Comcast suffered another nationwide e-mail meltdown Wednesday afternoon when customers discovered their messages were no longer getting through.

Customers pounded Comcast’s support forums looking for answers, but it took awhile for a Comcast spokesperson to finally acknowledge there was a problem.

“We’re aware that Comcast residential Internet customers may not be able to log in to e-mail or may experience delays with e-mail at this time,” said spokesman Jeff Alexander. “Our engineers are working to determine the root cause and are making progress.”

Although no mail appears to have been lost, Comcast customers were not happy with another service outage.

“It seems like at least once a month there is some sort of problem with Comcast’s e-mail servers,” writes Tom Judall, a Stop the Cap! reader and Comcast customer. “This was just the latest and our company uses Comcast Business Class service and was also impacted.”

The outage lasted approximately five hours, with a considerable backlog of messages reaching customers overnight Thursday.

Now some customers are contacting Comcast looking for some credit.

“I think this company owes more than excuses for yet another outage,” Judall said. “How about some credit, which might be an incentive to work harder to fix these issues once and for all.”

Judall is still waiting for a response from a message he e-mailed to Comcast customer service.

In general, Comcast will grant service credit requests for outages lasting several hours, but only when a customer contacts them to request it.

Storm damage in eastern Massachusetts. (Courtesy: WGBH Boston)

The northeastern United States got more than its fair share of severe storms these past few months.  Remnants of Hurricane Irene caused severe flooding, heavy rainstorms that followed didn’t help.  But one of the worst of all was the Halloween Nor’easter that left serious wind damage in some areas, heavy snowfall in others, leaving customers without power, phone, cable, and broadband service for days, if not weeks.

Telecommunications companies including Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, and Metrocast Communications of Connecticut are under fire across the region for not providing automatic service credits for impacted customers.  Charter and Comcast are both facing a class action lawsuit filed last week by a Massachusetts law firm that accuses the cable operators of “gouging” their customers by not automatically crediting affected subscribers for lost service.

Jeffrey Morneau of Springfield, Mass. law firm Connor, Morneau & Olin says up to 1.2 million Charter and Comcast customers were without service, but the companies will only provide credits on a case-by-case basis, and only if customers request them within a short time after the outage occurred.

“If you pay for a service and you don’t get it, the company can’t keep your money,” Morneau said.

Stop the Cap! readers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire report Comcast will grant reasonable service credit requests, assuming you get through to ask for them.

“Hold times are epic,” reports Tom Turlin, a Comcast customer in Massachusetts.  “I managed to get my credit by using their web contact form instead.”

Most providers require consumers to request credits for outages within 30-60 days of the service interruption, and time is running out for Nor’easter credits.

“Most people think they will only get 50 cents back so why bother, but actually with today’s huge cable bills, credits can be substantial,” Turlin says. “I received almost $15 back on my bill.”

Only AT&T, Connecticut’s largest phone company, agreed to automatically credit customers the company determined were without service for at least 24 hours.  Customers who don’t receive credit automatically can appeal to the company for credit they believe they are entitled to receive.

Here’s how different companies are responding:

AT&T: “We will give U-verse TV customers in Connecticut who experience a service outage for longer than 24 hours a pro-rated credit,” AT&T said. “In addition, we will voluntarily give similar credits for U-verse Voice and U-verse High Speed Internet service customers who experienced a service outage for longer than 24 hours. Customers are not required to take any action: the credits will be applied automatically on the customer bill for impacted customers within the next several billing cycles.”

Cablevision: “While state law provides for consumer credits for qualifying outages for cable service only, Cablevision has been providing a credit to customers on an individualized basis for all their services,” Cablevision said. “Customers will be credited when they notify us that they had a service outage. We are extending our normal period to request refunds to 45 days from the date of the storm.”

Charter: Customers must call or visit the cable company offices in person to request service credit.  “We are providing credit to customers for the entire time they were without service, from the time they lost power to the time their Charter services were fully restored, and we are providing credit for all services,” Charter said.

Comcast: “In order to receive a credit, a customer must contact Comcast and identify the time period during which they did not have access to Comcast services,” Comcast said.

Cox: “We need our customers to call us after their service is restored to report that they were without Cox services, and for how long,” Cox said. “We then credit their accounts from the time of the service outage until service was actually restored.”

DISH Network: The satellite provider is waiving service and equipment fees for consumers who need their equipment realigned, reinstalled or repaired due to the storm. “DISH subscribers who indicated that they were without service due to the storm were provided a credit for their time without service,” DISH said. “In addition, DISH subscribers who needed to suspend their service due to storm damage were allowed to do so at no charge.”

MetroCast Communications of Connecticut: It will provide customers with a refund on their next invoice after contacting the company. “The credit equals a prorated amount of the affected customer’s monthly charges for all MetroCast services, calculated based on the number of days during which such services were interrupted, and are included in the customer’s next invoice,” MetroCast said.

