My second Comcast Xfinity ISP glitch: They fucked up my billing

When I placed my order for Comcast Xfinity Internet service I deliberately did not provide them with a credit card number. I knew this would cause the Comcast installer to ask for the information needed for Comcast to be paid. I did that because I prefer to pay my utilities from my checking account each month when I receive a bill.

The Comcast installer was great to work with. At the end of the process he asked me for my email address. I gave it to him. A test email was sent and I confirmed receipt of the message. I expected an email within the next month asking for payment. I didn’t receive any such email and due to daily life didn’t think anything of it. Fast forward two months.

Yesterday I received a phone call from someone representing Comcast asking why I haven’t paid my bill. I told them I had not received an electronic bill via email or a paper bill. They told me the bill had been sent to “my_comcast_user_id@comcast.net”. I basically said “WTF? I didn’t even know I had a Comcast email address.” Neither the Comcast web site nor the installer mentioned this email account and that I should check it for my bill. I had reasonably assumed that when the installer asked me for the email address I preferred for all messages from Comcast that things like bills for service rendered would be sent to that address. Silly me.

The Comcast call-center rep accepted payment for the first two months by credit card and said late fees would be waived. They said my email address was corrected and assured me Comcast would not automatically bill my credit card next month.

P.S., The Comcast call-center rep who called me about my delinquent account was very pleasant. I paid the two months of service with a credit card. The call-center representative assured me Comcast would not automatically bill that credit card in the future. If that turns out to be true I’ll be very happy and assume this incident was simply a mistake. If not I’ll do my best to make Comcast sorry they ever had me for a customer. I’m beginning to understand why Comcast is one of the most hated companies in America.

Update 2015-09-01: I logged into my.xfinity.com and clicked the link that took me to web.mail.comcast.net for my account. Comcast has sent me 19 email messages since I contracted with them for Internet connectivity. Since I explicitly told the person who made the physical connection that I wanted all emails to go to my personal domain and he confirmed that would happen I am extremely pissed off.

Holy Shit! I clicked on the Comcast web site “email preferences link”. It shows, as the most important option, having the Comcast email service import, on an ongoing basis, my email from other services such as Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL. Who in their right mind would use Comcast as their primary email address and interface if you already had another email address? You have to be savvy enough to click on the “Fowarding” header much further down which in turn requires clicking another link to “My Account” and jumping through a couple more hoops to establish your well established email address as the one you want Comcast to use when communicating with yourself. I could forgive this if it weren’t for the fact I had this conversation with the person who established the physical connection and they asked for my preferred email address.