Canceling Comcast Nightmare Call
 

So this guy is trying to cancel Comcast and.... well listen for yourself.

Pretty obvious the "retention specialist" wants the caller to hang up in frustration so among other things his quota does not get dinged by actually complying with the customers request.

The recording starts after the guys wife has already been on for 10 minutes and hands him the phone out of frustration.

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Comcast 'Embarrassed' By The Service Call Making Internet Rounds : All Tech Considered : NPR

If only I had recorded my calls. Round and round, transfer, transfer, disconnected, so frustrated with those Comcast drones.

Btdt with both comcast and direct tv.......

I have horror stories being on the phone with Comcast representatives, too. Man, do I hate that company.

Same exact thing happened to me years ago when I called to cancel AOL.

Now Comcast claims they are embarrassed? Bulls#it. That guy was just doing his job and now he'll probably be fired as a PR move.

No wonder people are pulling the cord in droves.

The irony is the caller, Ryan Block, he used to work for AOL.

Comcast won't fire him. He was asked to apologize though.

Same experience cancelling my Sprint wireless plan. They finally asked what it would take to keep me and I responded that even if they gave me the service for free I would not want it. No coverage at home, nearly all calls away from city center dropped. No thanks. That pretty much closed the deal.

Dropping Verizon was crazy, too. They had at least 3 different people call me to "get me back." Service was fine (great, actually); I just got tired of paying more and more every year for nothing additional (and actually having my data lowered immensely). When I told them the amount I was paying for my new service, they admitted there was no way they could come close to that number.

LOL...Comcast rep: "I'm just trying to help you."
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The rep sounds self-motivated, to me...he's putting out big energy!
Some sales people disgust me. :mad:

Canceling Comcast Nightmare Call
 

This "conversation" should have taken 20 seconds:

"Effective as of today I am not paying for any service provided by your company - any services that continue to be provided will be for free. I will pay you no more money other than any previously agreed-upon termination fees which you have 30 days from today to claim (and substantiate with proper backup that I've agreed to it and the such charges apply in this case) and invoice. I will be sending you a written summary of this via certified mail. I'm hanging up now, buh-bye". Done.

That guy was very patient and very stupid for letting this asshat corporate douchebag waste his time like that. I wouldn't have put up with three minutes of that crap, much less 18 (recording is 8 minutes long and was started 10 minutes into the conversation according to the commentary).

One more reason I'll never deal with comcast. They are a smarmy, corporate entity which excels at treating customers like chattel and they deserve every disconnection they get.

That was the entire point of the reps play.

Likely while on with the wife it became apparent the customer was canceling so he switched to frustrating the customer into hanging up.

He's a Retention Specialist. His job is not to help customers, his job is to keep them from canceling.

Those call center reps can not hang up on you.

They are either prohibited by policy or as in likely this guys case they lack the technical ability to disconnect a call.

The rep's comp plan is tied to how many people he keeps from canceling.

He can maintain his personal quota by either converting the customer or getting the customer to hang up.

If the rep takes 20 calls and converts 10 and gets the other 10 to hang up he has a 100% success rate. If he actually goes through with canceling the other 10 his success rate is 50% which means no bonus and a talking to from his supervisor, who is also under quota.

The behavior is driven from the top down.

The reps are incentivized to act that way to avoid being penalized for servicing the customer.

Whenever I try to cancel a service and get the run around I simply call my bank or credit card company and cancel all future payments to that company they then are very happy to shut of the service.

I called Comcast again yesterday to ask where my refund was for cancelling in February. I was hung up twice and put on hold for 20+ minutes. The fourth call, I asked to speak to a supervisor (I didn't even get that far with the first three). I have been promised, again, that I will get a check in 3-6 weeks.

Seriously, is there a class-action against Comcast that I can join? Does anyone think that allowing Comcast and Time Warner to merge is a good idea? They already put the DMV to shame.

Same problem with Direct TV. When I told them I wasn't paying anymore and could care less if they shut off the service or not. They cancelled the service.

I've never been a comcast customer, but the previous owners of my house were. When I was building my shop, the cable run from the pole to the house was in the way. I called Comcast to get them to come out remove it, but instead got the hot-and-heavy sales pitch. After politely declining several times, I told the lady "Look: I don't want cable TV. Your cable is in the way of a structure I'm building. Either you send someone out to take it down, or I will do it myself, and you probably won't like the way I do it." When I got home from work that day, it was gone.

I heard many horror stories about AOL doing this years ago. More recently I've heard the same about Sirus/XM and because of it I have refused to enroll in their service after the free period ended with my new car.

