Sneaky little bastards, Comcast are...

So, happy Labor Day, first off... what better day to deal with Comcast's "24/7" chat support service?

Not that dealing with that service should have been necessary... a little over a year back, I grumbled about Comcast billing me for cable TV service when their own bill showed that I wasn't signed up for it, a fight I won. Little did I suspect that, buried in the price for Internet service, was a line item for "modem rental"... which, considering I have always owned my own modem, is more than a bit odd.

No worries though, a quick email to their support people should put that right, right? I mean, fill out their form, tell them who I am, what the problem is, and their people will look into it and either fix it straight away, or let me know why they think I'm wrong, right? No such luck... two days later, I get emailed back (to paraphrase), "Oh, you've got a billing problem? Well, you'll need to use our live chat system to get that fixed."

So I do the chat, where I'm informed that they've been charging that fee on my account since last March (yes, I'm sorry I didn't notice it, since your online billing service doesn't provide a full breakout of charges unless you download a .pdf of what your paper bill would look like), and am I sure that I really own the modem I'm using (which I still have the flippin' retail box for, so yes). Of course, the chat rep can't do anything about it, but has to kick a ticket upstairs for review, so they'll get back to me on it. Honest.

Oh, how I wish I had another viable option to jump ship to right now. Unfortunately, DSL in my neighborhood is still stuck at (theoretically) 1.5Mbps, which might be fast enough for my needs, if theory and reality were well-aligned (but, knowing the phone system here, they certainly aren't). Oh well, grit those teeth and bear it a while longer, I suppose... although I may have to look at wireless options before terribly long.