Looks Like Something Went Wrong

Xfinity and Comcast (they are the same but not really; I've never taken the trouble to figure it out) have decided that June 12th is the last day that TBG can hold on to his beloved DVR boxes.  After that, the technology will be changing and several vital pieces of our service will be unavailable.

We need two new boxes.  They take 5-7 days to arrive.  I waited until we were leaving the kids in San Francisco before ordering mine, not wanting them to be undeliverable if we were not at home to receive them.

The note in My Account on the app said they would arrive between May 24-25.  Once it got to be June, I began to wonder.  I did a lengthy on-line chat with a lovely young woman who saw the initial problem, ordered me new ones, and sent me a link to confirm the order.

I clicked through to the link, which caused me to lose her chat.

The link was on a self-replicating loop of Click Here/Blank Page, over and over again each time I started over and clicked through again and again and again.

I gave up and hoped for the best.

The next day, I got a message from FedEx saying that they'd deliver a box to me after having failed to do so before, but only if I'd send them $1.85 for their troubles.  For two bucks, why not?  I hoped it was my Comcast/Xfinity order.  I set Sunday for the delivery date, knowing we'd be home all day.

Did the FedEx truck come to your house?  It certainly didn't come to mine.  I'm trying to figure out where it is, but no one can find that ticket, either.  There was no indication of the sender's identity on the request for $1.85.  While I wonder what I'm missing, I've still got the Comcast/Xfinity issue looming.

So, it's Monday and I'm home from Pilates and have had lunch.  With the Women's College Softball World Series game between Oklahoma (undefeated in 51 games) and Stanford on mute in the background,  I started again.  

GunGun was my first live agent on chat.  We made similar progress, getting me all the way to the confirmation link which, once again, malfunctioned.  GunGun's chat had also disappeared; I had no choice but to start at the beginning.

This time I knew to bypass the first few prompts by typing Agent in the first box.  Annekia was also helpful, encouraging me not to swipe away to anything else so that her chat would not disappear.  She sent the link to my email, which I opened on the computer and which did exactly the same thing as it did on my phone.

Live chat was obviously not going to help.  I thanked my latest agent and tried, once more, out of frustration, and was rewarded with a new screen:

 Looks like something went wrong

Please use the back button in your browser, and try again

If the issue persists, please call 470-903-4674 for assistance
placing your order

Relishing the notion of speaking to a real human being instead of a keyboard (were they all AI???), I dialed that number, listened to the prompts because they had recently been changed, and was once again in a self-replicating loop of pressing the correct prompt and being sent right back to the beginning again. Over and over and over again, I pressed 1 for an existing customer only to be rebuffed, refused, denied access to anyone or anything until, one momentous time, I heard a quick busy signal before being disconnected.

I was so peeved that I went back to the computer and clicked on the original link with enthusiasm vigor  fury passion my finger and, lo and behold, I got something new.

I saw a sign-in screen with my user name already inserted.  I typed in my password and got another new screen.  I was on a roll.

This one was greyish-bluish with a friendly font telling me This should only take a moment above 3 dots blinking in a row.  One......two.....three.....one....two....three..... I was mesmerized and channeling calming thoughts as I stared at the damn dots for a lot longer than I should have.

Then I stopped and began typing to you.  Nearly half an hour later, the dots have disappeared, replaced by the generic company home page.  I didn't witness the switch, but the dots were still blinking when I checked about halfway through this post.  

Only a moment must mean something different in their world.

I'm done trying for now.  Maybe the phone number will be less busy tonight.  At this point, it's hard not to take it personally.