Oct 19
Rocket Science
Last month, I mentioned that my apartment complex entered into an agreement with Comcast, my local cable provider, to get basic cable service for all of its residents. In exchange, Comast lowered the monthy fees to $40, down from a total of roughly $56 or so (which includes taxes and fees), and we now pay that $40 as part of our rent.
In the end, it’s saves us all money if we already had Comcast service. I’m all for that.
The only missing ingredient for this to actually work, of course, is Comcast adjusting our bills so that we don’t get charged the old rate. And that isn’t happening.
This new billing procedure went into effect on October 1st, which means that when I paid rent this month, I paid $40 more, and I no longer owed Comcast a cent. But I got a bill from Comcast saying that I owed them $58 for service. I called them and was told I would have to get my apartment complex to call. I did. In fact, I was there when she called to get everything straightened out. They assured her that the bill I got in October would be corrected so that I wouldn’t owe them anything.
Oh, yeah. You know exactly where this is going.
Yep.
I got my Comcast bill yesterday. Not only did they not correct last month’s billing error, but they charged me an additional month’s service, so I now have a total balance of $116. I called them again and was given the standard, “Have your apartment office call our business office” line, and was told that they’d have this whole mess straightened out in time for November’s bill. The problem, it seems, was that they didn’t get all of the information they needed to get the billing straightened out. They did, however, get all of the information they asked for, which leads me to believe that it’s their screw-up. It doesn’t help at all that their attitude of “have your people call my people” means it’ll be another full month before I get a bill that shows what I already know: that I owe them nothing.
Is it too much to ask that a business you pay money to actually fixes a problem when it’s first pointed out? No waiting around, no failure to act, no blaming someone else for not doing something they weren’t even asked to do.
Just fix it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask at all.
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(4.50 out of 5)
October 19th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
You seem to be a billing nightmare magnet. And it could be affecting your credit rating - a late payment can make your rate go down, even though it was their mistake. You might want to check.
We have Comcast here as well; fortunately I haven’t had any big problems with them aside from long, slow lines at their office.
October 19th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Heh heh. Wait till you’re older and start dealing with Medicare…AND with the vendors who bill you instead of Medicare.
Or who have already been paid by Medicare, bill you too and then say YOU have to sort it out. Advice: by the third bill, it usually is corrected. Be patient and keep good records!
October 20th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Too much to ask? No. Too much to expect today, most likely.