The problem with dealing with Comcast is that the chances are good that whenever you need to get support whoever you are working with will do the wrong thing so that you get to repeat the process. This is bad for the people working for Comcast, because the person that you are dealing with will now have to put up with your frustration over the previous person having done the wrong thing. Let's head off to today's example.

Several months ago (I forget exactly how many), we went through a series of miserable chats and phone calls with Comcast support because the cable box in the bedroom was misbehaving. This resulted in me being sent *multiple* wrong cable boxes, all of which had to be returned, making a trip to the Comcast store to try to get the correct box (which I was told would be available in the store by the support rep I spoke to, but it isn't. The stores don't have the box that I need.), and generally wasting a whole lot of time and aggravation on my end trying to get things fixed.

Now the new cable box in the bedroom is misbehaving. It loses its little mind and forgets the entire setup so that it has to reboot itself and completely reload all of the information, repair the remote (which requires first unpairing the remote, because the remote is convinced that it ought to be able to talk to the cable box), and generally waste a whole bunch of time usually late in the evening when we would like to watch something and then go to bed.

Two weeks ago, I decided that I had had quite enough of this and contacted Comcast support via chat while waiting for the box to reboot itself. The person there said that they were updating the box and that I shouldn't experience this problem again.

Well, they were right in that I *shouldn't* experience this problem again, but of course I did, exactly one week later. This time, I spoke to an agent on the phone and explained that it was now time to send me a replacement box, specifically a *wired* 4K cable box, because the wireless box will not do, since it is sitting exactly as far as it is possible to be from the location of the cable modem in the basement *and* the software on the box will not let me connect to any of the wireless repeaters that I have arranged to extend the Wi-fi signal. I was told that I would in fact be shipped a wired 4K cable box and that it would arrive it two to three business days.

You will not be surprised (nor was I) to find out that no package arrived last week. Having a few spare moments today, I decided it was time to go to the Comcast website and look for information on my order. It turns out that is impossible. You'd think that wouldn't be difficult, but you would be oh so wrong. Instead I was told that I needed to call the Comcast number.

The Comcast phone robot that I had been told to call kept trying to get me to go to my cellphone and get on chat with someone (because, of course, I would want to go to chat when I had been told to *call*), but I stubbornly persisted and was eventually connected to the next poor victim who has the misfortune to be working for Comcast. I explained to him that I had been told that I should be receiving the replacement cable box in two to three business days and that time had more than elapsed, so he would now need to figure out what had happened to my order.

He reported that the order had been marked as "pickup in store". I suggested to him that was both wrong and impossible, because I had been told that my box would be shipped *and* the store does not in fact have the particular cable box (wired 4K) that I need, because they *do not stock it*. He agreed that was true and after doing the Comcast order verification dance (again), I have been assured that my replacement cable box will arrive in three to five business days.

We will see whether that's correct.

We will also see if the cable box in the bedroom decides that it needs to reset itself again tonight...

*sheesh*

So since Microsoft claimed that Windows 10 was compatible with the newer of the bedroom computers and the apps installed there, I figured I'd go ahead and run the upgrade from Windows 7. It looked like everything ran fine.

Right up until Katie tried to run Minecraft. Minecraft won't run, because the default driver that Microsoft installs for this old Intel chipset doesn't support OpenGL. There is no Intel driver for Windows 10 and the older drivers won't install.

So I figured I'd uninstall Windows 10 and revert back to Windows 7.

Except that option is missing.

I've tried telling it to go back to an older version via a different restore path, but the computer has been sitting there for hours now saying "Restarting".

Thanks, Microsoft, for making my little girl cry.

"Compatible". I do not think that word means what you think it does.

Rat bastards.

On Monday morning, I got a phone call from Discover. Apparently, someone breached the Walmart.com site, cracked into my account, and tried to place a fraudulent order. This meant that Discover canceled my card and issued me a new number. Getting the number and the cards from Discover proved to be a tougher problem, as I didn't have them by Thursday or Friday and all of my autobilling stuff is tied to that card. No, I couldn't get the number over the phone, I had to wait for the cards and watch payments start bouncing.

So the cards arrived on Saturday, by which time the Chicago Tribune and I-PASS payments had already bounced. Fixing the Tribune was easy, as their website worked flawlessly.

The I-PASS phone robot, however, seemed confused. And it was. When I gave up and called the customer support number, I discovered that my transponder and daisy_knotwise's that were supposed to have been linked into a single account actually weren't. Supposedly, they are now.

