This is the story of my experience with Comcast, their support teams, and how Twitter saved the day. Now, unlike many of the people I see complaining online, I have, for the most part, found Comcast to provide very good service. I did, however, try their new Comcast TiVo DVR box and that was a complete failure…but except for that, for the most part, they have met my expectations in regards to service and support.
So, yesterday, July 1, was the day we launched VendorCity to the public. So, it was going to be a crazy and stressful day no matter what. However, it got off to a VERY BAD START when I awoke early to get a jump on my email. I went to send email through my ”old” company’s email server which uses port 25 and does security via IP address. (I know…I know…it should be over secure connections..let’s just ignore that issue for now and chastise me later).
I started up Outlook and my email arrived without a hitch but I was unable to send out (but had no trouble with my VendorCity account which is hosted by Google Apps). After a quick investigation, I was able to definitively determine that port 25 was blocked. Well, you can imagine my surprise and frustration of having to deal with this on the day we are launching VendorCity.
I called Comcast support and get connected with a standard first-level support person. I made it very clear that I needed to speak with a networking expert because it appeared that Comcast was blocking port 25 (the smtp port). She asked me what email program I was using (MS Outlook) and she said that Comcast does not support Outlook (only Outlook Express) but that she would work hard to help me anyways.
Well, that was nice of her but then she proceeded to try and walk me through lots of Outlook and Control Panel settings. After my, oh, 10th time trying to explain to her that it had NOTHING TO DO WITH APPLICATIONS but it was a problem with my network and specifically sending SMTP email over port 25, she told me that the only way to get someone else to help me would be to hang-up and call in again. Well, you can imagine my surprise and anger when I was told that.
