Thank you for calling MezmerVision Cable. The estimated wait time before one of our representatives deigns to answer your call is…38 minutes. Please hold the line as we value your business. And then there’s the ever-popular, Our service technician will be there either between 8 and 12 or between 1 and 5. Three weeks later, on the day of your appointment when you’ve taken off work to be there, the cable co.’s subcontracted operator rolls up in a beat-up pickup truck with an unintelligible, indeterminate eastern European accent, smelling vaguely of borscht and unfiltered Camels and knocks on your door…five minutes before the end of the designated four-hour appointment window. We’ve all experienced some version of what passes for customer service in the digital home entertainment provision business. Which probably explains why one Albuquerque Comcast customer, Gloria Baca-Lucero, was in no mood to hear from Boris that he was going to have to charge her to fix her TV pipe . . .
We get the gory details of what happened next form yahoo.com:
When the customer became upset and refused to agree to pay these fees, the Comcast tech began loading his equipment back into his vehicle, during which time the customer allegedly took a bag of the technician’s tools, brought them into her home, and locked the door. The Comcast agent claims that, when he knocked on the door to ask for the bag of tools — valued at $400 — the customer opened the door, pointed a handgun at his torso, and told him to get off her property.
Ms. Baca-Lucero was, as you’d expect, later arrested and is now out on $10,000 bail awaiting further judicial proceedings. In the mean time, she may want to think about switching to DirectTV. There’s no telling how long it will be before she’s able to watch another episode of the Real Housewives of Dubuque via Comcast again, let alone when she’ll get her GLOCK back – if ever. We can tell her, though, that it won’t be long at all before an IGOTD trophy is delivered to her door. And we promise not to send it postage due.
Great muzzle control, though. She certainly had her gun pointed at something we’d all like to destroy.
Dish is better.
She did show admiral discipline on not blasting the miscreant to kingdom come. although he is not the source of the problem.
Blame accountants.
Dish Network and DirecTV have accountants, too, but for some reason they don’t have the arrogance that seems to be a prerequisite for employment with a cable TV company.
I notice from the report the police confiscated a “black Glock.” Gotta love their attention to detail.
Because the satellite networks have to actually woo their customers. Cable companies have had government granted monopolies for so long their customer service motto has basically become: “You’ll shut up and pay us whatever we demand. Or you can switch to the other cable company…oh wait there is no other cable company.”
^^^ This. The problem with any government sanctioned monopoly is the lack of competition leads to arrogance.
Correct.
My “competitive” electric bill doubled at the beginning of the year. Prices from Big Electric Company’s few competitors varied by a few dollars. But they’re not monopolies. HAH!
I served under Admiral Discipline in the Royal Navy. He was a tough bastard, but he kept his sailors in line.
I HAVE THE PATIENCE OF A BRICK, BUT NOT WITH COMCAST. I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SHOT HIM. HE WAS AFTERALL, TRESPASSING ON HER PROPERTY.
I felt like I should have been wearing hearing protection while I read this comment.
Dude.. BS… she invited him on.. not trespassing… and he left when he was ‘asked’…
This WOMAN was assaulted by the Comcast guy before he left. HE forgot his bag of tools. HE made the mistake of coming back after being told never to return to her property. HE threatened her home and safety. THAT is what prompted her to show him her gun. SHE NEVER pointed it at him or threatened it with him; she let him know she had it, and HE STILL REFUSED TO LEAVE. Our worthless Albuquerque Police Department still arrested HER, failing to include any of this information in their criminal complaint, despite the other witness in the home giving APD that information when they arrived, as did MS. Baca-Lucero.
Now thanks to one LYING THUG of a Comcast representative and our nationally recognized Albuquerque thug police force, this WOMAN, who is as lovely a soul as you could ever meet, has had her life destroyed. But as long as all you ASSH0LES made yourselves feel better judging and criticizing her, who really cares about the facts or her life, right?
Oh, and she’s still waiting for her fucking trophy to show up as promised, IGOTD, you arrogant DlCKS.
