Emergency damage claim treated like it's nothing

On Tuesday, February 3, 2026, a crew contracted by Xfinity was working on my street, including my yard. They seemed to do what they needed to do then left.

Late in the evening Thursday, February 5, 2026, my washing machine shut off before it finished its cycle. I walked into my master bathroom on the other side of the house and stepped into a pool of water.

Plumbers were out to the house the next morning and determined there was a blockage outside the house. They sent a two-person crew to flush the line and drop a camera into it to identify the cause.

The cause was a network cable sleeve that had sliced through the bottom of my sewer line. You can see the orange sleeve at the bottom of the camera feed (now photo).

I contacted Xfinity right away, made it clear that this was an emergency, and a claim was opened. I was sent an automated email asking me to upload documents to support my claim: the photo of the sleeve at the bottom of my sewer line, the taped X the plumber had made on my cement driveway (the X shows the location of the damaged pipe), the access point for the camera line, the bill from the plumber that includes a description of the work done, the damage found, and the cost of that visit, and an estimate for the repair if done by that plumber. I did this right away.

That was all done on Friday, February 6, at about 2pm.

I heard nothing in response for several hours, so I called and asked to speak with a supervisor. It took a long time to get my call routed to one. He answered, didn't listen to what I was saying, and routed my call back to a technician.

After 5pm I was told the "construction group" was in the process of getting a permit. If anyone I had spoken to before or after this had their home's sewer line cut, the permit would have been obtained on Friday and the work done immediately.

I called again on Saturday, February 7 to inquire about the status of action on this emergency. The technician listed to the information, read the claim, told me (again) that the work was waiting on a permit, then said a supervisor was busy but would call me in an hour or so. I waited all afternoon and evening. No one ever called. Still no action on this emergency.

I called again on Sunday, February 8. My call was finally escalated to Tangie, who was the first leader who was sympathetic and understanding. She said she would escalate the request to the construction group and that they would be back in the office on Monday morning.

It's Monday at 1pm. At 10am, I called again because I expected that a ticket with an "emergency" status that had been escalated would be handled first thing. My call was escalated to Bernie. He was polite, but, unlike Tangie, was hardly sympathetic and instead told me that I shouldn't expect an update until later today or even Tuesday and vigorously defended that.

Seriously? If this were YOUR house, there is no way you would be defending this delay. I asked if I could have the damage repaired by my plumber, who would certainly be more responsive fully understanding that this is an emergency, and he basically fed me the same line.

This is my house we are talking about. Possible severe damage to my house. What constitutes an emergency to you?

I was up all night Thursday cleaning up after this mess and trying to get a toilet to work. I am afraid to eat, so I've been eating one meal a day if that. I can't shower. I can't wash clothing. I am afraid to flush the toilet.

My mom recently had major surgery and is now in rehab, and I can't even go see her. I haven't been for days. And she is ill, so I can't explain to her why I can't be there.

You call yourselves a responsible company, but I am not seeing any evidence of this in general. To be fair, almost all of the technicians I've spoke with have been understanding and as helpful as they can be within the limits of their jobs. I felt like one person (out of four so far, not including anyone in any position of leadership related to a group that might actually to ADDRESS THIS URGENT ISSUE - big ZERO there) in a supervisory role was understanding and helpful, but that's all. And my overall grade for the response of the company to this EMERGENCY is an F.

I've been a Comcast/Xfinity customer for many years, even after my HOA opted to contract another ISP. I work from home, so my bill is north of $300/month because I need high-speed internet. And this is how you treat what you call a "diamond member."