Nick Johnson

Three weeks after Christina in "Executive Customer Service" promised me a call back, she called and emailed me today. I couldn't take her call because a week of sinusitis has left me with bad laryngitis, and I can barely speak. The gist of her email is that the name on the account shouldn't have been changed, and I should dispute the charges with my credit card company. She offered to follow up with their collections department on such a dispute if I'd just go look up the dates and amounts. These are dates and amounts which I have already furnished to Comcast.

I'd had enough, so for your enjoyment, here is my response to her. At no point did I actually curse at her, even though I was thinking of a cursing tirade all the while I was composing my response.

The way I have been treated by Comcast disgusts me on a visceral level. I simply cannot begin to express with words just how angry and frustrated I've been with the way I've been abused. I did nothing to deserve this treatment, not that you actually care. If you did, you wouldn't behave with such flippancy, and you'd endeavor for Comcast to learn something from this experience.

Your customer service department simply does not comprehend that while each call might be taking up only 120 seconds of one representative's time, dealing with the problem might be taking up *hours* of the caller's time. They need to own problems and take responsibility for getting them fixed, not just do everything in their power to end the call. This is stupid, and you should fix it.

We changed the account from one name to the other on the advice of someone to whom I spoke at Comcast.

The reason for this is a broken Comcast process: It is impossible to set up a new account at an address until an old account has been completely deactivated. New service can't even be ordered, so there's a minimum one-week service disruption that must occur if the person in whose name the account is held moves out. This is stupid, and you should fix it.

We were told that to circumvent this limitation / broken process, we could change the name on the account by going to a Comcast office in person. This is what we did. We went there in good faith, executing on the process suggested to us by someone representing Comcast. The request was handled by another representative of Comcast.

We did everything we could to try to make the transition smooth and to try to ensure that the outcome was positive. We did the right thing, but Comcast couldn't be bothered to put forth even a minimal amount of effort to ensure that they did the right thing too.

The fact that it took you three weeks to get back to me after you promised me a call back on the same day tells me that Comcast's horrifically abysmal attitude toward its customers and miserably inept customer service in general is something that oozes and dribbles from the top down. This is how Comcast got the well-deserved reputation among its customers for having horrible service. This is stupid, and you should fix it.

I have already disputed the charges your company so incompetently applied to my credit card. They're the charges applied to my card in November and December. Go look them up yourself if you want to know what the amounts are. I'm sick to death of dealing with you cretins.

I don't really expect a response, because I'm fairly sure I'm right in my assessment. Comcast simply does not care that its customer service is the worst in America. Theirs is stupidity with malice.

Labels: assholes, comcast