I moved recently - from one flat in a house to another in the same house. The transition was ridiculously complicated. Apparently none of Comcast’s departments are linked to each other efficiently, so that what one does doesn’t necessarily carry over to another.
My service in general is actually quite good, with minimal downtimes. But anything adminstrative ( other than upgrading services ) is just an utter pain in the ass.
Man, I had a head-against-wall experience like this with Time Warner last year. I signed up for the sports package when I had it installed because I wanted GolTV. Guy comes and installs it and lo and behold, no GolTV. So I called them up and it went something like this:
Me: I signed up for the sports package because I wanted GolTV. Why am I not getting this channel?
Rep: The sports package doesn’t contain GolTV. Sorry, ma’am.
Me: I am looking at your own website right now. It lists GolTV in the sports package. There is a little picture of its logo and everything.
Rep: You have to get the Spanish tier for that. You can’t get GolTV in the sports package.
Me: Then why does it say on your website that you can?
Rep: The sports package doesn’t have GolTV.
Me: I understand the words you are saying. I am asking WHY then does your own website claim that this channel is included! I signed up for this package because your website said it included this particular channel! Is your website lying?
Rep: You can’t get GolTV in the sports package, sorry. You need the Spanish tier.
Me: RRRRRGHHHH.
It had a happy ending: I took a screenshot of the site and filed a BBB complaint for false advertising. A week later, a very apologetic corporate muckety-muck called me at work, said I was right, and how would I like free Spanish tier so I could get GolTV? But without getting the BBB involved, I doubt I’d have gotten anywhere.
Then, when I cancelled service because I was moving, they correctly cancelled my service, but not the autobilling. It took two months and multiple phone calls and online chats before I finally got my $150 refund.
You mail a copy of the death certificate back in the bill with the information that you called on whatever date and spoke with whomever notifying them that you mother was deceased at that time and the account is closed. You enclose a copy of the receipt from when you dropped the equipment off at their physical location - return receipt or registered mail. Not a problem. [Been there, done that.]
Which is why I will not sign up for auto-billing unless I’ve no other option (like Netflix & Hulu); I use my bank’s bill-payer service (which I have control over) for everything else.
What? You got my name mixed up with chizzuk’s quote. LOL how did that happen?
I tried to get internet through Comcast (we already had cable). The number I called to set up the hookup gave me a date and time when a rep would come out to hook up the internet. The date and time came, and nobody showed up. I called Comcast and was told that there was absolutely no record of my phone call and that nobody would be coming out. I told them that I wanted their internet, and wanted a rep to come out, and was told, “Oh, no, we don’t do that, we send you the equipment and you have to hook it up yourself.”
Uh, no. Forget it.
While I don’t generally post to Facebook much, cases like the above are the exception.
I’ve had customer service nightmare calls, and posted the story on the company’s Facebook page. Within 2 days, I’ve had my issues resolved and an apology from the company. Public shaming at it’s best.
My Comcast moment: telling them that I was cancelling my service because I was moving out of the country permanently, and them trying to convince me to retain my account/service anyway. (Aside – it is rather nice to pay £15/mo for high speed broadband than over $100 a month for the same service with Comcast!)
I had Sprint for my phone service the year I lived in Minneapolis. I called the cancel when it was time to move back in with my parents on the East Coast. Sprint gave me all kinds of hell at the time, and continued to send bills to my address. My former roommate thought she was doing the right thing by opening one of the bills, worried that I’d overlooked something, and thoughtfully giving Sprint my parents’ contact details so they could get hold of me. Four years later I was still arguing with them that I had cancelled my account back in 1988, no longer lived in Minneapolis, and that I wasn’t using Sprint as my phone provider because my then-current roommate had the landline account (with another company!)
Call could have ended in under a minute if only he had begun with the sentence, “I need to cancel the service as I will be leaving the country in 45 days!” Retention goes out the window, now they want their money before you leave the country!
And yes, I did learn this the hard way. My dead mother in law’s name was on our cable bill for years after she passed because attempts to cancel required a confirmation from the person whose name is on the account! Her phone plan was even worse, “She has to call to cancel, herself!” I mean, it was a good phone plan but it doesn’t reach beyond the grave, dammit!
