OAKLAND PARK, Fla. – Georgia Coyle emailed the "Leave it to Layron" team because the work she thought would be completed in her backyard remains unfinished. She said cable contractors with Comcast showed up at her Oakland Park home in November.
"They dug holes. They ran some kind of pipe," she said.
Coyle showed Local 10 News reporter Layron Livingston a section of her yard that meets the neighbor's fence.
She pointed out a junction box poking up from the ground. A black cable, about an inch in diameter, was connected to the junction box but had been cut. Another cable -- thinner and orange -- sprung up from the box and was draped over her neighbor's fence post.
From the neighbor's fence, the orange cable dips down to the recently shoveled earth in Coyle's yard, resting on top of the dirt and azaleas plants as it snakes its way to a different junction box on the opposite side of the yard.
The workers that showed up in November reportedly told Coyle they needed to bury a cable line. The "Leave it to Layron" team stopped by Coyle's home in February. The workers have not been back in several weeks. The orange cable that Coyle was told was supposed to be underground remains unburied.
"I called the contractor and I told him what was happening, and he said he'd be coming back to take a look at what the situation was, but he never showed up," Coyle said.
Coyle made multiple calls to Comcast in the weeks that followed. During those calls, she was given ticket numbers for service. No one ever came out to bury the orange cable.
Then, one day, there was a glimmer of hope.
"There was a repairman on my property on Feb. 2, so I thought, 'Oh, wow, maybe something's happening,'" Coyle said.
Coyle said the repairman was there to address an issue with her neighbor's cable, not the unburied line.
"(He) took a look, took a picture or two, sent it to his supervisor and said someone should be out here to take a look at this," Coyle said.
But no one came, according to Coyle.
The clincher: Coyle isn't even a Comcast cable customer.
"I have DirecTV," she said. "It's very frustrating for me at this point."
The "Leave it to Layron" team's first call was to Comcast customer service. An automated system asked for a phone number or account number to look up the customer’s information. But there was a problem: Coyle does not have a Comcast account.
Fortunately, the "Leave it to Layron" team was able to use Livingston's personal Comcast account information to bypass the automated system and speak with a representative.
The agent was able to pull up one of Coyle's previous service tickets, but the ticket was marked as "closed." The representative later acknowledged she did not see what the actual resolution was.
The team's next call was to Comcast's corporate offices. After being transferred to the executive customer relations department, the representative eventually said Coyle's new service ticket would be escalated and promised someone with Comcast would be reaching out by the end of the day.
Coyle said she received that call later that afternoon from a regional representative in Miramar. Local 10 also learned the infamous orange cable was a temporary line.
In an email, the executive customer relations representative thanked Coyle for her patience. She also wrote that as soon as the construction team provides an update, a time frame should be set to permanently bury the temporary line.
A Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokeswoman told Local 10 News that while the department does not have direct oversight over cable companies, it does advocate on behalf of consumers in Florida and work with companies to meet the consumers' needs.
The morning after our Coyle’s story aired on Local 10, the “Leave it to Layron” team received an email from the Comcast’s regional vice-president of public relations.
“I wanted you to know that our construction team will be handling this today and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused Ms. Coyle,” wrote Mindy Kramer. “We very much appreciate the patience and understanding that Ms. Coyle has showed during this time.”
Kramer responded in a separate message when asked about the original contractor that showed up in November:
“We hold all of our contractors to a very strict set of performance standards and metrics regarding the quality and completion of their work. Not meeting or exceeding those metrics can also result in financial penalties.”
Coyle said the Comcast crew quickly got to work removing the temporary line from her backyard.
"I'm just happy it's getting done,” she said.
The crew was in and out in a little more than an hour.
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