning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac role is disingenuous at best. And just so we are clear -- FNM and FMC are 100% government creations. Go read up on the history of those entities and then ask yourself: "does their very existence change the game?". Yes. Yes it does. I am not saying that is a good/bad thing. I am only saying that their very existence - by default - changed how the mortgage market works. I contend it changed the market for the worse because it gave people an abnormally low cost of capital.
I am hear to keep you honest, spun. You have good ideas and good replies.....but you need to be honest about both sides of the equation. It's not just "greedy, fat cat, republican bankers and politicians" that caused this mess. Plenty of misguided ideology is also responsible.
I find it interesting that someone gets the award for 2010 when we aren't even halfway through the year. What happens when someone in the second half of the year bests them?
They should be on free tv or all systems and in HD.
digital conversion better fix the no CSN + on DTA's and how about mapping HD channels to the SD numbers as well?
And move speed to starter as well.
It'd go to Rogers. No question. Contemptuous bunch of bastards they are.
Well deserved, and hard earned!
Trust me on this. They are really frustrating to deal with. When everything works, the worst part is that they sell XMb down/1mb up at $50/mo, cxld usenet, etc..
When it doesn't work, it takes them months to get a problem fixed. They don't listen, and make you follow scripts, even if it's the 10th time you've done it.
I'm all for scripts btw, but at least listen to what I have to say!
My biggest problem is that they don't have a lower tiered broadband package, which effectively eliminates the option for decent web browsing by "lower paid" citizens. Seriously, 10Mb down for $45/mo and no 5Mb or hell, 2.5 Mb option for $30?
Dsl doesn't count... btw.
$20 / month is $240 a year, and that is a signifigant amount of $ for some folks.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
While I've never been a consumer customer of ComCast (they avoid serving rural areas), I do have personal experience with their business class service. The two Docsis 3 modems at work provide in aggregate 100 mb/s x 20 mb/s @ ~$400/mo and the performance, up-time & customer service have been a pleasant surprise.
I would have thought most Wall Street companies and financial services would win the award easy. Comcast maybe the single worst company but the combined criminals at Wall Street and financial companies would be worst than Comcast by far.
Just put on days when the blackhawks are not on!
anyone else notice that all of this commodore64's post are modded. Must have multiple accounts or friends bumping up all his responses. Welcome to Capitalism my friend. Charge what the market wil bare. Also the amount of channels offered varies market to market changing the price. DTV and Dish...same price no matter where you are.
The WOW (Wide Open West) guys have been trenching in the commons area here for the last week and I just got the WOW brochure in my mailbox. More service for less money. I'm guessing I have to endure Comcast for only a few more weeks! Thank you to our city council for insisting there be cable competition here in Rochester MI.
This award in not a joke. My experience supporting my own place and parents and in-laws, 6 total in multiple states, convinces me that Comcast is indeed the worst company in America.
No one put a gun to my head and said "take on too much debt and buy a house you can't afford."
Just based on experience I still prefer Comcast to SBC. Sure they call it AT&T, since the acquisition, but its still really SBC.
There's no problem with Comcast at all, as long as your internet activities don't reach beyond e-mail and browsing a few web pages every day.
I like to put it other words: there is no problem with Comcast, as long as you weren't planning on doing anything useful.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Comcastic!
If you want to use a MiFi or other 3G device as your primary Internet access, be advised that it isn't designed for people who download more than 5 GB per month. One can easily rack that up by watching YouTube or Netflix Watch Instantly or even applying software updates to several PCs in a household.
When the installer came to install my Comcast service even HE had to wait on hold when he had to call into the office for something -- for an hour! Needless to say, we had a bit of time to chat while he waited. Come to find out that he lived in a part of my city that had a choice of cable providers, and he himself said he would never be a Comcast subscriber if he could help it....
Comcast may get the golden poo, but they are also the only company locally that actually invests in infrastructure. Where I live, 25 miles from San Jose; the supposed heart of the Silicon Valley I have two choices for broadband. Comcast at $65/month for a download rate of 20Mb/s bursting to 35-40Mb/s and 1-2Mb/s upload or AT&T at $60/month for a download rate of 4.5Mb/s unless its raining or windy and 350kb/s upload. There are microwave solutions and I suppose I could order up my own dedicated OC3 but the fact of the matter is neither of these are good solutions based on price alone.
Who would you choose?
