Dear Help Squad,
I need your assistance with this dispute. In June I called Xfinity. I wanted the company to be my new Internet provider. Xfinity sent a technician to install the Internet cable. Seems to me the person they sent was not well trained. When drilling into one of my basement walls, the technician drilled through the wall, resulting in three holes in the tiles of my shower on the other side. I called the company to let them know about the damage. A few weeks later they sent someone to patch the holes, but all the technician did was fill the holes with acrylic latex caulk. Of course it looks terrible!
I cannot believe a company that makes billions of dollars a year cannot replace the tiles. Instead they did a cheap repair. I have been trying to resolve this problem, calling the company several times, but Xfinity never returns my calls. This case is closed for them.
I hope you can help me to resolve this dispute with Xfinity, since I believe they are liable for replacing the tiles with the drilled holes. The only thing I want is for the company to send somebody to replace the tiles. I just want my shower’s tiles the way they were before the damage!
Thank you for your help,
David, Skokie
Help Squad made a call to Comcast Customer Service. From there we were transferred to the Xfinity Internet department. The customer service rep with whom we initially spoke noted that an escalation had been assigned to David’s request for his tile repairs – in July. As far as we could tell, this escalation resulted in the squirting of some caulk into the holes that ran from his shower to the room on the other side. A solution of sorts – after all it prevented those on the other side of the wall from getting wet. However, this was hardly a case of getting the damaged property back to its original state.
The CSR understood the caulk was not an acceptable solution and checked with her manager to make the replacement of David’s tiles an emergency escalation. She then went on to explain that a normal escalation takes 66-120 days to resolve (wow!), and emergency escalations are completed with 66 days (wow again!). However, for this situation we would be put in touch with Comcast’s Customer Solutions Department and David’s repairs would be addressed more promptly.
Help Squad was then transferred to Customer Solutions for an “expedited” emergency escalation (our phrase, not theirs). A damage claim ticket was opened and we were told that David’s issue would be addressed in the next 24-48 hours.
Forty-eight hours passed, and … no call from Comcast. So Help Squad reached out to Comcast’s director of communications to inquire if he could look into David’s situation. This request seemed to nudge things along. That day David received a call from a Comcast Customer Care representative who apologized for the damage, offered David a month of free service and scheduled replacement of his tiles for the next day.
David reported that the director of operations from Xfinity’s installation company personally came to his home to view the damage, and his tiles were replaced that evening. The director told David that the contract had been cancelled with the subcontractor responsible for his installation as Comcast had received other similar complaints.
Explained Comcast spokesperson Joe Trost, “Our technicians do their very best, but sometimes … they make mistakes too. We’re happy this situation was resolved [for David], and look forward to serving him … for years to come.”
David had this to say following the repair: “The contractor came to my house last night to replace the tiles. The repair was done to my complete satisfaction. Help Squad is helping to protect consumer rights, and I know without your help a lot of these issues would never be resolved. Thanks for my Christmas gift!”
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