Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The "Our Clerk Was A Sweetheart, And She Had A Smile, Too!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just walked into the Comcast Xfinity store on Route 30E in Lancaster County, PA to buy a new phone for Carol and obtain a mobile phone plan from Comcast for both she and I.  Spent most of yesterday afternoon with a young man from Xfinity who upgraded our home television coverage, changed our internet service and added Comcast as our home phone carrier.  For years I have been thinking of changing our service from Verizon to Comcast to save money, but never did.  Then about a year ago I got a new internet router from Verizon and began to have multiple problems.  The internet signal was spotty and I had to turn the router off and on a few times a week to get it to work.  Finally had enough and called Comcast and found I can get internet, home phone, television as well as wireless service for about half of what I pay for all those services I presently have.  So, after the young guy made all the changes to our home services yesterday, Carol and I headed to the Comcast store today to change our wireless service.  Carol's flip-top phone is so old we needed to buy a new one for her.  Her choice was based on size rather than what the phone could do.  She chose the largest one they had so she would no problem finding it in her handbag.  My iPhone was compatible with their service so all I had to do was change from Verizon to Comcast.  Sounds easy, but what I thought was my account number and pin number with Verizon must have been for something else I own, for neither one worked.  So the female clerk, in order to remove Verizon as my carrier and add Comcast, had me dial Verizon on my iPhone to get both my account number and my pin number.  I called and was asked for my account number which I didn't know.  They told me they would send me a text in a few seconds with a number and all I had to do was return that number to obtain a new pin number.  Went well until I had to talk to someone on the phone and the noise level was so great on the phone I couldn't hear it.  Asked the clerk helping us to try to listen to what they were telling me, and she actually had a hard time, but did manage to help.  Finally got a new pin number and thought I was in good shape until Verizon wanted my account number.  Went through the same procedure once again and finally, I had my account number.  By now several clerks were gathering to hear what I would do next.  Why I needed my account number and pin number I'm still not sure, since I planned to cancel their service anyway.  Now, if you're having a hard time figuring all this out, you have no idea how hard it was for me.  After two hours Carol and I left the store with the same wireless phone numbers and my phone now changed to Comcast.  The phone that Carol had wanted they didn't have, since no one wanted that model anymore except Carol, so it will be mailed to us.  I need to call Verizon myself to cancel my service, but will wait until Carol gets her phone so I can do both at the same time.  Heaven knows what numbers I will need for that call.  We asked the clerk if we could come back in once again to get help with Carol's phone if she couldn't figure it out.  She checked her schedule and told us when to return.  My guess is it is on a day she is off.  The end result:  Comcast television, internet, home phone and wireless service for about half the cost we paid for all of that through Comcast and Verizon combined.  The biggest discount was with wireless where we went from close to $110 a month with Verizon to $12 a month with Comcast.  I know we don't have tons of data on our new plan, but we don't spend all day on our phone as many people do.  Having everything from one service really does cut the cost down.  I even figured out where the SIM card is located on my phone and how to remove it.  Hey, we just might take another vacation on the money we will save over a year's time.  All in all it was a successful day for all but our dear clerk.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  

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