Yep. You read that right. The customers who had their super bowl parties turn into porn parties will be getting a whopping $10 credit on their bills. But only if they call Comcast to request it. And we all know how that goes.

But, the lemonade to come from this lemon is that the porn company that inadvertently provided the Superbowl feed is offering a $10 discount to their premier porn plan. So you don’t have to worry about how to spend that $10 bonus!

This whole thing just proves that Comcast must be using Northwest Airlines’ PR Firm.

Source: Washington Post, Tuscon Citizen

This really doesn’t fit the “Something New I Learned” theme of the blog, but given the collective hate for Comcast, I’ve declared any negative Comcast posts in bounds.

An extended excerpt… savor every word:

Tucsonans watching the Super Bowl got more action than they bargained for when a short clip from an adult movie channel interrupted Comcast’s feed with full male nudity during the final moments of the game.

Officials at Comcast said about 30 seconds from Club Jenna, an adult cable television channel, were shown on the local Super Bowl telecast. The company was still working Sunday night to figure out how it happened.

Comcast had “no idea” at the time it happened how the porn may have gotten into its feed, said Kelle Maslyn, a company spokeswoman.

The Star newsroom was flooded with calls from irate viewers who said that the porn cut into the game with less than three minutes left to play, just after Arizona Cardinals player Larry Fitzgerald scored on a touchdown pass from Kurt Warner to put the team in the lead.

Callers said that the clip showed a woman unzipping a man’s pants, followed by a graphic act between the two.

“I just figured it was another commercial until I looked up,” said Cora King of Marana. “Then he did his little dance with everything hanging out.”

Let me be the first to go for the obvious pun…

The interruption only affected Comcast viewers around Tuscon. Viewers of Cox were not affected.

Source: AZ Daily Star via Hot Air

So, in our last episodes, Comcast: the worst company on Earth lost my service for several days and then offered me $5 for my trouble, told me it would take 2 weeks to upgrade my service, and then later canceled my upgrade appointment without telling me…

Yesterday, they finally came out to upgrade my service. The technician, who actually seemed to have a brain, said that the line to my house was bad (and probably had been for years). He couldn’t complete the upgrade, so I still haven’t had the honor of paying Comcast more money. So he set up a new appointment to run a new line to my house. Ok, fine. I’ll wait longer to pay them more service. But I needed to get some compensation from the fact that for over 2 years I’ve been paying for faulty service; a problem that one of the several technicians (especially the one who set it up for me) should have noticed by now.

So I call… to complain. The little jack hole tells me, “What you are complaining about? Your service works fine and there is a plan in place to run you a new line!” I, of course, asked for his manager, who, of course, was not available. So he asks if I want a call back. Yes. So he writes a note for the manager and reads it back to me. “So even though your service is working fine…”

I snapped. I cut him off. I couldn’t believe it. I yelled. And then he give me, “Is there anything else?”

Long story short, the manager called back 2 hours later and offered me a $40 credit. That’s all I wanted to start with. Well, that, and to have the privilege of having my service upgraded…

Talked to my mother on the phone today. Unprovoked and completely unrelated to Tom’s ongoing Comcrap saga, she began to relate her latest Comcrap horror story.

I’d bore you with the details, but as a Comcrap customer you already know them: promised one thing delivered another, bill was incorrect, multiple phone transfers, talked to multiple idiots, order was canceled, that offer is now expired, and on and on.

But, through some amazing amount of luck, this story had a happy(er) ending. The 4th person she talked to was not rude, and actually fixed the problem.

So the moral of the story is- just keep on getting transferred. There’s one good employee out there somewhere. Or was. She probably just quit.