So, I guess you missed the part where the woman stole $400 worth of the technician’s equipment? She might be lucky the equipment wasn’t worth more, or she’d probably be facing an escalated charge of armed robbery (don’t know Arizona laws that well; she may still be charged with armed robbery – escalating a misdemeanor to a class 2 felony).
She could have justified it by telling the cops she was taking his equipment in lieu of wages for the eight hours she had to wait for him @ her $50/hour going rate.
Apparently you don’t know where Albuquerque is, either, stupid, because Arizona laws don’t apply here.
If our cops weren’t so incompetent you might know the truth, that she never stole or kept any of his tools and that he should have been arrested for assault.
She looks like a guy I used to know, I thought it was a dude.
Wow what a screwed up lady. I hope sh… Wait, she had Comcast? Nevermind then, good shoot.
I gave up cable about 5 years ago. I miss it a little during football season, but I sure as hell don’t miss mailing that check every month.
I don’t have cable or a dish. I use my tv as a player for my dvd’s which I buy used. I make an honest effort to not send a dime to the entertainment industry that is working overtime to destroy our 2a rights.
I have cable for internet access only. I have not had “cable TV” for well over a decade… lets see… $80 per month NOT SPENT… $960 per year… $9,600 for the decade… hmmmm… what’s that worth? A used vehicle in decent shape? An FFL stamp? 10 1911 handguns? A handful of AR15’s? 12000 rounds of .308?
In other words, the money was spent on something better than “The View,” NFL, and “Big Bang Theory.”
$ 9,600?
About 3 bricks of .22lr.
jwm, I’m with you, we gave up cable 4 years ago-moving out here to the woods, but we do have a nice digital ant. that gets all the local channels and (CREATE wow love that channel) and if your PC has “windows media center” you can hook it direct to the TV cable and record any channel you want while watching a different channel on other tv.
As for dvd between family and friend we have over 750 movies stored on the 4tb HD we share our dvd or buy cheap at wally world or meijers they have $5 movies all the time & a good ripper make watching and storing them awesome.
Got to keep the kiddies busy after chores, home school work, etc
On the plus side, some jails have cable.
For the WIN!
The DA might want to plead this one down since it will be impossible to find 12 jurors who’ve never thought about going postal on the cable company.
Ya got that right!
They would have to hold the trial on the Moon to find 13 unbiased jurors (12 + 1 alternate).
Dish has it’s own problems, as well as Directv, but comcast is it’s own genre of terrible.
Comcast’s genre IS terrible.
The Jimenez of services.
Unfortunately, I’m at a loss to condemn this lady’s actions. Few people who have dealt with Comcast will.
Time to bust up the monopolies, competition always promotes better customer service.
When you’re the only game in town, you can be as rude as you want.
Having just dealt with Comcast last night, for the 3rd time, I agree with Vhyrus, good shoot. 😀
What monopoly? They may be the only cable company authorized for your area, but they aren’t the only content provider. There are the two satellite guys, for starters. There’s Internet content, where T.V. shows are available free of for a small fee. Many companies offer Internet service, including the cell phone people. That opens the door to Hulu, Netflix, and a zillion other content sources.
There are new digital antenna companies out there now, too, which is an interesting take on an old approach. Outside of the box, or rather back in the box, there are still DVD suppliers iut there like Redbox, eager to serve your entertainment needs. There may be plenty of reasons to dislike the cable guys and Comcast in particular, but city-wide monopoly power probably is the least valid among them.
Now, where you may have something is with newer neighborhoods where cable is “free” to all of the homes, and overall payment for service to the subdivision comes out of the homeowners association fees. Then you’re stuck paying whether you prefer a different provider or want none at all. Even that’s a choice you can opt out of by not buying there, but still, that’s crappy and I would complain about that, too.
If she had pulled the trigger the shoot would be questionable, but because she didn’t, good shoot. (Mostly kidding)
Another case of “Why angry lesbians shouldn’t have guns because self control is an issue.” Solved!
Hey Bob! Let’s have someone assault you, threaten your home, frighten your children and refuse to leave, then see what you feel you need to do. I guess you would be categorized as a frightened little gay boy when you let a potential intruder see your weapon so he might finally leave.
You don’t know this woman, you don’t know the facts, and you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Solved!