Time Warner Cable: Customers must contact the cable company online, by e-mail or phone and request credit for the number of days they were without service.  Most service credit requests that can be verified are granted within hours, and will appear on the next billing statement.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSHM Springfield City councilor Comcast disagree on cable rebates 11-21-11.mp4[/flv]

WSHM in Springfield covers the ongoing dispute city officials have with Comcast, who is refusing to automatically provide storm credits to customers impacted by the October Nor’easter.  (2 minutes)

For several days now, Time Warner Cable customers in northeast Ohio have endured disruptions to their digital cable, as pixel problems and frozen pictures plague the cable company.  Communities like Cleveland, Mentor, and Elyria are all affected, and the cable company can’t figure out what is causing the trouble.

Time Warner Cable reports more than 100 employees are trying to track down the problem, but the company will not issue general credits to affected customers.  Instead, you must write or call Time Warner requesting credit.  You can send a credit request on Time Warner’s website under the contact section.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WEWS Cleveland Time Warner Pixel Problems 5-3-11.mp4[/flv]

WEWS-TV in Cleveland covers Time Warner’s troubles after problems with the cable company brought many requests from viewers to get to the bottom of it.  (3 minutes)

If you are a Time Warner Cable “digital phone” customer living in New York or western Massachusetts, you can get a few dollars of your money back thanks to serious outages that have plagued the cable company for the past two weeks.

The worst problems occurred yesterday, when customers across the entire region couldn’t make or receive calls in many instances.

“My wife said it was like the whole system crashed,” reports Stop the Cap! reader Marcus, who lives near Syracuse.  “A lot of people here are very upset.”

Marcus reports he couldn’t even work around the outage by trying to set up call forwarding to send calls to his cell phone or another Voice Over IP provider.

“I tried to forward my Time Warner calls to a Vonage number I have and that didn’t work either,” Marcus writes.

We heard from several readers in Rochester, Albany, Syracuse, and even into western parts of Massachusetts that calling a Time Warner Cable customer from a cell phone or a landline from Verizon or Frontier was nearly impossible without getting a recording or busy signal.

Small business customers using Time Warner’s phone service were also impacted in some cases.

Lakeview Deli in Saranac Lake posted a message on its Facebook page just before noon, advising its customers to call in their lunch orders using a cell phone number because of the problems with its main phone line. Owner John Van Anden said he normally gets 30 to 40 calls around the lunch hour; he got only four on Tuesday.

“It hurt (business) quite a bit just because you can’t get phone calls from customers,” he said.

The outage, which lasted more than 12 hours, was reportedly finally fixed by the cable company last evening at around 11pm.  No explanation for the outage was given by Time Warner Cable.

This is the third major service problem for Time Warner’s phone service this month:

1. Time Warner misdirected 911 emergency service calls to a call center in Colorado;
2. Time Warner underestimated call volumes, leaving customers in central New York with “all circuits are busy” recordings or busy signals;
3. Yesterday’s collapse of Time Warner’s phone network.

“Wow, this is starting to make Frontier look good again,” says our Rochester reader Kevin.  “I’ll be dropping my phone service with the cable company when my promotion ends and sticking with my Verizon cell phone.”

With all of these service outages, you know what that means — it’s time to go grab those service credits.  Customers in central New York can apply for at least a week of service credits because of the ongoing problems the company faces handling call volumes.  Everyone else in the region with “Digital Phone” service qualifies for a day’s worth of credit.  But you won’t get it unless you ask.  We’ve made asking simple, with our cut and paste process:

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers in the northeast can request one day of credit for yesterday’s phone outage.  Residents in central New York, including Syracuse — can ask for one week of credit for ongoing call congestion problems.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request one day service credit for the phone service outage that occurred in my area yesterday, Tuesday Jan. 18th. Please credit my account.

[Central NY Residents ONLY]: I am writing to request a credit for one week of telephone service to cover the company’s ongoing intermittent call connection problems in our area as well as yesterday’s (Jan. 18) more widespread service disruption.  I am concerned about the repeated problems Time Warner seems to be having in correctly servicing my telephone needs.  Please credit my account.

Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Another Phone Outage 1-18-11.flv[/flv]

WSYR-TV in Syracuse is spending plenty of time covering Time Warner’s phone outages and other problems.  Here’s the fourth report this month, covering yesterday’s widespread problem. (Warning: Loud Volume) (2 minutes)

Last minute online shoppers in parts of western New York experienced frustration from a Time Warner Cable broadband outage that interrupted service for part of the morning and early afternoon of Dec. 23.  Customers in the Rochester area experienced slow or no service for several hours on Thursday.

Customers are entitled to service credits for outages, but the cable company only provides them to customers who ask.  You can receive yours in minutes using our credit request menu:

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers can request one day of credit for Internet service.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request a service credit for the Internet outage that occurred in Rochester during the late morning/early afternoon of Thursday, Dec. 23rd.  Please credit my account.

Methods to Obtain Credit (we recommend #3):

1. Use Time Warner Cable’s Online Chat system, select Billing Inquiry, and type to a customer service representative.
2. Call (585) 756-5000 or toll free 1-800-756-7956 and speak with a customer service representative.
3. Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.