A guest post - Worst Company in America

A guest post from an anonymous source:

Comcast is the worst company in America. It’s not entirely their fault, of course. In most markets where they operate, they do so as a monopoly. If you want cable TV, you pay them. There is no alternative other than a satellite dish, and in my experience, wherever there is a monopoly there is corruption, incompetence, and arrogance.

Some people think that Comcast is only the second worst company in America. The Consumerist website, after a period of public voting, had Comcast in the finals for “Worst Company In America” for each of the past two years. In 2008, Comcast “lost” that title to Countrywide Home Loans, http://consumerist.com/5027169/worst-company-in-america-final-death-match-comcast-vs-countrywide-home-loans and this year finished again as runner-up to AIG.

You know things are tough when the only companies worse than you are a couple of the poster children for the recent economic meltdown.

On the website, you can find people suggesting that the runner-up trophy for worst company in America be permanently named “The Comcast Award.”

Naturally, I would not be writing about this if I were not a Comcast “customer.”

Here is my (most recent) tale of woe. I am a double Comcast prisoner. We have Comcast cable at the office, and I have it at home. We have it at the office because our Internet access is absolutely mission-critical to everything we do. We cannot afford to be down for even a few hours. Therefore, we pay each month for the local phone company’s high-speed DSL service and for the Comcast cable. In other words we pay double each month simply to insure that if one goes down, we can switch to the other, and hope that the odds are long that both could be down at the same time. So far, so good.

A salesman from Comcast comes to our office and says that because we have this business account, we can also have the Comcast business service (faster, better) at home, too, if we would like. We’ll pay more, of course, but it is available.
Since I have frequent problems with my home service (a Comcast trademark) I say yes to this proposition. A guy comes out to my house and installs the new service.
Beginning a couple of months later, I begin to get calls and letters from the Comcast billing department, threatening to cut off service if I don’t pay up. This I find mysterious since one of my staff pay all my bills, and I know they are paid on time.

There ensued hours of phone calls, the pain (and pain-in-the-ass) of which I cannot begin to describe to you, which lead eventually to the discovery of a “mistake” by Comcast. While they had installed the business service (fast) in my home, and had begun billing me for it, they had neglected to cancel the domestic service (slow) account, and thus had been double billing me for months. Straightening this out was a freaking nightmare. I only kept my sanity by delegating most of it to my employee Dave Meehan who has the patience of a saint.

Now comes the piece de resistance.

I am now getting threatening letters from a collection agency because, they say, I didn’t return to Comcast the router (for the old, slow service) that they took away when they upgraded me to the new service.

So, on top of being double-billed for months, I am now being dunned for a piece of equipment that a Comcast technician removed from my house.

Wonder if these idiots will now besmirch my personal, or business, credit rating?

The Worst Sales Call Ever

So I just received the worst sales call ever. The company shall remain nameless for now. So, the company has a website. I would call them an aggregator. Basically, they take results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN and put it all on their website. (Does anyone really use MSN anymore? Is it actually still a website.) So, the pitch is that I should advertise with them. Fair enough start, right?

He calls me up and tells me about his website. He gives me the URL. I go look at it and he starts telling me about how great the website is. I ask how many hits they get. He tells me the hits are up 200% in the last two weeks. Great. How many hits do they get? Well, it is up to 45,000. Okay, those are good numbers. How many are in California, since I can only represent people in California? He does not know. Apparently, they do not track it. Still no complaints so far.

He then asks me what my marketing budget is. I tell him it is nothing. He asks me what my SEO budget is. I again tell him nothing. He asks who does my SEO. I tell him no one. He asks if I do it. I say no. He is baffled, at this point.

Then he asks me to do a search on their website. Okay, so I am busy right now, but not too busy to spend a few minutes looking at this. Maybe it is the next Google. So I do the search. He starts telling me about how I can pay to have the first result on the search. Great, except I come up first. OOPS! So, he tells me to click the next button. I do and guess what? I come up first. So he tells me to click the 3rd button. I do. Oh, and I come up first again.

He then decides to do the search. He does it and sees the same results. He asks me if I would like to pay to be the first result. Um, I already am. He starts in to his spiel some more. I explain to him that I do not need this because I am one of the best at what I do. (DISCLAIMER: A national magazine said it - not me! I am just repeating it.) He tells me how I could get so many more clients if I use his service. I explain that I do not need that. He asks me why. I tell him again that I am one ofthe best at what I do. He tells me I still need him so I can get more clients and I should pay for those clients. UGH!

I then explain to him that this was the worst sales call ever. I hang up.

End of story.......

Oh wait, 10 minutes later he calls back and leaves me a voice mail message. Now, this is where I do not mind telling you that the company name rhymes with PeapDish (replace the first P with an L and the D with a F). His message: "Mr. XXX, I understand you think you are one of the best at what you do. I went online and read some of your articles and I disagree. I do not think you are. You are good, but I do not think you are the best. Your articles are not that good."

Excuse me? Some guy who apparently cannot sell fire to people in the dark and cold or water to the thirsty is going to argue with me over my credentials. Someone has hit too much of the rock, apparently.

By the way, memo to PeapDish: get a better sales team or those 45,000 hits are going to turn into zero when you close down.