Same here (Sirus/XM) ...but a couple of times/mo. I get a letter with the same discount offer. I had their free service for a year and didn't listen much.

This story is all over the major networks this morning, including the local news.

My own experience was not much better, it involved finding all of the old boxes in storage we had after everything went digital.

I bet Comcast made a fortune on people who threw them out or misplaced them.

Roof antenna is the way to go, tell them all to F-off.

I had the same problem trying to cancel AOL years ago. Was a nightmare. Pretty sure I ended up threatening the rep with physical harm.

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Saw the story last night on CNN and one commentator made a good point. Since the audio has gone viral and caused a nationwide embarrassment for Comcast, it can be put to use by customers wanting to end service from others as well. He suggested that when you call the company and get the message that is often played when you first connect, that the "call may be recorded for quality control purposes", as soon as you get a rep on the line you say something like, "I understand this call may be recorded by your business. I want you to know that I am also recording the call for my quality assurance." No company wants a similar recording to hit the internet circuit.

The news I have seen say he is still a VP at AOL.

So some karma strikes back. :D

That explains why he knew how to not let the agent drag him into a discussion about why he wanted to cancel (and knew to record the call).

Been doing that for years as a habit.
You never know...

He was Editor In Chief for Engadget, an AOL property.

He was not around in the days of what we all know as AOL.

He left there years ago but is still a contributor.

Still funny.

Make an antenna out of coat hangars. There is a youtube video or two on how to do it. Simple and effective, just can't get the wife to go for it.

I had to threaten to sue Sprint when I cancelled their service. I had documented all the time they had wasted not solving any problems and sent them a demand letter. Pay me $870 and quit calling me or just quit calling me and cancel the service effective the day I asked you to when I went with a different service.

That is a month's(worth of daily work) salary for some people.
Just for phone/etc.


I've also had a bad experience with Sprint.
Their monthly statements, computer records, and customer service were saying three different things.
Perhaps by design.
But still, they are not yet "the most-worst company" at this time.
That is a pretty sad state of affairs these days.

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As a representative of a "little guy" in the industry... This is great!

We intentionally avoid partaking in any negative discussion surrounding other carriers. Even when a client is on a rampage.

Aside from exuding professionalism. If someone decides to go in a Comcast or other big carrier direction, it's only a matter of time before they deal with this and call me back.

I cancelled my Comcast subscription two weeks ago. I was very surprised they didn't put up a fight. Not one single offer was made.

My last cable bill was $205. Absolutely an insane amount of money for nothing. I haven't missed it one bit.

I had a similar experience trying to cancel a gym membership a few years ago, They told me 4 times over the phone they would stopp the auto debit and never did. MY blood pressure goes up just thinking about it.

On my last call. I politely went into personal attack mode: You are a liar and have no integrety as a person and as an organization. I demand you imnediatley fax or email me a notification of cancellation. You should be ashamed and have difficulty sleeping at night.

The girl was polite and didnt really ger rattled she was appologetic but wouldent send me anythign. The charges did stop though. I was so worked up I called one more time asking to be refunded the 3-4 months they stole from me. The place was only 10$ a month so it was a principal thing.

They agreed to do it but of course the check never came.

what's wrong with telling comcast the reason for canceling service?

try to return an item at a store, they will ask you why you are returning.

i called comcast rentention department to lower my bill. got it down $30 less a month by getting on a promo and buying my own modem. they were very helpful actually. sometimes it's a hit or miss but i always treat the other person on the phone with respect instead of being difficult. guys like the caller here would be cuffed and arrested by police if he talked to a police officer that way.

Retail stores generally have return policies for why you can return a hard good.

Comcast is a service, nothing to return.

Besides, it's none of their business and the answer only benefits them; IE they turn it around on you.

The only explanation he should have to give is "Because I no longer want your service." It is nothing like returning a defective product, or a product you've decided you simply don't want, to a store. This is a service that you pay a monthly fee for. If no longer under contract, you should be free to cancel that service at any time, without being harassed.

Canceling Comcast Nightmare Call
 

You don't owe them an explanation or really squat about anything. You have a right as a customer is to take your business elsewhere, anytime, whenever you want, for any reason or no reason.

In this case telling them a reason would've just given their paid arguer a way to tailor his attack in trying to beat down the customer and coerce them. Why give them that leverage? I'd handle it exactly as I stated earlier - "effective right now I'm no longer paying for your service, leave it or take it, I don't care. You'll receive a certified letter from me in the next day or two stating this as well. Click."