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RamboLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-24-08 11:07 PM
Original message
Griping Online? Comcast Hears You and Talks Back
Source: NY Times

PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast’s practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide.

He assumed he was writing for his own benefit. “It feels like nobody ever really reads my blog,” he said. “Nobody has left a comment in months.”

Shortly afterward, he received an e-mail message from Comcast, thanking him for the feedback and adding that it was working on a new interactive guide that might “illuminate the issues that you are currently experiencing.”

Mr. Dilbeck found it all a bit creepy. “The rest of his e-mail may as well have read, ‘Big Brother is watching you,’ ” he said.

But Frank Eliason, digital care manager at Comcast, says he was just trying to help.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/technology/25comcast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin



Hey Comcast - if you're reading this - YOU SUCK! F*CK You for moving MSNBC in Pittsburgh from 31 to the digital tier of 183! Believe me, I'm looking to dump you!
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napi21 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-24-08 11:15 PM
Response to Original message
1. Close friends of mine live in Pgh and were strong fans of KO! They are
more than pissed at Comcast! They don't have the $$ to afford the digital tier! If I still lived there, I'd be screaming bloody murder!
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MidwestTransplant Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-24-08 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Is this weird? I just got an Faux Business Channel ad bot ad in this thread
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unapatriciated Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 02:37 AM
Response to Original message
3. Mr. Eliason if your listening.....
We want Olberman back. You can move Fox and Friends and the fox network and give us back MSNBC and Olberman.
I have been looking into alternatives also.
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whathappened Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 05:58 AM
Response to Original message
4. getting out of hand
Edited on Fri Jul-25-08 05:59 AM by whathappened
seems like every where ya go fox news is on in doc offices and business every where , i think they are being fed some sort of Semolina messages to brain wash the masses who watch this channel , call me nuts , when ya talk to any body who loves fox they seem to repeat just what fox is giving them
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Doremus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #4
11. If I'm paying for services and the entity receiving my money wants to indoctrinate me
with their Fox propaganda, I politely request they turn on any other channel. If they can't seem "to get to it right away," my requests become louder each time.

Try it! Silence gains us nothing!
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Frank Cannon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-06-08 06:51 AM
Response to Reply #11
16. Here's your answer: Just turn their set off with TV-B-Gone.
http://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php

I'm told these are also available at Target and OfficeMax.
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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 06:01 AM
Response to Original message
5. How will 'they' know which ads to send if they are not profiling you or filtering content? nt
:shrug:
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wellst0nev0ter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 02:57 PM
Response to Original message
6. Comcast, If You Can Read This
Bring back Olbermann.

Oh, and stop cancelling services whenever there's some rain falling. I've already called you bastards twice about that problem, maybe this will get through. God, that gets fucking annoying.
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Endangered Specie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 03:06 PM
Response to Original message
7. Its a sad day when I feel good about having Time Warner...
better the devil you know than the one you don't I guess.
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heliarc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. Comcast used to give me CSPAN and CSPAN2 on the basic tier...
Time Warner took CSPAN 2 away from me when they took over our area.
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Endangered Specie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 05:13 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. You can get 1 thru 3 online at cspan.org though
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Newsjock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 04:21 PM
Response to Original message
9. He actually helped me
When I was trying to get new service installed after moving, Comcast gave me the total run-around and screw-over, refusing to honor published prices, unilaterally cancelling my installation, and so on. After seeing Eliason's email address posted over on Consumerist, I sent him a note of desperation, and he actually made everything right, and I got installation the next week at the price I expected.

Fortunately, I haven't had to deal with the company since then, but it was mildly refreshing to see someone actually have the power to cut through all the crap. Of course, if the crap hadn't been created in the first place, they wouldn't need a Frank Eliason to cut through it.
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Veronica.Franco Donating Member (752 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 05:28 PM
Response to Original message
12. Comcast SUCKS ...
I will read smoke signals before I'll ever use them again ... They installed not ONE, but TWO boxes and neither of them worked ... I told them I'd leave their BROKEN box (the second time) out on the deck and they should just pick it up and leave the THIRD one there in it's box ... I could hook it up myself ... WELL, they refused to do that stating that someone might steal it off my private elevated (10 feet off the ground)deck that FACED nothing but OAK TREES ... since I work during Comcast's business hours and couldn't DRIVE all the way over to their hole in the wall to help them provide service to me I went without the box for the next month too ... FINALLY, I took it back to their office and told them to STUFF IT ... Satellite ... no more problems ...
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bitchkitty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 07:11 PM
Response to Original message
13. Big Brother? Mr. Dilbeck is an idiot.
If you have a blog and you post things to that blog, expect it to be read. That's kind of the point, isn't it?

What's creepy about having a complaint about a company, making it public, then having a response from a rep of that company?

That said, Comcast sucks. So do Verizon, Time Warner, and all of them. But this is a non-issue...
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Chovexani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-25-08 07:42 PM
Response to Original message
14. A lot of companies do this
Edited on Fri Jul-25-08 07:45 PM by Chovexani
They have people whose sole purpose is to monitor talk about the company online. Word of mouth about a shitty service experience, or even absolute bullshit from a disgruntled employee or customer can spread like wildfire online and smart companies pay attention to what's going on. It happened at my old job; a couple of disgruntled asshole students wrote a hackjob post on Ripoff Report and caused a whole crew of people to not show up for registration. I take everything said on sites like that with a boulder of salt now.

Comcast is a rather hilarious example since there's legit stories about their douchebaggery on The Consumerist almost weekly. And inevitably some PR flack posts a dumb response and gets taken to the woodshed.
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jenkobass Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-06-08 04:55 AM
Response to Original message
15. COMCAST
THEY DID IT HERE IN WATERBURY, CT, TOO!! BUT THEY DIDN'T CHANGE FOX NOISE OR CNN. 3 MONTHS BEFORE THE ELECTION!!! ARE THEY DOING THIS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY? SOMETHING STINKS!!!
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radfringe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-06-08 06:51 AM
Response to Original message
17. not related to programming channels
we dumped comcast last year due to other issues

went with Dish and we love it

yes, there are times the signal is lost due to weather conditions - longest we "lost" a signal was about an hour
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