Nightmare on Comcast Street

Comcast seems bound and determined to hold onto their position as the most hated consumer company in America.

This time, Chicago resident Aaron Spain posted a video of his grueling attempts to have his Comcast service canceled, after a frustrating month when the cable company failed to fix his service.

The video includes transferals, unfulfilled callbacks, a three-hour hold, promises from corporate headquarters and even an end-of-day disconnect. Spain’s edited version of the whole thing, with time record, went viral on YouTube and has been viewed 450,000 times.

Several weeks earlier, customer Tim Davis had the foresight to record Comcast’s promises – and their attempt to break those promises.

Davis, an existing Comcast customer, moved to a new apartment and opted to instill the equipment himself in his new place. When, some time later, Davis began experiencing problems unrelated to the install, Comcast sent a repair truck and promptly charged his for a “failed self install,” although the technician told him the problem was with outside wiring.

A series of phone calls failed to remedy the situation, until Davis played his earlier recording. As Ars Technica wrote, “The rep closes with a flat-out admission that the only reason Davis got his money back was because he had that recording.”

Given that Comcast has millions of customers, we might be tempted to write the experiences off as anomalies – or that it’s rude or incompetent customer service agents. But a recent anonymous post by a Comcast employee explained that instead it’s company policy.

The Comcast worker wrote:

“I try my best. Believe it or not I do... [But] I can not help you to the best of my ability of a number of reasons. One: we are timed on our calls. Each call must be less than 11 minutes on average. So if your agent is doing bad on time for the day expect him to try and rush things a bit. Two: our calls are graded on first calls resolution. That means if you call back with in less than a week for ANYTHING, it counts against us. Third: We must make a portion of our calls into upsells, so expect to ALWAYS feel like someone wants to sell you something when you call into Comcast."

Moreover, my recent personal experience shows that Comcast reps must follow the script, whether or not it addresses the issue – or even responds to what you’re saying.

Despite years of Verizon promises to wire my neighborhood for FiOS, we’re still waiting. In the meantime, I reluctantly got Comcast’s Triple Play. The Internet and TV seem to work, but the phone service breaks up into static every time it rains – often for hours.

I called customer service and explained the situation to which the rep reverted to the script. Had it restarted the modem? Yes, but it wasn’t raining on the modem. OK, they would keep a close watch on the connection for the next 24 hours. I explained that it wasn’t going to rain for the next 24 hours. So, she repeated it. And then once more.

It looks like I’ll have to wait till the phone service goes out to call Comcast again – except then my phone won’t be working.

So, yes, Comcast is the Freddy Kreuger of cable companies, and if it merges with Time Warner will become Double Freddy. Arghh.

Here’s another Comcast cancellation horror story, with video evidence (Ars Technica, Aug. 13, 2014)

Comcast conveniently forgets “no fees” promise until confronted by recording (Ars Technica, Aug. 11, 2014)

Never I felt such hatred and vitriol working for a company before. (reddit, Comcast (Aug. 21, 2014)