So in my previous post on how Comcast doesn’t need my money, or my post before that about how my time is worthless according to Comcast, the saga continues…

I got a phone message today that my installation with Comcast was canceled. Which is odd, because I didn’t cancel it. So after I called and fought with the phone system (there was no choice for “if you didn’t cancel your appointment even though we say you did”) I got to an operator. She said the appointment was canceled. I told her not by me. She said, “Oh.” After I prodded her for a while, I got her to understand that I would like to uncancel my appointment. So what does she do? She reenters the order. Why? Because the old order was canceled! Why? I don’t know, and neither did she. So she starts asking me all these questions about my service that I didn’t know or care about. I eventually managed to stop her and told her I NEEDED an answer why this happened. She put me on hold for 5+ minutes and eventually told me a “glitch” whipped out my original order and the rep who was supposed to call me was out on ‘a family emergency.’ That’s code for ‘an obvious lie.’ Thankfully, she did agree to waive my installation fee (I don’t know what they’re installing; I’m only upgrading my service). Then, she says she will also do me the favor of having someone out early to install/upgrade my service. The day she picks? One day before my original appointment. That’s for rushing out there! Here is the best part, though. I said, never mind, I’ll keep my original appointment time since I had already planned for it. Oh… she says. Um. That time isn’t available anymore. They gave away my appointment! Great! I’m so honored to be able to do business with Comcast: the worst company on Earth!

So the other day, I reluctantly decided to upgrade my cable from standard (local broadcast channels only (so I didn’t need an antenna)) and “economy” internet (cable internet at DSL-like speeds) to the full show – full cable, cable internet, and cable phone. As predicted, the phone call was painful. I had to talk him down from $50 for installation to $25 (which was a big fight for a little victory).

And then we got to the part where we picked a date and time for them to come upgrade my service. 2 weeks. The soonest he could have someone out was 2 weeks. I cold called THEM to give them double the money per month and the soonest they can rush out to get me to pay more was 2 weeks.

I couldn’t take it. I had to say something. I told the guy it was things like this that make me hate Comcast: worst company on Earth. It’s piss-poor service at an unreasonable price for an adequate product…

But, like last time (my story was in the comments section) when I lost service for days and they offered me $5 to cover my losses, Comcast: worst company on Earth, is my only option… I need internet and Quest doesn’t offer DSL in my area. Fricking legal monopoly…

The Bruce Springsteen album “Born in the USA” was the first compact disk manufactured in the United States for commercial release. They were pressed at the CBS Records CD manufacturing plant in Terre Haute, Indiana in September 1984. Discs previously had been imported from Japan.

No word on if the choice for this being the first CD made in America was intentional (to be ironic) or coincidental.

Souce: Comcrap music trivia and Wiki to verify

WaMu has been in the news lately, and several reports have mentioned that they were the largest Savings & Loan before they collapsed. So, besides the name of a financial crisis in the 80′s, what the #$%@$ is a Savings & Loan? This will be long, but since the majority of our posters and readers work in banking, I thought there was a chance y’all would find this interesting.

So again, what the #$%@$ is a Savings & Loan? Well, to answer, we have to go way back. Ready? Good.

Simply put, a Savings & Loan is a type of bank. It takes deposits from people and pays them interest to hold onto it, then uses the money to loan to others at an interest rate higher than they pay on the savings accounts.

The first Savings & Loan type institution was created in Philadelphia in 1816. They were pretty common by the 1830′s. I’m not sure when the term “Savings & Loan” became widespread. In those days, the people who had savings at the bank got a say in how the bank was run. Kind of like a Credit Union today, except at a Credit Union, each member gets one vote, and at the S&L, your influence was based on how much $ you had in the bank. Some S&Ls still operate that way, but larger institutions like WaMu obviously don’t.

Before the Great Depression, most mortgages were not written the way that they are today. They were made mostly by insurance companies, for one, and they used tactics like the interest only loan (to keep people in dept perpetually) or the balloon payment (one huge payment of principal due at the end of the loan that most people couldn’t pay.) These were not good for homeowners. As an aside, could you imagine writing your mortgage check to the evil insurance company each month? The only thing worse would be writing that check to Comcast.

Anyway, in 1932, the government created some government run entities that made money available for amortized mortgages. As a result many more of these S&Ls popped up. At the time, S&Ls were allowed to pay more in interest than a commercial bank, as a way to encourage people to put their money there, which would make more money available for mortgages, which was a good thing.