I disagree, you get a lot for what you pay but HAVING to pay a certain amount and not being able to select what you want is annoying at the very least. In the past, it wasn't possible to allow this kind of thing but having to choose between a few packages and you can't have top tier channels without having bottom ones is ridiculous. But, I do think the award should have been given to AT&T as their services are horrible, their customer support is less that helpful, and often times it's almost an impossibility to pay your bills over the phone. At the very least, Comcast offers for the most part, excellent quality, the best customer support I have seen (second to verizon), and it's creepy easy to pay your bills. At least you get quality and reliability when you use comcast, regardless of the cost. AT&T on the other hand is sh---t no matter what part of the company you're talking about. I miss having comcast sometimes :(
Jesus, I had Comcast when I was down in Salt Lake....but after moving to Canada, Shaw sells me the exact same service I was getting for $80 down there for $160 here in Fort McMurray...and I gladly pay for it because the Bell satellite alternative costs just as much.
Same thing with f*ing cell service.
You do realize that TV isn't a life essential service, right?
Oddly, you'd think so. However, if you check with Comcast it isn't true. If your TV is out, you can get a service call that same day, usually within a couple hours. If your internet fails, couple days maybe. Net access is a much larger priority to most of us than TV, but it doesn't rate according to those cunts. My internet was down, my VoIP service was down, no 911, no nothing, I called from my cell and they said tough shit, you're out of luck.
This sort of thing is standard fare for them. My internet is going from $40 to $60 and nothing was changed, no better service, no increase in spead .. just a price hike. Fuck Them.
Hughes is limited by satellite bandwidth. It's a reality limitation and not something you can blame Hughes for, unless you expect them to pump away all the atmosphere so they can aim a laser at your house. Hughes is for places where there's no alternative, and if you didn't realise that, you weren't paying attention.
By the way, you should fire your ESL teacher.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
...but going after service providers may be a bit shortsighted.
Access providers and service providers were once one and the same. Telephony, Video, and other services were used as justification to build out the access network. Internet running over coax or twisted pair are innovations that came about after a substantial investment was made. Find a major US access provider that did not originate as a service provider. Over the 2000's, service providers that didn't control access networks came to compete the services offered by those access providers. With the migration of nearly every kind of service to IP, the same access/service providers find themselves with the burden of having their access networks pseudo-nationalized by proponents of net neutrality, while at the same time having fierce competition to their service offerings by unregulated over the top players. The same companies are required to meet regulatory requirements for providing 911, CALEA, and increasing rates from content providers, while their unregulated over-the-top competition merely faces the technical challenge of optimizing the service delivery path and funding lobbyists to support continued regulation of access.
Although many feel strongly that internet access is a utility, and should be regulated as something people should have a right to have, we should understand that the costs to bring this access to homes is very high. Access to bandwidth 4-8 times that of a T1 at about 1/10th the cost is a bargain, and the only way the math works is through oversubscription and the sale of bundled services.
With Internet access/service providers on the defensive on all fronts - access, telephony service, video service, and internet value-adds (email, etc) - it should be no surprise that these companies see other revenue streams, either in adjacent markets, content provider ownership, or new models (pay-per-byte).
The bizarre irony of all of it is that darlings of the tech world, Google, Apple, and Adobe, are working very hard to lock consumers into their own channels. Google, using an ad-supported model, churns out services at a feverish pace, but only to wrap you into the services and intermediate all other service providers and their customers. Apple, enforcing strict control over their environments in an attempt to channel consumers into a high-margin Apple world. Adobe, working to be the content deliverer for "any screen" by providing the "one platform" with Flash and Air. Each works to lock users and developers into their sticky feature sets, happy that Joe User's hard feelings are directed at the service provider. They take some heat, but is it commensurate to the potential threat to consumer choice?
Whatever the outcomes are for access/service providers, there will be a platform and privacy fight for you waiting when the dust clears.
i know they have limits but they lie to you saying they dont. they are not upfront abought there offers.
Don't fuck with the bread and circus (cheetos and TV) - the plebians will rise and destroy you.
Mess around with a few billion that the great unwashed can't even visualise - home free.
I've only had comcast since October of last year, but I've had no problems with them.. and my download/upload speeds are pretty good compared to all other ISPs I've used in the past.
$4.99/2 quite the bargain
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
spun, I had much hope for our discussion but it is clear you are nothing more than a radical and a shill. You don't even have the slightest grasp of "how things work" and instead of trying to learn and genuinely understand, you just mouth off a bunch of nonsense. As it stands, I don't entertain such banality so good luck to you and your "facts".