Abandon Nest

When I came home from work yesterday I was relaxed and ready to start my personal business of the day. Managing money, visiting my favorite websites, and posting on this blog were all on my list of things to do. Now, I obviously need an internet connection for these activities. Currently, I pay $45 a month for my cable internet access through Insight Communications. As soon as Windows had booted up on my desktop I got a warning notifying me that my network connection has limited or no connectivity. This is where the trouble started.

I tried all the typical things. Check the modem connections and ethernet ports and power cycle my cable modem. None of that worked, so I decided to call Insight to see what was going on. I was greeted immediately by a message after one ring. It said that Insight Broadband was experiencing technical difficulties, but that their technicians were working dilligently to correct the problem. However, after listening to the message again (they played it twice) I realized they were referring to incidents on Tuesday, May 9th. Probably was, I called on May 10th. So why wasn’t my internet working?

I decided to hang on the line and try to find out what was going on. First, I had to navigate a multi-tiered touch tone system that was confusing and unwieldy. Too many options in my opinion. After that, I was directed to a line where “My call was appreciated, and a customer service person would be with me as soon as possible.” So after getting my ear blasted off by the worst Muzak ever, I set the phone down and plugged in my headset so I could read without holding it.

I sat reading for 50 minutes, and no one picked up my call. At that point, I had to go to choir practice and had to hang up, but that long of a period of time is ridiculous. There was no explanation for why it took so long, and I’m still quite irate. I wake up this morning to find my internet service still disrupted and not working.

As soon as I can find a new broadband provider for internet service I’ll be canceling all my Insight memberships. That includes digital cable, HD cable, and broadband internet. They lost me as a customer, and will probably never have me again.

So what’s the moral of this story? For those of us just starting out, I think it is don’t pay for services that treat you poorly. You have to stand up for your rights as a consumer to get the best for your money. Insight Communications needs to think about their service quality. I suspect they will continue to lose customers if they treat them all like this and I’ll never recommend their service to anyone.

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