But the modern era came upon us, and that brought widespread adoption of checking accounts. S&Ls, unlike commercial banks, were not allowed to issue checking accounts until around 1980. This caused some banks to abandon the S&L charter and opt for the National Bank charter instead.

Throughout the 80′s regulations changed, and the types of banks and what they were allowed to do all kind of mixed together. In the 90′s the walls came down further, and there was no longer a restriction on “regular” banks getting involved in investment type activity. This lead to the mega banks we see today like JPMorgan Chase. At this point in time, most types of banks can make loans to businesses or individuals, issue credit cards, get involved in investments like mutual funds and IRAs, and offer savings and checking accounts.

But today, distinctions remain. For instance, S&Ls are regulated by The Office of Thrift Supervision, and a National Bank (like TCF or US Bank) is regulated by The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Both types of institutions are now insured by the FDIC, but S&Ls are technically insured through the Savings Association Insurance Fund (SAIF) , a remnant of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), an FDIC like entity that was just for S&Ls. The SAIF has been administered by the FDIC since 1989.

The FDIC lists several types of bank charters, which helps explain things a little.

So, that’s what I know. And now you know it too if you read this far.

Source: Wiki page on S&Ls and Credit Unions, and various government websites.

According to this article.

I have a better idea- instead of responding to the roughly 1% of people so pissed off that they feel the need to vent online (and ignoring the 99% who either don’t have a blog or who have been beaten into submission by years of crappy service) – how about you invest some of the billions of dollars that you get from being a legal monopoly and fix the institutional problems with your customer service?

It’s not that you don’t know you have a problem. You routinely show up at the bottom of the list for worst customer service. Here again- from just a few days ago.

Oh yeah- note about this specific article- we DON’T WANT WEB SELF HELP. We want the people we pay ungodly amounts of money to on a monthly basis to DO THEIR JOBS and help us. (That would be your insultingly named “Customer Account Executives,” for one.) If I wanted to help myself I’d go the the grocery store (or Home Depot or Ikea or Wal-Mart) and use that obnoxious self checkout.

And as if you needed more proof, this poor woman spoke for us all.

So to sum up (again) – Comcast is the worst company on earth. One guy trying to address issues that bubble up on the internet is like trying to stand on the beach and hold back the ocean.

(h/t Chris)

I may have been a little too tough on Cox. While they will not win company of the year, I’ve given it a little more thought. A few things I like more than Comcast so far- which, being the worst company on earth- should not be hard to beat.

#1. No Promo Pricing- While this initially annoyed me, at least I know going in to it how much this will cost me. Comcrap sucks you in with too good to be true promo pricing, then jacks the price up by 150-300% after you are already hooked on the service. While this saves you some cash initially, it just annoys you later. Plus you have to worry about if you have the best deal, or if there is a better offer today than yesterday, etc.

Comparatively, the straightforward pricing at Cox is preferred. (But, I may add, I think the prices are still too high- this going back to the monopoly thing.)

#2. Cords/Cables included – All of the cables I needed to hook up my TVs were included. Yes, even including the cables to hook the DVR up to the TV. (Component video.)

This is not the case with Comcrap. You are on your own for cables. You get some coax, but who wants to use that.

#3. In the online programming guide (think TV Guide screen) on Cox, you can go channel by channel. On comcrap, you used to be able to go channel by channel, but then they added advertisements to the bottom of the screen, so you have to page up and page down. For now, my Cox guide is ad free.

#4. Sleep timer on the cable box. Small one, but should make our 2 tree hugger readers happy. The Comcrap cable box had no sleep timer. So, your tv will turn off after x minutes, but the cable box would stay on all night. That raises your carbon footprint, and wastes valuable fossil fuels, which makes our mother the earth cry. Seriously folks, I don’t hate the planet. I’d prefer if my cable box shut off when I fall asleep. So point to Cox for sleep timer on the cable box.

Bottom line- Cox is still a cable company, and therefore must be hated. But for now, some subtle differences makes me hate them less than Comcrap (The worst company on earth- including Halliburton).