Service issues and potential fraud affecting senior citizen

Over the past 28 hours, I have been working with Comcast regarding my mother’s account. What began as a simple billing inquiry resulted in her being upsold internet service and changes to her channel lineup. Within two hours, she lost phone and internet service, along with several of the core channels she specifically requested.

I contacted support and after several hours of troubleshooting, it was ultimately determined that her existing modem was incompatible with the upgraded service that she did not request. The full troubleshooting process and partial resolution took, without exaggeration, from 1:30 PM to 7:30 PM. During that time, I was handed off mid-call to another technician without warning because the first representative’s shift had ended, requiring me to start over from the beginning.

Once the technical issues were partially resolved, we attempted to address the channel lineup. The representative again attempted to upsell services and ultimately made additional changes, including adding a “Latino” package, despite the fact that we do not speak Spanish. Throughout this process, we were consistently clear about what was needed: basic internet (no high speed required), telephone service, and a simple channel lineup that includes news. Despite this, the recommendations were incorrect, and the resulting changes failed to restore the requested services. In total, there were four service changes within a 28-hour period.

I work professionally, and my time is valuable to both me and the seniors that I serve. This level of inefficiency is not sustainable.

It is also important to note that at no point did any representative clearly communicate the potential impact of the changes being made, such as temporary or complete loss of service. In several instances, we were simply told to “wait 3–4 hours” for services to propagate or for the modem to “register”, which never worked.

At this point, I am told that the issues are resolved (pending confirmation of the channel lineup), and that billing has returned to its original level, after significant time and effort, with none of the promised savings realized.

My broader concern is that this may reflect a systemic issue with Xfinity’s processes. If so, my mother, and other seniors we serve, may be vulnerable to service disruptions and billing changes they neither requested nor can easily resolve. If that proves to be the case, we will have to seriously consider ending what has been a 40-year relationship with Caltech/Comcast/Xfinity. That would be a disappointing outcome.