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Comcast customer tries to cancel service, gets put on hold for over 3 hours until office closes

Updated Aug 13th, 2014 7:00PM EDT
Why Is Comcast So Bad

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The hits just keep coming for Comcast. It was bad enough when Ryan Block recorded the infamous customer service call from hell and when another Comcast customer showed how Comcast would only refund bogus charges to his account after he revealed to them that he’d recorded a phone call with a rep who explicitly said the charges wouldn’t apply. Now Comcast is having to deal with yet another instance of embarrassingly bad service: A customer who tried to cancel his account and was promptly put on hold for three-and-a-half hours until Comcast’s customer retention offices had closed for the day.

The customer in question, YouTube user Aaron Spain, decided to take a video of his experience once he hit his third hour of Comcast customer service captivity. He held his phone up to the camera that showed he had indeed been on the phone with Comcast’s phone number (1-800-266-2278, a.k.a., 1-800-COMCAST) for three hours. He took a separate phone at around 10:30 p.m. and tried to give Comcast a call using a different line. After going through the usual endless parade of menu options, he finally reached the one that let him cancel all his services… only to receive a message saying that the customer retention department’s office had closed for the day.

We’ve reached out to Comcast for comment and will post its response once we get it. The full video follows below.

UPDATE: Comcast has just issued a response to the video: “Under no circumstances is this the experience we want our customers to have.  Our goal is to be respectful of our customers’ time and fix any issues the first time.  We take this very seriously, and after investigating Mr. Spain’s situation, we want to apologize to him and acknowledge that his experience was completely unacceptable.”

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.