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from the that-should-help-the-merger-talks dept.
El Reg published a most interesting article on how a customer retention specialist at Comcast is alleged to have changed the first name of a subscriber to "Asshole" because his wife stuck to her guns in canceling a TV package:
The story goes that Mrs Brown tried to have a TV package dropped from their cable broadband service to save some money each month.
She called the telco's customer call center, knowing she would have to pay US$60 (£40, AU$76) to do so, and was bounced to a specialist rep whose job is to talk people out of canceling or dropping packages. Brown stuck to her guns, and refused to change her mind.
Not long after, the couple received a bill to "Asshole Brown" at their home address.
Mrs Brown told Elliott she had phoned Comcast execs and visited its nearest store to complain, and to have the name change reversed – but apparently to no avail.
"I was never rude. I am shocked. This is unacceptable,” Mrs Brown told Elliott. "I am requesting everything back I paid Comcast for doing this to me."
She added that she believed the "retention specialist" she spoke to changed her partner's name on the account.
This story would be funny if it weren't for an image of the bill in the article that apparently verifies that aspect of this story.
Also covered at Ars Technica.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 30 2015, @02:00PM
how come she is forced to talk with someone for a basic thing like that?
That should be completly automated "Press 2 for etc etc...
Since appearently Comcast can't handle things manually they should be forced to set up a system that let their customers cancel and add packages as they want, with just some keypresses on their phone, and no cost taken for the change ofcourse.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kilo110 on Friday January 30 2015, @02:09PM
They try to convince you to stay a customer.
(Score: 2) by Daiv on Friday January 30 2015, @04:21PM
Very few (especially larger) cable/television/internet providers allow you to use menus over either the phone or their website to add/remove things from subscriptions in the US. I'm sure there are absurd numbers of reasons, but every time I've called to do anything I've always been pitched some upsell so I'm sure that's reason #1. Plus, if something is too big a hassle to do anything, I know too many people who just wont.
(Score: 1) by curunir_wolf on Friday January 30 2015, @08:40PM
Oh, they do have that (kind of). You can add and order new services all you want - even from the TV menus on your cable box. It's when you want to downgrade or remove a service that you have to jump through all kinds of hoops. This is Comcast's "customer retention policy." It has nothing to do with providing good service - it's making in a royal pain in the ass to cancel anything.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31 2015, @02:22PM
USA is such a 3rd world country... I feel sorry for the 300 million poor bastards living there!