Today, a Comcast broadband customer tried to sign up on one of my websites. After they submitted the registration form, our system sent them an email, but it appears that Comcast's spam filter misidentified and blocked it. The customer emailed me, and I got their account activated. I'd guess that we've lost a number of Comcast customers who didn't bother to email us when their account activation email didn't arrive, I tried to contact Comcast's tech support to see if we can prevent the problem from occurring again. Let the fun begin.

The first response from Comcast looked like this:

Dear Antone,

Thank you for your message.

I understand you would like to report e-mail abuse activity. To
ensure your issue is handled correctly, please report any e-mail abuse
activity by sending a detailed e-mail message to our Abuse Department
at abuse@comcast.net. The Abuse Department will research this issue
for you and take the necessary steps to ensure your safety. Include a
copy of the e-mail itself and the header information in the body of
the e-mail. Do not forward the e-mail to Abuse and send only one
e-mail per issue, please.

[etc., etc., etc.]

Thank you for choosing Comcast as your ISP.

Well, I am a Comcast customer, but I didn't contact tech support using a comcast.net email address. And I certainly wasn't reporting email abuse activity. I figured somebody read a little too fast and popped off a form message. So I responded:

I am not attempting to report email abuse--I am reporting that your
system appears to be incorrectly identifying emails from my site to
your customers as junk email. We only send email to people who sign up
on our site. How can we avoid having our messages blocked?

Comcast's response? Another form message:

Unfortunately, you have requested assistance for a feature Comcast
does not support. Our Customer Care Specialists are only trained and
authorized to offer limited help with items installed by our
technicians. Therefore, we must direct you to the manufacturer of your
product. Some examples of unsupported areas are:

Reader Comment:
Anonymous said:
I WOULD LIKE TO GO TO WORK FOR YOU AT COMCAST.
(join the conversation below)

-- Third-party Hardware (routers, phone devices, hubs, splitters,
gaming equipment)
-- Custom CGI Scripting
-- Windows NT Servers
-- Instant Messaging software like AIM or MSN Messenger
-- Registered Domain Names (The part after the @ in an e-mail address.)
-- Forwarding of e-mail from a non-Comcast e-mail address to your
Comcast e-mail address
-- Newsgroup Censoring
-- Home Networks and Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
-- Third-party Security Software Applications such as Norton or McAfee
-- SurfWatch or any other Parental Control software
-- Third-party software such as AOL

There are also a number of software packages that Comcast does not
support including Heat.net, RealPlayer, QuickTime, and Comfax. These
are not Comcast applications and you should contact the manufacturers
of them directly for authorized assistance. If you are having problems
with your software, you might also consider accessing the Web site for
the manufacturer of your software. They may have a list of frequently
asked questions that may cover the issue you are having. Often, you
can also post an e-mail question through the manufacturer's site that
is directed to their technical support group. In addition, you may
also access a newsgroup for that software application through the
manufacturer's Web site. You can post an e-mail message in these
locations and receive a response from other users who have dealt with
a similar issue. They will be able to provide you with detailed
assistance for their specific products.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may cause,
however, the software manufacturer is the best source for accurate
information and authorized assistance.

Thank you for choosing Comcast.

Once I can understand, but twice? Guys! You've gotta read a little more carefully! My next response attempted to wake the reader up and get them to read...while remaining civil:

I think you have misunderstood me again--I am reporting that YOUR SPAM
FILTER--the one running on YOUR mail server--IS BLOCKING LEGITIMATE
EMAIL. Your customers are not receiving email messages that they have
requested. I can verify that your mail server accepted the messages
from our mail server, but your customers have reported that they didn't
make it to their in boxes.

What response do you think came back from Comcast? Go ahead, think about it for a second before reading futher, and see if you can guess.

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That's right! The exact same form message that I'd gotten the time before! The message was signed "Matt", but I think the real name of the creature I was conversing with is either Eliza or Dr. Sbaitso. Honestly, I question whether a human is capable of being so dense. They must be using an automated system to respond to questions.

Don't get me wrong. I'm generally very happy with Comcast. As a broadband customer, I can tell you that up time improved tremendously after Comcast bought out AT&T Broadband. I think I've only been offline once for about a half hour since then. (Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'll give them the advantage of the doubt). But this is just silly.

I've edited my website's welcome message. Hopefully the new version will make it past whatever genius AI program they're using to filter email.