[RANT] Mediacom Hates Me!!!

At wits end!! I have been with Mediacom for a long time and for the most part have been satisfied with my service with exception to a few hiccups here and there. I am so frustrated right now that I can barely think. Please bear with me for this long rant. A year ago or so, I was subscribed to the Ultra 50 internet package and people on that packaged received a free bump to the 105 due to pricing decreases for tiers. Around that time, I had an internet issue that took nearly a month to resolve and because of this, I was placed on a promotional package at around $65 a month for one year for my inconvenience. (I had 4-5 techs come out to look at it all saying it was an issue on the lines outside of my home and would be resolved in 24-48 hours each time.) I have had a solid connection since that up until about 3 weeks ago when my speeds dropped from a consistent 90-110 mbps range down to 5-25 down. Upload was always fine. Being a frequent visitor of this website, I knew that tiers were being bumped again and I may be getting the 150 soon. My usage page was bumped to 150/20 at the time I started seeing my speed issues. When I called to have the issue looked at, they said I see you are subscribed to the ultra 50 internet package which has recently been upped to 100. I said, actually, I have been getting 105 down for about the past year and my usage page now shows 150 from the recent speed bumps. His response was “well that’s impossible seeing as how we just bumped this over the past few weeks.” I kept my cool even though I probably know more about what is going on with speeds/tiers than him and I don’t even work for Mediacom. I responded, well whether its 100 or 150 it doesn’t matter because I am only seeing 5-25 down. He sent a tech out and had to schedule it a week and a half out because of my work schedule which I understood. Saturday rolls around and the tech arrives first thing in the morning. One of the first things he says is similar to the person I talked to the phone to schedule service call. I see you are on ultra 50 yada yada yada. What speeds are you seeing? I told him the speeds I generally saw but mentioned that even though it says ultra 50, my usage page is showing 150 but I know it hasn’t officially rolled out yet so… He looks at his laptop and says well I think I see the issue, you aren’t provisioned for 150. I’m thinking OK, kill two birds with one stone. Fix my speed issues plus get the provisioning for 150. Score!....Wrong! He says let me go make a phone call and get this taken care of for you. He’s outside for 10-15 minutes and comes back in still on the phone. I could barely hear the person on the other line as he stood by my pc. I could have sworn I heard the person on the other line say something about a one-time fee. So, I waited for him to relay this information but he never said anything about it. I thought, well maybe this has something to do with billing to local Mediacom offices as I don’t know how this is done. Maybe it has nothing to do with me. After he gets off the phone, he says ok, you are now provisioned at 150. Let’s do a speed test. He goes to speakeasy.net to do the speed test. I get close to 100 down and 10 up. I say, more often than not, I do not get those speeds but every once in a while, I can get a good one. Hopefully it is resolved but I have a feeling that in a couple of hours, it will be back down to 5-25. Then I questioned him about the 150 provisioning. Surely I would be getting 120, 130, or 140…not peg right at 100. His explanation was that my Ethernet port probably only supported up to 100MB so that would explain it. I was bewildered…(fyi I don’t think I have ever used that word before in my life). I then explained to him the difference between MB and Mbps. (Besides that, my laptop had a gigabit port on it anyway.) He never quite grasped my explanation and that even if it were a 100 MB port, it would transfer well over 100 Mbps. Instead, he said well, there seems to be some errors on the line so I’ll have to schedule an outside tech to look at the lines outside. 24-48 hours it will be fixed. I was fine with this since I was hoping my issue would be resolved and it would only be a matter of getting that additional 50 Mbps. A couple hours later I decided to do a speed test and I’m back down to slow speeds. I waited as I always due the 48 hours. Same issue after 48 hours. Call Mediacom and explain the situation. Well, we will have to send out a technician to look at it. My response, OK, we have done that already and they said it was something on the outside. Well, we can’t schedule outside techs so we will have to schedule another visit. I told them I can’t schedule another week and a half out because of work requirements. It really needs to be resolved without my presence. Well, I can schedule it for Wednesday. Again, I will be working, I cannot do this. Well, let me speak with the local supervisor and see what we can get done and I’ll call you back. Never hear anything back. That Wednesday, I happen to be home for lunch and see the Mediacom van pull up. Same technician is outside at my box looking at signals. I walk out there and ask him how it’s going. Just looking at your signals and there are issues with them. I am getting this to the technicians and they should have you all fixed up. How long will this take I ask. 24-48 hours. I tell him that is what you said when you were out on Saturday. Yeah, but now I have the information to give them that specifically says what’s wrong. Worst tech ever. 48 hours later, still not resolved. Call AGAIN. Schedule a tech to come out when my wife is home. He actually puts some effort into figuring out what is wrong and starts to replace the modem but makes a phone call and finds out there is something going on on the outside of the house. Big surprise. 