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Tuesday, November 28th, 2023 6:44 AM

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file complaint against frustrating customer service and no interest in troubleshooting data usage glitch

I called back to discuss the data usage spike in last two months "For last two months, comcast is showing spike in my internet usage. We have not added new devices and I have usage data from my router, which doesn't add up to the usage of my devices."

The person on phone kept repeating multiple times, that data usage is correct since oct, that I have my own router and that he is not going to escalate the issue. I told him multiple times that I have real time and last 30 days usage from my router and it does not add up to the usage comcast is showing. He REFUSED to listen to my reasoning, even though I have data to backup and kept repeating his point of view multiple times. He kept going in a loop and refused to escalate the issue. What type of customer service is this?! I wasted two hours of my life.

Such people should not  be on customer service. Most frustrating experience has always been with comcast customer service. 

I have already filed complaints with FCC and BBB

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

2 years ago

You won't get any help from them, and the only solution they have is an up sell on services.  Disputes are handled by arbitration that you agreed to with the service, although BBB and FCC may be of some help to increase visibility of the case. 

There was an issue a few weeks ago where they were reporting roughly double data usage.  Even for the historical data from months past.  I don't know if that was just a web site issue, or if it was actually tied to billing data, but I laughed at that one and keep screen shots along with extremely detailed logs on every device connected to my network for just such an issue.  They did revert whatever they changed on their end to correct it.  

You didn't say specifically what your equipment and network topology was, or if you are using any of their other products like coax connected TV boxes.  If you are using them, you'd be blind to their data usage.  I also don't know how accurate the data counter on your equipment would be.  On a Netgear, I'm not sure what the traffic meter counts, but it's not data.  Traffic counters may not be accurate on other products either.  You can verify your gear by moving large files of known size with nothing else on the network, then see if it's even close.  It may not be, and there is no historical storage on most of them so a reboot resets the counters (you can verify that too with a reboot on your gear).  Spontaneous reboots can happen due to line conditions too.  I'd also add, it might not be counting all network protocols and my omit either ipv4 or ipv6 data in the traffic counter.  None of them say what they really count. 

If you want accurate aggregate traffic numbers, pass all traffic through a box where you can see the low level driver and TCP stack for the Ethernet interface itself, and run all traffic including WiFi through that.  Linux/unix/bsd is good for this, and there is network monitoring software available to track and store historical bytes moved in a database, along with traffic sent/received by other networked devices.  There are some firewall distributions/firewall appliances that can help too.  

While you're trying to get a resolution on this, I'd also be more concerned about a data leak/breach/insane or malfunctioning device issue I can't see (if it's true) rather than an overage charge.  Network monitoring is the only way to find out, and is a good idea in general. 

(edited)

4 Messages

Thanks for your response. I have my own netgear nighthawk modem and google nest as my router. No coax or any other gadget. Literally nothing has changed in our internet usage. all comcast wants to say is to buy unlimited data plan! I need to know what I'm paying for and if it's accruate or not! Nothing makes sense to me so far. I have the 30 days data metrics from my router, I want comcast to quantify with the numbers they are showing. In 7 days my usage jumps from 1000 gb to 1400 gb!!

i'm not that tech savvy. When you say "data leak/breach/insane or malfunctioning device" how do I test that? We have iphones, mac and two windows laptops, tv (used to stream youtube or netflix) that are usually connected. My son play his xbox, once in a while. I have an echo connected. Really that's all.

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

@user_n5hr3q​  Testing it.  Well that's the trick right?

Windows has a network use counter in the settings that might help.  For Mac you'd have to install the "network monitor" app from the store to track data usage because the regular connection stat resets every time you reboot.  You might be able to "brew install vnstat" on it and I think there's one in mac ports as an alternative.  That might help rule out those being data pigs if you can't see individual device data usage statistics from your google nest.

Xbox might be a problem.  I don't know if that records usage or not.  If you've got port forwarding enabled for it (blowing holes in your firewall), you might be taking abuse that way.  Make sure your phones aren't stuck in a loop trying to download an update -- that happened to me once, manually update them.  Return to the home screen on streaming devices ALWAYS instead of leaving apps active -- you can burn tons of data on apps like Hulu and peacock if you leave that app active.  Many will happily stream movies and previews forever in really good 8K if you aren't throttling the connection or controlling the device. 

I use a dedicated firewall.  That would go in between the modem and your google product.  Then you can see and control everything on your network and monitor data use by everything individually.  I don't know if your google product has any active exploits or not, but I don't use anything that requires communication/control with a phone app -- the least secure device you own.  That's just asking for it, it's a privacy problem, and I don't know what kind of software it's using for it's firewall or how that works, what they compiled the firmware with, and all the libraries involved.  You can have that kind of visibility with other gear.  

 https://opnsense.org/ or Netgate's pfSense community edition https://www.pfsense.org/download/  are open source BSD based distributions designed to make that easy.  Both are open source licensed.  For free, that is going to be as close as you get to commercial firewall appliances.  You just need a dedicated box to run it, or buy one of their firewall appliances.

It's either a data reporting issue with Xfinity's outsourced company that does it, or you've got a data pig problem.  I've seen both.   I also don't know if what your google product is telling you is accurate or not.  I do know the BSD driver I'm using on an Ethernet port does provide accurate data, and I can verify that by moving files of known size using different packet payloads and protocols.  I can also track that in a database and prove my data use reporting is much more accurate than what Xfinity is doing in arbitration if I have to.   You might consider doing that too.  

Expert

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110.8K Messages

2 years ago

Concern moved here to the Customer Service help section for greater exposure to Comcast corporate employees (The Digital Care Team) for assistance.

4 Messages

No my question was not answered.

Official Employee

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1.4K Messages

2 years ago

Hello there @user_n5hr3q ! Thanks for reaching out to us on the Community Forum in regard to your experience and data usage concern. I can certainly assist with submitting your feedback about the agent you spoke with, so the interaction can be reviewed. We want every interaction to be positive, and we appreciate you bringing this to our attention! As far as data usage, I did want to share a few links with information that may be helpful : 

What counts towards my data plan?

Background data usage.

 

Tips for Maximizing & Managing Your Data.

 

How do I avoid data overage charges?

 

Questions & Answers About Our Data Usage Plan

 

With that said, please send a direct message to us by clicking the chat icon in the upper right corner of the page, click on the pen and paper icon, then enter “Xfinity Support” in the “To” section. Please include your full name and complete street address. Thanks!

4 Messages

Do not respond with canned messages. Not helpful at all.

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