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Fighting Comcast’s awful customer service literally ruins a man’s life

Published Oct 7th, 2014 12:36PM EDT
BGR

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How much worse can Comcast’s customer service possibly get? Unless Comcast execs start engaging in ritual customer sacrifices to appease the demon lord Ba’al’s thirst for human blood, we can’t imagine it getting much worse than this. Consumerist brings us the remarkable tale of a man whose efforts to get Comcast to wipe erroneous charges from his bills actually got him fired from his job.

RELATED: Comcast’s infamously bad customer service isn’t incompetence – it’s a choice

It all started as these things often do with Comcast: The man was being billed for a bunch of devices in his house that were never activated. Multiple attempts to get these issues resolved with Comcast’s customer service representatives predictably failed.

This led the man to try to cancel his Comcast service. However, a Comcast retention agent (and we know just how persuasive they can be) convinced him to stay on in exchange for getting free DVR service and the Movie Channel for three months. Soon after this, however, he received dozens of pieces of equipment in the mail that he never ordered along with a bill for $1,820.

“There were a few DVRs, modem, standard boxes and equipment that I was unfamiliar with,” he tells Consumerist.

The man understandably didn’t feel like paying nearly $2,000 for things that he never ordered so he tried to return the equipment to Comcast and get them to wipe the bogus charges from his bill. You’ll be shocked to know that even this didn’t work as Comcast refused to back down from trying to squeeze more money from the customer.

At this point, the customer just grew desperate. As a certified accountant, he decided to reach out to the office of Comcast’s Controller and make his case directly to the higher-ups. It was here that he made a fateful error: According to Consumerist, he “mentioned that Comcast’s billing and accounting issues should probably be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private-sector oversight operation.”

This was a mistake because the man happened to work for a large accounting firm that does business with Comcast. Although the man insists that he never mentioned his employer by name during the call, it seems that Comcast knew who he was working for anyway and reached out to the firm to tell them that he allegedly used his position within the company to threaten Comcast.

The man was quickly fired from his job and his employer explained that the reason for his dismissal “was an e-mail from Comcast that summarized conversations between [him] and Comcast employees.” The man says that he has never seen the email Comcast sent to his employer and adds that Comcast has so far refused to release the tapes of his calls with Comcast representatives.

As for Comcast’s part, the company says that it’s reviewing the case and that its customers “deserve the best experience every time they interact with us.” Which is basically what the company has been saying for years now. And nothing ever gets better.

For more details on this sordid tale, go to Consumerist’s page by clicking the source link below.

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.