The only “TV” I have access to is satellite, after 16 years I finally got HS internet and dumped the satellite.
BTT: a good reason to prevent women from bearing arms, driving, holding office, voting , freedom of speech and all the rest ;0)
Yeah, nobody here seems to be addressing the theft of a $400 bag of tools before she produced the gun. She sounds like a piece of work.
If you need $400 worth of tools to install cable, you are doing it wrong.
Unless you bought them from a DoD Contractor. Then the toolbox would only need to contain a hammer.
I guess I’m in a distinct minority but Comcast has been very good for us. Extremely reliable but yeah too much $. I’ve negotiated a lower bill many times in the last dozen years. Mainly the internet connection is what we like for my wife’s blog and website. We did have one gang looking guy show up but no problem out of him…
I’m just glad this story was from somewhere else. I thought at first it was the lunatic lady here yesterday who was waving a shotgun around on her porch, reportedly pointing at deputies and the construction crew behind her property whose noise production was her supposed stressor.
Hmmm…
I give customers a one-hour window. That is to say, we agree on a time with the understanding that I’ll arrive somewhere between that time and one hour later.
This allows for vagaries of traffic and the previous tasking, and generally works well. I’ll even give a half hour window if circumstances so warrant.
One day last year I was spot on time for a call on which all I could get over the ‘phone was “The POS won’t arm.” The call was 70 miles west of the city which is 25 miles east of my home, and the system was still under warranty.
Upon arriving, I found that they’d remodeled, cut half the wiring and left a keypad outside in the rain.
When confronted with the notion that the warranty covered equipment and workmanship only under normal conditions and that they’d have to pay for a new keypad and the labour involved in getting things working again, she threw a cup of coffee at me and he threatened [at 105 dB at 10 metres] to sue my company out from under me.
People are sometimes like that, y’know?
Comcast notwithstanding, my sympathies lie with Boris.
Now now, children, ComCast’s fees are no reason to threaten it’s minions with death or grievous bodily harm. And, yes, I’ve dealt with ComCast before, and to inflict misery and woe on their technicians never came to mind.
If I had the urge, I’d reserve that ire for the sloped-forehead, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, finger-painting Neanderthals in cheap suits on Capitol Hill that gave cable companies their tax-payer funded monopolies in the first place.
Not only Capitol Hill, but also the various local municipalities that cheerfully grant franchises to Comcast that lock out any other cable provider-not that there will be that many left after their cronies at the FCC and DOJ approve their acquisition of Time Warner cable.
Good or bad customer service is besides the point. She initiated the hostile action which was unprovoked since the technician was leaving. She took the property off the truck and she threatened the other party with body and possible lethal force with a firearm. Obviously, she is not a well balanced person and should not be in possession of a firearm. It is because of morons like this individual and their lack of common sense that law abiding gun owners get so much bad publicity.
… and you can save 15% on your car insurance in fifteen minutes.
Yeah. Everybody knows that.
But thanks for fulfilling the role of Captain Obvious for the day.
Sorry Curtis, we rational people will leave you alone to joke about killing Comcast employees because their business practices suck.
Alas, First World Problems.
Living the dream,Gloria, living the dream.
When people are saying what they got arrested for in jail, she should be popular.
If I have to choose between Boris the Comcast Guy and Gloria Waca-Waca the Nutcase, well then, I’m going to sit this one out.
1. I’ve never understood understood the concept of paying to watch commercials. Shouldn’t the advertisements cover the cost of the cable service (especially when there are 20 minutes of them every hour)?
2. Screw Comcast. When I was finally able to ditch their over-priced, unreliable, slow-ass “high-speed” internet service for one of their competitors, it was one of the happiest days of my life.
You guys keep saying “She…”. Sorry, that’s a man, man.
While probably female, it’s not human; it is the latter attribute wherein resides the potential for confusion.
I ditched cable 10 years ago, went to Satellite. The cable went out all Sunday afternoon, and part of the evening. Can you think of any worse time? They would not credit me, since it was not out all day! I complained loudly to a supervisor, and finally they said they would credit me for the misfortune.
When I got my bill they had deducted 21 cents. Next day I cancelled!
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