January 19, 2007

Woke up early to check my email. I was
amazed it wasn't responding. In fact I
noticed the cable modem lights blinking
in a bizarre manner. Seems I've somehow
lost my connection to the service. Power
cycled the cable modem and went to work
thinking nothing of it. I've had Comcast
for years and occasionally I've had problems
with their service.

That afternoon...

My wife called Comcast customer service for
support to figure out why we still didn't
have internet access in the afternoon.
It seems now they had a note in our account
for us to contact the "Policy and Abuse Department".
They provided a number which is basically
an answering service. They have to call
you back if you want to speak with someone
and it can take up to 24 hours so the message says.

My wife calls me and asks me to also follow
up. So I also call the number and leave a
message. I also called a number of other
times. Customer Service has no idea why we
have been flagged but reassure us it will be
all resolved soon.

Both my wife and I receive a call from Scott.
He was very cordial as I learn the call in
December was a legitimate contact and we're
now suspended for 12 months. He said the
decision was final and we had no recourse,
no escalation available nor supervisor we
could speak with. He said we had used
(downloaded) 305 Gigs in November and
297 Gigs in December. If usage is exceeded
2 times in a year the account is suspended.
I explained I didn't see how that's possible.
Our internet habits have not changed in the
4 years we've been with Comcast. He was
unwilling to give more information at this
point. I was baffled.

I've used online services such as Azureus Zudeo
to download movies for example as
"Reign of the Fallen" (both the film and later
the DVD). I don't run a server and have been very
happy with the service until now. It didn't
matter. We're without broadband for
12 months. Period.

Update... Seems Scott gave different numbers
to my wife when he spoke with her that same day.
We're using 305 Gigs in November and 250 Gigs
in December now. I'm wondering which number
for December do we believe? My wife said to
Scott "Doesn't this show we had reduced our usage?".
Scott mentioned we were to cut it back drastically.
My wife asked what is the limit? Scott said
"I'm sorry but I cannot divulge that information".

But wait... the story get's more bizzare.