Thursday, February 19, 2009

Jennifer Rice had a horrible time canceling her service, check out her story

Here is Jennifer Rice's story that she posted at the following link;

http://brand.blogs.com/mantra/2005/02/i_hate_comcast.html

I normally don't rant about negative experiences on my blog, but I'm hoping that my little post about how much I hate Comcast will bubble up high in Google rankings and that SOMEBODY at that company might think about improving their customer experience. It's all about the power of the customer, baby. Might as well stop spending millions on smiley-face advertising to get new customers, because the viral nature of the blogosphere is guaranteed to counteract it. So you really don't need to keep reading unless you're interested in a case study on terrible customer experience.

This is how bad it is: it's taken me 3 weeks to disconnect my service. When I canceled, the gal in the billing department kindly informed me that I'd have to call customer service repeatedly to disconnect my service or else I'd keep getting bills (yes, that happened. Thanks for the heads-up.) I then received collections calls almost every day for several weeks. And every time, I'd repeat my story about why I didn't owe anything and requested that they stop calling me. And then the phone would ring the next day: "Hi, this is Comcast. I'm calling to see if you can make a payment today." Someone finally figured out that no one ever officially submitted a disconnect order. The funny thing is, I thought they'd disconnected my service because my service wasn't working. Just a bunch of static. (I'd always had problems with the digital music channels.)

3 weeks after my initial call, the contractor showed up at my door to collect my cable box... and whadayaknow, another contractor showed up (from a different contractor company) to do the same thing. Both of them nodded knowingly when I remarked on Comcast incompetence... they both said they'd heard the same thing from other canceling customers.

Last straw: I just got off the phone with -- guess who -- Comcast. I'd given back my box and final payment a week ago. Apparently my number got back in the collections cue because they keep billing customers after the cancellation date. Why? Because the actual line outside isn't disconnected. They have to send someone out to disconnect the line (which happens 4 weeks after cancellation) and then the customer is credited back the amount they paid. So the obvious question is, why didn't the contractor who picked up my box disconnect the line while he was here? This has got to be costing Comcast a fortune in repeat visits, billing, customer service, collections, and any residual customer goodwill... all because their cancellation process is broken.

There's more, but I won't bother going into the details. It just feels so good knowing that with a single diatribe, I can inform potentially thousands of potential Comcast customers that they'd be better off finding an alternative for their cable TV service.

5 comments:

  1. Jennifer,

    I apologize for the frustrating experience. It shouldn't take three weeks and multiple calls to ensure your account was disconnected.

    Please allow me to assist in making sure that this is resolved for you. My contacts and I will make sure that your request is completed and ensure that inaccuracies on your billing are corrected to avoid further collection calls.

    Please send me the phone number on the account so that I can assist.

    Mark Casem
    Comcast Corp.
    National Customer Operations
    We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. No problem Mark Casem of comcast national customer operations (what a douche job!), you can contact Jennifer at 1-800 fuck you! You might have to call several times because her personal phone goes through a third party company located in the middle east where they don't speak fucking english and cannot help you for shit, sound similar Mark, you cock bag whore? I love how you guys are so happy to help out after people are so fed up with comcast they have to publicly embarrass you on the internet just to get a fucking english speaking customer service representative!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Comcast Sucks. For the 1st 6 months, my phone, my voicemail, my voicemail notification, my message, all intermittently didn't work. I spent hours trying get everything fixed. Then I had to fight to get some sort of refund. Then they double-billed me. When they'd say they'd give me credit they wouldn't - and every month for 3 months I had to call. Finally they said I was delinquent. Had to fight to get that fixed with management. Then, about 6 months later, I found out my phone which was supposed to be unlisted (and I was being charged as much) was listed. A lot of good that change did being listed for so much time. Then about a year ago I went away on vacation, to come home and find my phone disconnected and my cable service changed. They never told me. They claimed they "spoke with someone." While I was away in Texas? (I don't live with anyone). They downgraded my service without telling me and disconnected my phone because my special expired and removed services so the $ would stay the same. Today in the mail I got a notice thanking for adding services...WHICH I NEVER ADDED. They are the biggest bunch of F***ing idiots and the most incompetent company I have ever seen, I am desperate to get rid of them but I can't. Oooooh how I HATE comcast.

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice work! I'm in the same boat as you, and have posted my story here. http://blog.gigawidget.com/?p=55. I'm wondering why they pick up your cable box. In my area, Memphis, they stated I would have to return it to a retail center. I told them they'd have to come get it, I wasn't going to bring it in. They stated they'd charge me for the box and send my accont to collections if not paid. Pouring salt in the wound of an unhappy customer just trying to get away from them!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I forgot to add that we left things with them having a manager call me on the box return. Of course, this never happened! Surprise Surprise!

    ReplyDelete