24-48 hours. I don’t know how many days actually passed after this and I may have called again just to complain about it. Low and behold my wife gets a voicemail from local Mediacom saying outside issue is resolved. I check it at lunch and it is solid 100. Check again after work, solid 100. Finally issue is resolved. Still not seeing the 150 but again, it hasn’t officially been rolled out. Usage page shows 150 down still 20 up, and 3TB allowance. Next day, check Mediacom bill online. My bill went from 65ish to 135ish. What the…Start looking at details of bill and I’ve got a package change to ultra plus and fees for switching. I look at the date and it occurred on the Saturday when the first tech looked at my issue. HE CHANGED MY SERVICE PLAN, DIDN’T TELL ME, DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT CHANGE IN PRICES, ONE TIME FEES OR ANYTHING. Call Mediacom AGAIN. Explained my ordeal which takes longer and longer every time I call. She apologizes and says I can remove that and put you on Prime plus which is the 50 Mbps service that you had before. I state, well, this will put me back down to 100 and I’m pretty sure I should be at or at least soon 150 because of the speed increases done around a year ago and again recently. She never understood how I could have ultra 50 and had 105 for the past year. I told her I would have to look at old forums to try to get my ducks in a row and call back again. I did complain enough to get her to reduce the $135ish bill down to $28ish. The next day I looked at my usage meter and it changed from my 150/20 3TB I had been seeing even before I made the initial service call, down to 100/10 and 999GB. COME ON, you have got to be kidding me. Call back again and ask for retentions, spend my entire lunch hour explaining everything and how now my grandfathered data allowances are now gone. She said there is no way to get this back as the plan had changed. AGAIN, I DID NOT CHANGE THE PLAN. Well, it looks like yesterday, they switched you from ultra plus back to the prime plus you were on before so you will be paying the same price. She asked what speed I wanted to be on and I told her I have always wanted the fastest speeds possible. She said well, we can put you on ultra plus which will get you 150/20 and then you will get 2TB instead of 999GB. I stated that that is all well and fine but I should be compensated for this. I was offered $5 which offended me more than anything. Than $10. I told her the last time I had internet service issues for a month (about the same as this time) they put me on a promo package for the ultra 50 for an entire year. Now, I have almost a month of the same issues, PLUS lose my 3TB allowance and I am offered $10??? She put me on hold and came back and said, I can give you credit for 1 month of service as I got approval from my supervisor. I figure in my head, okay one month of ultra plus is $100 so a little less than $10 a month for a year and I get the 150. I make sure to tell her this should be in addition to my previous credits I already received. I decided I’ll do it. She then starts to talk out loud about the credits and says, so I’ll credit you for last months service which was on ultra so that’s 84.99. I say hold it, I thought you meant a months worth of service for the ultra plus. No, we are crediting you for last months service. That ticks me off a little bit. As I am sitting there shaking my head deciding whether or not I want to go through with it still, she says okay, so I’ve got you credited for $65 dollars. $65???? You just said $85! I didn’t say that, I said last months service. I said, you also said that it would be $84.99! Well, I apologize for any misinformation I gave you but we can’t credit you back more than you paid. Okay? So I am crediting your $65…It’s like she is pushing so hard to get this through she could give a rip. I asked why can’t you take the $85 off next months bill? Silence and crickets. Okay, I took 90ish off of your bill 84.99 plus tax. Finally, a partial win. I ask, so will the 150 be available today then. Yes, you will just need to reset your router. Get home from work, reset router, 100 speeds. Guess who I get to spend the evening calling. Explain that I was switched from 100 to 150 today and I’m not seeing those speeds. Well it looks like we have service ticket open for you regarding this. I ask, is this the issue with outside issues because I received a call from local tech stating this has been resolved and I haven’t had any issues with getting 100Mbps since then. Yes this is related, the tickets not closed so I’ll add notes to it from this call. But they called me a couple days ago and said that it had been resolved so I don’t think it is an issue with the outside. Sir, it is related because you are not seeing the speeds you are supposed to be seeing. We go back and forth several times and I eventually ask for a supervisor who at least tries to troubleshoot it. He looks at provisioning and sends reboot to modem etc. Looks for errors on the line and signal quality. Can’t figure out why it’s not working so states he will call me today or tomorrow after he talks to local supervisor in my area. That “tomorrow” was yesterday and he never called back (maybe he forgot it was the 4th of July but I doubt I hear from him. Just now looked at my bill again and I went from $28 to $43. How in the living…can be bill go up from the time I talked to the retention to now. It should have been a negative amount. I look at the credits and see things dated from both days that they credited my bill but some credits had to be removed in order to be applied to different date and for the bill to go up. I am basically paying the $15 difference between the ultra and ultra plus. Called AGAIN and got “disconnected” twice while trying to explain the situation. Finally, the third time they said I would need to talk to the retentions department regarding this and they are closed. I am SO frustrated that I decided to take another hour out of my life to write this up. I have been so patient with the whole thing and have not once raised my voice when talking to the reps/techs because I know it is not always their fault. However, one of these days I’m going to blow up and I hate those people that do it because I work in software support and there are things I have no control over. I’m sure when I call retentions again tomorrow I’ll have another post. I just needed to write this to vent and maybe get some proactive help from a Mediacom rep in the forum.