The adventures of getting a cablecard to work with comcast....

I bought a HdHomerun Prime so I could get at least some unification of video in my home.  the bedroom has a Nexus Player that has the ability to use the HDhomerun app to integrate live TV, and the apple TV plus XboxONE can also view the channels..  Awesome.  I na also add a MythTV backend recorder to the home server so I can get a free DVR  as well.

So I head to the comcast office and get a cablecard.  The lady smiles and hands me a card and says, "It's all ready to go, just call this number when you get home"   and that is where it all falls to pieces.

I call the number and the person at the other end tells me, "that is not a cablecard, that is a cable box."  I assure her that I inserted a card in the slot and not a whole cable box.  she then tells me that it will not work and I need to go back to the local office to get another card.   I do this for another 3 times to discover ALL the cablecards are flagged as cable boxes in comcasts system, and the cablecard people you call do not know what to do and want me to pay $50 to have a tech come out.

I finally in frustration start searching and find that comcast has a online forum on the Xfinity website and people complaining there get resolution for cablecard issues.  and my issue is a very very common issue.

With in minutes of complaining I had a response that someone will help me, then I got 3 calls. each asking for all my information, then finally transferred to the only person in the United states that can actually activate a Cablecard in the system.  so 36 hours later and tons of frustration I have a working setup.

The problem is that Comcast has only a tiny handfull of people that actually know what they are doing. all the rest are told that if there is any problem at all, tell the customer to go back to the store or pay for a service call.  If you complain loud enough you will get help and you MUST do it on their customer forum on the xfinity website.

What I was told was impossible to fix by 6 different Comcast employees was fixed within minutes once I was transferred to the right person.  They really need to train their people better because they all want to give up right away instead of trying to help find a solution and find that one person in the company that actually knows what they are doing.

Lastly, It's mind blowing that I had to go to my local office.  they should have mailed me a card that was already set up.  yes, let me click on "give me a Cablecard" that then tells James in Philadelphia that he needs to grab a cablecard and do his magic to it to make sure it's right, then mail it out to me.

It's sad because the utter mess that customer service is was the #1 complaint when I worked there 10 years ago.... today it's the same.  And I am sure it is completely the fault of management as that was what we all knew 10 years ago... Management refuse to let many of us do our jobs. we had to work under their strict requirements and they all were micro managers from hell.  It seems it is the same way.


So if you try to get a cablecard activated and they tell you it is coming back as a cable box...  Get ready for your pain, it will take about 36 hours and you need to go straight to the Xfinity forums and start the process that will work.  because nobody at the local office or on normal phone tech support will help you.