Comcast cares… if your story about its miserable customer service goes viral on Reddit. In fact, Comcast cares about this so much that it recently told some customers that it would only refund $600 worth of bogus charges if they agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement to not talk about their ordeal with the media.
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Local Philly TV news station WPVI-TV last week brought us the story of John and Carol Lehman, who for the past five years were charged a total of $600 in bogus fees for not returning a cable box that they actually had returned. They repeatedly tried to get Comcast to correct its records and refund their money but, well, we all know how that can go.
The bottom line is that Comcast didn’t agree to refund their money until after WPVI got involved. This is standard operating procedure for Comcast, as it seems the only way to get the company to fix some problems is to make a stink about them to the media. However, this time Comcast came up with a truly Comcastic twist on this old formula by trying to tell the Lehmans that it would only refund their money if they agreed to not blab about their problems any further.
“We will issue a $600 even credit… pending that you sign a nondisclosure agreement,” a Comcast representative told the couple.
Comcast tells Ars Technica that it was a mistake for the company to ask the Lehmans to sign an NDA for this particular case. The company says that it will remind its employees that they shouldn’t try to force customers to sign NDAs for matters as routine as refunds.