The mistake made in the case linked to in the OP is giving the customer service asshole something to work against. You don’t give them any reason when they ask - just imitate a broken record until they do as they are told.
The CSA has a script; the customer needs a script. Keep repeating “No, just cancel the service” in a loud monotone until they obey. Bring their attention off their script and back to what you want.
“How about if I give you three months of HBO free?”
“No, just cancel the service.”
“Can you give me some of your reasons for wanting to cancel our excellent service?”
“No, just cancel the service.”
“But I want to understand - what don’t you like about our company?”
“No, just cancel the service.”
Etc.
Regards,
Shodan
But he did that, and it really didn’t help him, at all!
If you tell them you’re leaving the country there is no retention to attempt, and they know they can’t collect after you exit the country. Your service will be cancelled and you will get your final bill in record time!
No, just cancel the service.
Regards,
Shodan
Usually when you call “customer service” at a company that has a bad rep for “customer service”, you get an off-shore service center populated with script monkeys who can only read from their scripts, and in barely intelligible English. But when you ask to cancel, you get transferred to their “retention specialists” who, in my experience, seem to be state-side fluent English speakers who are adept at sweet-talking the customer.
Verily, the advice has oft been given: If you actually want customer service, tell them you want to cancel. Then you should expect to get that “retention specialist” who will really bend over backward to help you out, and who speaks English, and doesn’t necessarily stick to a script.
Clearly at Comcast . . . not so much.
Now here’s what I wonder: If those script monkeys can do nothing more than read their scripts, then who is writing those gruesomely awful scripts? One would think they would at least have state-side script execs writing that, no? But, aside from the incomprehensible accents that some of those phone dudes speak, what’s with their awful grammar and diction?
What fluent speaker of English starts every question with phrases like “And now, may I please know . . . ?” What fluent speaker of English uses the present progressive in contexts like “How my I be helping you today?” or “Why are you wanting to cancel?” What customer service rep asks “Help me understand . . .”?
Some excerpts from that Comcast conversation (bold added):
Is fluent English actually spoken like that somewhere?
Well clearly any future call to Comcast or someone similar will start with “Hi, this call is being recorded. I want to cancel my service.”
It isn’t wiretap (where that is not legal) if it’s announced.
Pretty much everyone behaves better when they know they are being recorded…
Firstly, it is legal in the majority of American states to record your telephone calls without telling the other party.
Federal law requires only single-party notification, so under federal law you can record any call that you are involved in. Most states follow the same law. About 12-14* states have what are called two-party notification laws, where the people on BOTH ends of the call need to be notified that it is being recorded. In those cases, if you want to record a call, you have to tell the person you are calling, and get their permission.
But there’s another complicating factor here. Many companies, when you call them, tell you that “This call may be monitored or recorded for quality control purposes,” or something similar. While i don’t know of a specific court case that has addressed this issue, a number of legal experts have argued that the presence of such a notification means that, even in two-party states, you don’t need to tell the company that you are recording, because they have already agreed to such a recording with their own language.
Yeah, I’m in Maryland where it is best to make it clear.
But more importantly, by *telling *the other person that their conversation is being recorded you are more likely to get less bullshit in return…
Is it possible to cancel Comcast through the mail? Just mail back all their equipment, with a note saying “Cancel” and then stop paying them. I would think this would work for dead people – include a copy of the death certificate.
There is a period of several minutes where that is ALL HE SAYS. CSR is completely unphased.
It’s interesting to note that Ryan Block, the guy in the OP, worked for Engadget, which is owned by dramatic chord AOL. As someone who dealt with an AOL retention CSR (What part of “I’m moving out of the country” don’t you understand?), I just have to say that karma can be a cranky and vindictive bitch with no particular sense of justice. 
Here’s some insight into why the rep was so reluctant to cancel the account. Comcast reps are paid in response to how many people they retain. If they don’t meet their goals, they don’t get bonuses, which is a big chunk of their payment.