Canthook

I've been telling people for years that my wife describes the day we "fired" Comcast as "The Happiest Day Of My Life". I guess that puts me in my place, huh? But I hated Comcast, too.

Now, it appears, it's widespread. If you look at Twitter, there appear to be a lot of Comcast outages, and a lot of people angry at Comcast.

Jeff Jarvis writes, "Michael Arrington just told his Twitter fans that Comcast has been for 36 hours and he’s told after a half-a-lifetime on hold that it’s California-wide. Others pipe in with their troubles. I go looking at the news and find more problems on the East Coast."

Bob Garfield, a columnist at AdvertisingAge, and a host at National Public Radio made Business Week sit up and take notice with his website http://ComcastMustDie.com. Garfield suggested readers post their account numbers on the site; Comcast started calling the customers, and resolving their issues. Garfield laughs at that: "They've outsourced their worst-case customer-service issues to a blog dedicated to wiping them off the face of the earth."

We had Comcast, both for television and internet when we moved. They couldn't get their act together, so we called DISH Network for TV, and Verizon for DSL, then called Comcast, and told them to come pick up their equipment. They did - but then they billed us for the equipment. More than a dozen phone calls, with more than 4 hours waiting on hold, ensued. I finally stopped dealing with the local office, and started phoning the headquarters. Eventually, they looked at their records and stopped harassing us. My wife now warns me, at least three times a year, that if I ever sign up with Comcast for anything, she'll sue for divorce.

I don't take it personally because I hate Comcast, too.

Mike Arrington is promising to “expend significant energy over the next three weeks trashing comcast.” But isn't that like trying to make water wet?

As a side note, I recently blogged about a poorly-labeled Turkey Hill beverage. I reported at the time that I was able to get through to their offices fairly easily, that I talked to someone who was in their offices instead of halfway around the world (I mentioned I bought the product at a supermarket in Willow Street, and she referred to it as Darrenkamp's, which is the only supermarket in Willow Street PA. You may have recalled another post here about a nekkid guy visiting Darrenkamp's store one Friday night.)

Turkey Hill promptly responded to my complaint with a copious quantity of coupons good for free or discounted products. Copious? It must have been a quarter of an inch thick. And the largess doesn't stop coming. I just got a calendar from them as well, with a dozen beautiful shots of Pennsylvania Dutch country, and a bunch more coupons in the back of the calendar.

I much prefer to review winners than losers. Turkey Hill is obviously a winner. I didn't mention the blog to them; this was strictly the result of a phone call from someone they didn't know, complaining that their so-called "natural" product contained artificial sweeteners. Their other products all appear to be accurately labeled, and it's my opinion that this was an error by someone, perhaps a temp, perhaps a new hire, who wasn't fully aware of Turkey Hill's reputation for treating customers like they matter.

Turkey Hill is owned by Kroger. They have 782 convenience stores operating by different names in different parts of the country - Turkey Hill in Pennsylvania, Tom Thumb in Florida, Kwik Shop in Kansas and the Midwest, and Quik Stop in California, Loaf 'N Jug in stores in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming.