[h=1]Comcast Will Charge for Hurricane Irene Service Outages, Blames God[/h]Comcast customers who lost—or still don't have—cable, phone or Internet service in the wake of Hurricane Irene have a nasty surprise in store for them when they seek to get credit for their downtime. Comcast says they won't be crediting customers who lost service during the hurricane because it was an "Act of God".
What does that mean to you if you lost service during the hurricane, or still a week later don't have it? It means you'll be paying for the internet, the phone, the cable you never received.
I stumbled upon this while dealing with my own cable, phone and internet issues that left me without any service for six days and running.
When I contacted Comcast in the days following Irene I was initially told I'd be without service for a day and would receive credit for the loss. When I called two days later, I was told it would be two days, but I would receive credit. When I called six days later I was told they didn't know how long it would be and that when it was restored I would not be receiving credit for the lost service.
"Wait, you're telling me you're going to try and bill me for service I never received," I asked the customer service agent.
"We're not going to try. We will be billing you," he responded.
Another customer service representative verified the information with a supervisor, but sounded as incredulous as I felt when he came back to the phone.
The outage, he explained, is now considered an "act of god".
"I can't believe we're going to do this," he said.
He suggested I call back when the service was restored for credit.
"I can't believe we're not going to give credit," he said again, before telling me to have a nice weekend.
We've contacted Comcast media spokespeople for confirmation and explanation of this policy and will update when they respond.
