Comcast's security screw-up

On May 17 I received an e-mail from Comcast's Customer Security Assurance group titled "Customer Security Assurance Notice." Unfortunately, it was mainly HTML code. Here's a sample, which began the e-mail's content:

(Hopefully, someone at Comcast didn't send this intentionally.)

Further down the e-mail it stated that Comcast had blocked my ability to send outgoing e-mails because "Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email."

I called Comcast seeking an explanation as I've never sent anyone unsolicited e-mail. The customer service person with whom I spoke told me that I had to contact their security department and gave me its number. I called it. An answering machine responded. I left a message and my phone number.

The next day someone from Comcast's security department called. He told me that I hadn't sent anyone unsolicited e-mail and that Comcast had sent the notice to all its Internet customers. He told me that to restore my ability to send e-mail I either had to call 1-800-comcast or go to comcast.net/help/faq/tb25, which would explain what I would have to do. Why he couldn't explain it to me while I had him on the phone befuddled me.

I went to its Web site, which only offered explanations for Outlook Express 2002 and 2003: I had Outlook Express 6. Eventually, I figured out how to apply the fix to my Outlook.

However, because of this experience, my first award for lousy customer service goes to Comcast, first for sending me an e-mail in HTML code that did such a poor job of explaining the problem and then for its security person's failure to help me to correct the problem while he was on the phone with me.