Cha-Cha-Changes or Comcast Can Bite Me

Nope, still not talking about the Cheeto flea. Talking about other changes. Both he and Comcast can kiss my ass.

Change is not only hard, it can be impossible. I’m pissed off and naming names, Comcast/Xfinity/aka useless email provider. Since earlier this year, I have been trying to change my email address, or more precisely, I am trying to move every bloody account, subscription, and junk email I don’t need — OK maybe not the junk mail — to a new email address. This has been 10 years in the making, but I have been putting it off because it is soooooo painful. Many years ago, my sister told me how she had different emails for friends and important things, online ordering, and full on junk accounts for when companies make you put in your email just to access something. It made sense, but the thought of 3 emails overwhelmed me, and I stuck with my one Comcast account. But I should have listened. I am learning the hard way that as painful as it would have been 10, or heck even 5 years ago, it’s nearly impossible now. Then I would’ve just had to go to each site and change my email. But now?

You think multiple authentication is painful on one account? Try changing them all. And yes, I am sooooo grateful that these companies are looking out for my digital well-being, but the cyber mobsters seem to be hacking away just fine stealing people’s identities, while I’m having to have 3 digital devices running to respond to the texts, emails, and phone call authentications. There’s nothing like 50 different multifactor verification systems to make you question your existence. And why are we the ones paying because other people are criminal jerks? I’m still mad about having to show my ID to buy Sudafed, so this ain’t helping.

While each account has a different process, it seems to be an even breakdown between texting my phone with a code to verify it’s me trying to change my email, or sending an email to my Comcast address. That option is textbook irony because it is why I want to ditch Comcast in the first place. Whenever a company sends a verification code to Comcast, it can take several minutes to never to arrive. I often time out the code sender, and they send another one, which also takes several minutes to never. My favorite is when 15 minutes later, I get 3 useless, timed out codes. Gmail and Outlook manage to receive such emails nearly instantly, so what exactly are you doing with the emails, Comcast? Taking them out for dinner and dancing?

Needless to say, I am caught up in several digital circles of hell. I am about 70% done with accounts, services, subscriptions. Although when I say “done,” what I really mean is that I tried to be organized and had this grandiose plan to do what my sister did, and have one new account for friends and important things and the other for purchases and subscriptions.

Ha ha ha ha ha. I really crack myself up. Like those last few hours before the movers come and you throw whatever is left in garbage bags, I just put things randomly in each (and a few things are in both — don’t ask me how that happened). So now I check three emails daily. And some emails that I changed still go to Comcast, like my bank account. And I still haven’t gotten the energy to give the new email to my friends. Maybe 2025.

When I hit the wall with changing my email, I decided to take another tack and unsubscribe from emails. That seemed logical, right? And for a lot of companies it is, except for Career Builder. I have unsubscribed multiple times, in the email and going to their site. But somehow they keep popping up. Also, what’s up with the message that it will take 5-10 business days for my request to go through? Go sell that bull somewhere else. I get ads about products I’m merely thinking of buying, don’t tell me you can’t delete an email off your list. Then I tried to block them in Comcast. I dug around and found a list of terms I had filtered out like 10 years ago. The list is kind of funny — silver singles is one. OK, then. Feeling quite proud of myself for 1) remembering I could filter emails and 2) actually finding it, I happily added career builder to the list. It kind of helped mitigate the whole new email switchover debacle. I smugly shut down my computer.

The next morning I checked Comcast. Nothing new, but since I had changed a lot of the emails, that didn’t seem strange. I got busy, but managed to check several times that day, nothing. Hmmmm. Then I Googled any outages. Nothing. It was now close to bed time, and I knew trying to do one tech thing could end up with me 3 hours later with nothing to show for it but a headache. The next morning, still nothing. I am so silly and naive, I didn’t connect the dots to the filter. I mean, how could one change to a filter eff up my whole inbox? One wonders.

So I went to the Xfinity website, getting pretty much what I expected, which was nothing. The site is built to avoid human contact, which I know is nothing new. I looked through the forums. I looked through the FAQs. Even the AI is ridiculous. It gave me a handful of choices and when I said it was none of those, it replied it didn’t understand, and could I please follow the prompts? No offer to contact a human being or a smarter AI platform. It goes without saying there’s no phone number or email anywhere. Honestly, I kind of have to admire them. Most sites bury their email/phone, and you may never find it, but it exists. Comcast is unburdened by this; they have taken “no customer contact” to a whole other level.

I was just getting ready to let loose a full-on, post-menopause woman rage, when I realized the only thing that was different in the past 24 hours was me adding career builder to the filter list. I went back in and deleted it. I left silver singles on. Apparently Comcast can’t send through an authentication email in under 5 minutes, but when you take off the filter the emails start flowing like a real email provider. Well, just the emails from that day. The ones from the day before? Who knows where they ended up — not in the spam or trash folders. I guess they are hanging out with all the authentication emails in the “When Hell Freezes Over Email Lounge.”

It made me think I need to prepare the kid. My generation (Gen X) has to deal with our elderly parents never remembering how to work the remote. Gen Z better buckle up, cause they are going to have to help us remember how to get to all our stinking email accounts. Except for Comcast, which will likely haunt me to my final days. I’ve had that address since I started using email, so that’s in my long-term memory. Like the authentication emails, that one ain’t going nowhere.