CUMMING — Jerry Parker recently moved to Cumming from DeKalb County, where he had trouble with cable TV installation and billing during his more than years as a Comcast customer.

“You get in this whatever department,” he told the Cumming City Council on Tuesday night. “I don’t call it customer service because they have no record of what’s gone on before.

“We finally fired them. I don’t know if they know they’re fired, but we made other provisions and they were in place within about four days.”

Parker was one of eight speakers during the second of two public hearings on Comcast this fall organized by the city. No action was taken, or expected to be. City officials had previously said they wanted only to hear from local customers of the company.

Another resident who spoke Tuesday had experienced customer service, cable and phone issues with Comcast. In addition, she said her bill unexpectedly went up.

“Today, I got a very unpleasant surprise,” said Margaret Highton. “I’m on Social Security, that’s a fixed income. I guess Comcast is not on a fixed income because they’re charging me $17.47 more than they did last month.”

One speaker had an issue with the technician who set up his cable. That person accidently took a piece of equipment that belonged to him.

“I realized that the technician had taken a coaxial cable junction box,” Gene Jablonski said. “Since June, I’ve probably made over a dozen calls with no resolution to getting the junction box back from Comcast.

“I’m thinking maybe my next recourse is putting in a police report for theft, and let Comcast deal with the police department.”

Representing Comcast was Andy Macke, vice president of external affairs for the region, who said he understood the frustration.

“We apologize for the issues and certainly understand that when problems go unresolved, particularly after trying to adjust them on a repeated basis, is a point of frustration if nothing else,” Macke said. “We will do everything we can to get those addressed as quickly as possible.”

Cumming Mayor H. Ford Gravitt emphasized one off the issues from the last public hearing — that there is no local office and the closest is at North Point Mall in Alpharetta. 

Macke said higher-ups in the company had made that decision, citing consolidations, foot traffic and transaction numbers.

Comcast essentially has a monopoly as the lone local cable service provider other than AT&T, which serves just part of the county. Gravitt said he hoped that the Comcast could have a local store before moving forward with a new agreement.

“Since several years have gone by, we’ve had a tremendous amount of growth in this area,” he said. “It might be a different story now if we could get together and talk about … Comcast setting an office back up here.”

Alex Horwitz, regional vice president of public relations, wrote in an email that the company would be adding more customer service issue employees.

“In 2015, we plan to add several hundred employees in Georgia and across the South that will be focused on enhancing the customer service experience,” he said.

He also confirmed that the local store was closed to due low volume and said that modern stores are a top priority.

“In the future, we are looking at opening an Xfinity Customer Center that will be more accessible for Cumming residents” he said. “The modern storefront would provide an interactive way for customers to experience products and services.”

“It would also offer customers a place to pay bills or address equipment needs.”