Comcast Followup

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the nightmare we had when our first Comcast bill came after we switched to digital cable and also switched to their phone service. Both my hubby and I called and ranted about different things, and both service reps gave us various credits on our bill to try to appease us. Well, we've now received 2 bills since that first one that sent us over the edge, and we still have credit. I think it is down to $2.63 credit, so we will actually have to pay something next month. I'll be curious to see how much it really is going to be. I may have to call and complain again about something (it won't be hard).

This is a recurring theme in this blog, but it bears repeating: The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease. If you are unhappy about something for which you are paying, complain. At the very least, you can blow off some steam and get it off your chest, but more often than not, you'll get something.

Beware of Sneaky Comcast Salespeople

When I got laid off, one of the first things I did was to review our spending habits. For everything--food, entertainment, clothing, utilities. Everything. Phone, Internet, and Cable TV were tops on my list, because all the different companies crow about how much money we can save by bundling all our services through them. So, I started to do my research. Qwest, our phone company, had just started to advertise FiOS Internet services, which sounded pretty good to my techie hubby. I received a flyer in the mail, and called their 800-line to ask questions. I was immediately confused. The rep on the phone could not corroborate any of the information in the flyer. Everything was a different deal. After many phone calls and many different "spins" on the different services and packages, we almost figured out a package that might work for us. Then, we finally realized that unlike Verizon, Qwest did not send the DirecTV signal over the FiOS line, and that we would have to get a dish, which does not work well in our neighborhood.

I had decided not to do anything at this point because we did not want to move our land line to Comcast because we did NOT want digital voice. Along came Theresa Tsukahara (yes, I am naming names, because there are no innocent to protect) to my door one day. She had a Comcast name tag, Comcast business cards, and a sheaf of Comcast flyers. She told me straight to my face that Comcast's new phone service was IDENTICAL to Qwest's and that without a doubt we would never lose phone service if our power or cable went out. She even went so far as to say that we could use a standard wired phone with Comcast, just like Qwest. I must have made her repeat this statement a dozen times because I did not believe it. But, she convinced me. After all, she was from what I could tell, a licensed Comcast representative. She said it would have unlimited long distance and a $14.99/month charge for the first year.

I talked it over with my husband and we were beginning to be interested, especially since Theresa had also told us that if we first signed up for the phone service, then she could get us a really great deal on digital cable and a DVR for the first year. Since we needed to go to digital cable anyway because of the digital conversion coming up, we went for it.

We got our phone on May 15. Everything seemed to be great. On May 22, we were visited by another Comcast "rep," Rejeana Hartzell, who said we were going to be getting digital cable AND the DVR for $4.99/month the first year. OK, that should have been a warning bell right there because that was so cheap, but she kept saying it. We had to choose either Starz or Showtime free for a year to get this price, so we chose Starz. She looked my husband in the face and told him the DVR would give him 35-40 hours of HD recording capacity. He was thrilled. Also, she said she would upgrade our internet to a faster speed for free.

So, the upgrade was installed. We immediately missed the friendly interface and ba-doink sound of TiVO, but were willing to deal with their DVR for the added capacity and the HD recording capability. We weren't thrilled with the whole Digital TV interface, either. Then, my hubby noticed that after putting only about 10 hours of programming on the DVR, it was saying 60% full.

Fast forward to yesterday when our first bill came and I just about had a coronary. It was NOT anything close to what I had anticipated. Granted, it was for a little longer than a month because of when we switched over to the new services, but still, it was heinous. I picked up the phone and was flabbergasted by what I was told:

1. The $4.99/month was ONLY for the DVR for the first year. The regular cable channels 1-99 are the same price as they were before we upgraded, and it was only the channels over 100 that we get free for a year. OK, it is possible to see where we misunderstood what Rejeana said about this.
2. Starz is being billed at $18/month. Umm...that's not free! I had them take it off immediately, as we only added it to "qualify" for the better price on the digital package.
3. The internet speed did not get upgraded.

I complained enough, named names enough, that I eventually got escalated to a customer care specialist, who gave me credit for this, that, and the other, and essentially reduced this bill from $198 to $87. She dropped Starz off and lowered my cable and Internet each from $55/month to $29/month for the next year. She couldn't tell me anything about DVR capacity, so I told her I would make my hubby call the tech people.

When my hubby called the tech people, he found out:

1. The phone is Digital Voice, and will last only 12-18 hours after power or cable failure. This is 100% opposite what Theresa told us.
2. The DVR we have has a HD recording capacity of 15 hours. The best ones out there available through Comcast has only 20 hours, max. 35-40, huh, Rejeana?

