My Cable TV Saga [View all]

For the last several weeks we have had iffy cable TV quality.
Pixelation, audio drop outs, black screens for a few seconds here & there.
On all channels, all tiers; some considerably worse than others. (Of course, The Food Network, ESPN channels, The History Channel, and a few others I watch all the time are in that "worse" category.
I kept getting emails from Xfinity that there would be multiple short term outages because of network upgrades.
So, I waited that out. When upgrades were done, no improvement.
Not wanting to call the stupid service number, I went to their store.
They determined (only partially correct) that our hardware was so old it couldn't keep up with network speed.
They gave us a new master box and 4 auxiliary boxes.
Then, they went through out account. They determined we were paying $67 per month more than we should have. So, now our bill for TV, Internet, Home Phone, and my cell is $67 lower.
On top of that, the manager said that he couldn't authorize a refund & that it might take 5 years of requests & appeals to get a partial refund.
So he says, "Would you forgive the oversight if we gave you a new Samsung8Watch for free."
So, now we've got new gear, a lower bill, and a new watch.
(The issues have not been resolved but they've agreed it's something in the signal strength hitting the house. They're sending someone out on Labor Day to fix it, and there will be no charge to us.)
It paid off to go into the store and talk to them in-person.