Fixing up the guys who handle our burglar alarm -- also pretty easy.

Comcast, though, was completely hopeless. When I tried to update the account using the phone robot, it didn't actually update the autopay feature -- it charged a month of service to my card. I tried to log on using the website, but you can't create an account there unless you have a Comcast.Net e-mail address. I don't, nor will I. When you try to send feedback on the website using Google Chrome, it fails, claiming that you haven't filled in the description section. I had.

Meanwhile, as I went on hold to talk to a representative, I was thrown out of the queue at least three times. Then I was put on hold by a rep and thrown to the back of the queue again. Then I was put on hold by a rep who went to talk to her supervisor and thrown to the back of the queue again. Then I got a rep who explained to me that once the autopay info was cleared by a live rep, it would take a day before the phone tree would accept new info.

Meanwhile, I'd gone into chat with a representative who created an account for me at my e-mail address and said that I'd see an e-mail with the details in an hour. It's still not here six hours later, nor is it in my spam bucket.

Meanwhile, the previously mentioned supervisor actually called back, entered my info in the computer, and gave me a service credit for my trouble. This probably won't stop me from switching away from Comcast due to their decision to scramble all of the digital versions of the channels that I used to receive in clear on Expanded Basic. But it was progress.

Then there was Sprint. They had my e-mail address entered incorrectly by someone who spelled "filker" with a "ph". Needless to say, that wasn't me. Supposedly I am getting an e-mail from them as I reset my account, but that hasn't shown up in six hours, so I'm thinking that isn't happening either. And that's preventing me from fixing the autopay feature there.

So far, the only thing that's worked absolutely seamlessly is the TribCo website.

And I still have three to go, counting Sprint.

Ack!

So it's like this. Back in April, I got a letter from Discover announcing that they were changing my card number, closing the existing card, and that they would contact all of the people who were autobilling items to the card so that I was not inconvenienced by this. daisy_knotwise, who was a banker up until recently, looked at this and said, "Sounds like they had a security breach somewhere."

All of my autobillings continued to show up on the statement under my new card number, so I assumed that everything had been done correctly. There are only two words to describe that assumption:

Completely wrong.

A week ago Friday, Gretchen got a call from someone at Brookstone who wanted to verify that I wanted a digital camera shipped to an address not on the credit card. They wouldn't tell me who had ordered it, but they would give me the last four digits of the card that had been used for the order. Those would be the last four digits of the closed account.

I called Discover. "Why," I asked, "are you continuing to allow charges to an account that you closed?"

"Oh, we didn't close that account."

"You sent me new cards with a new account number, told me that you were closing the old account, and that you would contact all of the people autobilling to the old account and give them the new correct information."

"Oops."

Three fraudulent charges that day. Two from a week earlier, one of which that the Discover rep couldn't actually find while looking at the list of charges on the old number and being told which were the valid charges. I found that when my statement came that evening.

I called them and was told I'd have to call back on Saturday. On Saturday, when I called back, I was told I would have to call back on Monday. I was also told the biggest pack of lies (we normally hold the card open for 45 days, so that must have been the problem -- until I pointed out that 45 days from April 4th would bring us to May 19th, nearly a month earlier than the fraudulent charges) that I have ever heard from a customer service rep. That seems to include her promise that they would mail me a statement of all of the charges posted to the old account number since the time it was supposed to be closed, as I still haven't received that.

I called back on Monday and added the other known fraudulent charge.

The autobilling changes? Not a one has actually occurred. And I've managed to fix all of them, save for I-Pass (which I'll call in a few minutes) and Sprint.

Which proceeded to distinguish itself by keeping me on the line for over half-an-hour to discover that they couldn't figure out how to make the change with their incompetently programmed systems. Apparently, I could do it on line if I could create a sign on, which I apparently can't, since I have turned off text messaging to this phone, which seems to be required in order to create a signon.

The last of the three incompetent people at Sprint who I spoke to said that she had set up my on-line account and that I'd receive an e-mail within 15 minutes.

That was two hours ago. Needless to say, I have received no e-mail.

I have sent an e-mail to Sprint Customer Service and received the usual "we will reply to you within 24 to 48 hours" message. I'm still waiting for a reply to the one that I sent them on Christmas Eve, so I'm not holding my breath.

Normally, I would cut tag something this long, but I'm just that annoyed with them.