The customer service person he talked to credited us our ENTIRE bill for this month for our trouble. Still, we are really upset (you have probably already figured this out after reading this longwinded post) and will be switching our phone back to Qwest the next time they come crawling back to us asking us to come back. We will also be buying a digital TiVO and switching back to that far superior service as soon as the year is up (and probably sooner--maybe even in the fall when all the new shows start up again).

Both of the customer care specialists that my hubby and I talked to really bad-mouthed the "door-to-door" Comcast salespeople. How in the HECK is anyone supposed to be able to find a good deal on these things if the message given by different parts of the company (sales, tech support, etc.) is completely different!

No "moral" to this story; just a cautionary tale to not trust anyone who comes to your door professing to be from Comcast, or Qwest, or anyone. Call their 800 number (and good luck with that as well).

National Geographic on Saving Energy

I've been away for a while, thanks to a really nasty bout of stomach flu (a quick, inexpensive way to lose weight, though not a method I'd necessarily recommend). As energy was one of the last topics I wrote about, I thought I would follow up by mentioning this article in National Geographic, March 2009. It's a very interesting article about how saving energy starts at home, and chronicles several families' attempts to lower their carbon footprint by lowering their energy use. I really enjoy National Geographic magazine, and thought this was a well-written, thought-provoking piece.

Vampire Power?

No, I'm not talking about the combined resources of several hundred Twilight-crazed teenage girls, I'm talking about the power that your electrical gizmos (supposedly) suck down even when they are turned off.

I've read quite a bit online about vampire power, just go out to your search engine of choice and see what I mean. So, the other night when I saw a story on Evening Magazine about this topic, I stopped and watched, and was very surprised by what I saw. Featured on the story was the King County Eco Expert, and he went through a typical Puget Sound home with an energy monitor, to see how much power the appliances and gizmos were pulling when they were not in use, and translated that into how much per month you could save by unplugging them. A cordless phone costs about 11 cents per month (based on average energy rates in the Puget Sound area), while a computer printer costs about 19 cents per month. I think overall, based on all the electronics they tested (microwave, digital picture frame, phone, computer, printer, flat-screen Energy Star TV), they would only save 73 cents per month. I was surprised. From all the other things I've read online, like this article, I would have expected the savings to be far greater.

So, I'll keep unplugging the obvious things--cell phone charger, iPod charger, etc.--when not in use, but I don't know that I am going to go to any other great lengths (like buying a smart power strip) at this point. I guess my point today is to think twice about leaving things plugged in when they are not in use, but don't go overboard. A good place to start might be a free energy audit if your local electric utility offers one.

The Cost of Background Noise

One thing I am trying NOT to do while I am at home during the day is turn on the TV for "company," or background noise. I read recently that a 42-inch plasma TV can use more energy per day than the average REFRIGERATOR, even when only turned on for a couple of hours per day. No way am I going to waste that much energy just to keep myself company, especially when it spends plenty of time on at night when everyone is home.

See the whole article from the Wall Street Journal here. And, if you have to get a flat-screen TV, look for one that is Energy Star compliant. I sure wish my husband had.

Saving Energy

When I was going through our filing cabinet the other day, I came across a little brochure published by Washington Natural Gas in 1995 titled Saving By Degrees: No Cost and Low Cost Ways to Save Energy and Money. Even though it was relatively old, I read through it, and found a few tidbits that I thought to be worth sharing (my comments are in green). All of these came from the "no cost" section of the pamphlet:

• On the average, for each degree you consistently lower your thermostat, your energy consumption drops by 2 percent. If you set your daytime temperature at 65 degrees (not even I am that cheap--67 is about as low as I can stand it) instead of 70 degrees, and your nighttime temperature at 55 degrees instead of 60 degrees (ours is at 63 at night, which, again, is plenty cold for me), your annual heating bill will drop by about 10 percent.
• Water heaters typically consume the second highest amount of energy in the home, behind only the furnace. By setting the thermostat at 120 degrees, or low, you can save money and reduce the risk of scalding. Washington State law (as of 1995) requires that all new water heaters be preset at 120 degrees. For health considerations, do not set the thermostat temperature below 120 degrees F. We have drawn a line with Sharpie on our water heater temperature dial so that we know exactly where to set it, in case it gets bumped (which it does surprisingly often).
• Drain five to 10 gallons of water from the bottom of the water heater at least once a year to flush out sediments and keep your water heater operating efficiently. Connect a hose to the drain valve and let the water flow until it turns clear. Be sure to shut the drain valve completely. This is something we've never done before, but it makes sense.

For what it's worth...