Comcast Sabotage

Comcast has decided if they can’t have me as a customer-no one can.

In February I switched to verizon fios because my cable bill had gotten too high. I live in an apartment so all the cables go through one box to feed to all the apartments. When verizon came to do the install they unplugged me from comcast and fed their line through the box.

All was fine. My fios worked, no one else’s cable was affected. Friday I woke up to no fios. I called verizon and we went through the typical troubleshooters. Eventually we figured out I was not connected at all. I went out to the box that splits the line to all the apartments and got curious. I tugged on my line- which is different because verizon used a white cable. It was unplugged!

Someone must have called comcast to service their line. When the guy came out and saw my white line he thought one of two things. 1) this guy is stealing cable. So he yanked my line. 2) this guy has fios! So he yanked my line.

This is the ominous part: he put a lock on the box that wasn’t there before when fios was first installed. So, if he thought I was stealing he was just preventing me from hooking back up. If, however he understood I was a fios customer he was preventing me from using their service!

After getting off the phone with verizon, I called comcast to ask if they could come unlock the box to let me plug back in. Especially since they were the ones who unplugged me. They told me “you are not a customer why would we help you?” I understand customer service is separate from the guy who unplugged me. But it does make it apparent how easy comcast could block you out. I can’t help but wonder if this could be a systemic policy to block a competitor out.

Called verizon back. They are sending a guy out Monday. But now I am 4 days without service. AND I have a feeling verizon can’t open the lock and will have to convince comcast to do it. If they refuse this could get heated. It will come down to who “owns” the box. The apartment or comcast?

I’ll update you Monday.

Edit: You can read the resolution to this situation here.