Moving day is stressful. So to help reduce the the burden on that day, you generally try to schedule some things in advance, such as hiring movers, making changes to your utility, and of moving your internet service. But that went all wrong for me and Xfinity. Even worse, they tried to pin the blame on me.
A broken website
A week before our moving date, I went to Xfinity’s website and attempted to go through the “Moving apartments” process.
A search field invited me to enter my new address, where it could check if service was available in the new location. Apparently, it wasn’t. In fact, the website invited me to cancel my service.
Odd. The new apartment’s office listed Xfinity as the primary internet provider of the building. Who was wrong?
The first agent
The website invited me to call an agent and cancel my service. When the agent picked up, he said, “So I understand you want to cancel your internet service.”
At this point, confusion and frustration was brewing, but the person was genuinely helpful. I explained I wanted to move, and that the website seemed to be incorrect. Sure enough, he said he was able to use the new address without issue on his end. And so our call completed after successfully scheduling the move. He even said I just needed to bring my existing router equipment and it will work in the new location.
What was the saying? “Famous last words”
Moving, and the second agent
On the day of the move, I noticed immediately that our internet was disabled at the old apartment. This seemed like a good sign; the internet move was already done! But as we arrived in the new apartment and I plugged in the equipment, no internet was detected.
I checked my Xfinity app and I was surprised to see “You have no service with us”. How is that possible? I immediately launched a chat with an agent, and was quickly told they identified the issue. Apparently, they tried to move the service, but I didn’t complete a step. This led to an error in their system and their system just cancelled my service without moving it.
It was my fault? The first call agent told me everything was buttoned up and tidy, and apparently I messed it up? I even had a receipt email confirming the scheduled move. This was absurd.
I pushed back on the agent. I said I had a receipt. He said not to worry, that he can just restart me with a new service. He then proceeded to offer me a more expensive plan that included internet and a phone plan. I already have a phone plan, and I don’t want that plan. He responded with, “well you can keep your plan. You just get this extra one, which is great.” I was flummoxed. Who wouldn’t be? I was promised a continuation of my existing $50 plan, but he was strong arming me to buy a more expensive plan I didn’t need. The choices were either buy the expensive plan or have no internet.
So, I hung up on the agent.
The third and fourth agents
To my surprise, Xfinity called me directly 5 minutes later. The callback was nice, but this third person had absolutely zero context of my previous conversation. So, I started from scratch. This time, I wasn’t unfairly forced to buy a new plan. However, he said that my account had some restrictions that he wasn’t allowed to access. He quickly informed me that I’ll be transferred to “executive support staff”.
The last agent was thankfully the most helpful of them all. First, she was capable of seeing what happened to my account. She quickly determined that the first agent made a mistake. They were supposed to tell me that I had to schedule installation of Fibre equipment. But instead, I was told to reuse my old non-Fibre equipment. The lack of schedule caused an error on their system, which led to my service being canceled instead of being transferred. She reassured me that I did nothing wrong.
She did a great job. She restored my $50/month plan and scheduled an installation the next day. There were still some technical hiccups, however. Namely, she was supposed to send me a URL link that I will use to confirm the re-enabled service. She sent me 4 different URLs, each one leading to a “URL unavailable” error message on Xfinity’s website. Eventually, she had to get her manager to manually override this step after recording I gave verbal consent to bypass this confirmation. This staff went above and beyond to help me, and I give her all the kudos. But it’s absurd that Xfinity’s system was so faulty. And it didn’t stop there.
The 2.5 hour installation
The next day, a friendly Xfinity technician arrived at my new home to install the Fibre equipment. I asked how long the job would take, and he said it would take 10 minutes. I fear I’ve become a broken record: “Famous last words.”
It turns out, the modem that he was attempting to install got stuck at a “Captive Portal” step. It refused to connect to the internet. He used his laptop to directly debug the device to no avail. He was attempting to repair it for about 1.5 hours when he finally said he’ll have to look for another modem. He returned about 40 minutes later, and finally the new modem was installed in 10 minutes.
The technician was friendly and also went above and beyond to ensure I was setup before he left. I appreciated that. But again, why is Xfinity’s hardware and software just failing their own employees? It’s ridiculous.
The result
After a nightmare two days, I’m back online. Part of me feels I’m whining as I write this post, but someone needs to record the baffling broken state of Xfinity’s service. My new apartment only has two internet options, so there’s not much choice. I went with them because I thought it would be simplest to transfer my service instead of getting a new one. I was wrong. For my next move, I will leave Xfinity. And I don’t recommend Xfinity to anyone in the future. Most of their staff were friendly and helpful, but it’s their software and hardware that is the failure of their service.
