Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

airpaperinc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 263 posts

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#161

Post by BlakeCam »

Organizing customers against companies that try to exploit their customers is an awesome concept. I suspect it will be a battle, but I wish you success, and hope you earn enough to make the effort worthwhile.

What about expanding this?! Some companies frustrate me with their customer abuses, and you could organize customers against them.

- Cell phone companies send bills that are confusing gibberish so we won't read them. So, provide a service that scans my bill and sends me a readable summary with red-lines on anything surprising or changed.

- Banks and credit card companies send 'privacy statements' that are rambling non-sense. Provide me a service that scans my statements and gives me a nice summary of anything surprising.

- Companies send endless offers for loans or useless services (paper 'spam') mixed in with bills. Filter this out for me.

- Alert me to hidden fees.

- Read the legalese and summarize it.

Basically provide me a service that I will try to accept my bills and statements from monopolistic companies and give me a short, readable, reasonable summary. When something is unreasonable, help me protest or fight it, or find an alternative.

Something like a consumers union, I suppose. I'd gladly pay well for this.

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#162

Post by fapjacks »

buckbova wrote: post #132
fapjacks wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to throw another name into the pot of shit companies: Time Warner Cable.

Okay, what's a non-shit cable provider?

There is no good answer to that question, unless one is fortunate enough to live in an area served by a coop ISP or another super-local business. Our choices are so awful that they hardly even count.

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#163

Post by gmarx »

tombrossman wrote: post #82

Nearly all of these contracts with Comcast or similar companies will have a postal address you can write to and cancel. Even if they provide no cancellation postal address, look up their 'Agent for service of process', this is always listed somewhere. I never call to cancel, this is a waste of time and not necessary. I've done this repeatedly (use certified mail, or recorded delivery, the term varies by country) and…

This is amazing advice and exactly the sort of thing I would forget when I need it. What I need is a guy like you on the payroll to handle crap like this for me. Who is going to remember this website (OP) when time comes to cancel. What you need is a service that is proactive and just handles stuff like this in the background

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#164

Post by ycitera »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #130
ycitera wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both, with Comcast and AT&T, you usually have to call back yearly and threaten to cancel to keep the same rate (or to get the current new-customer rate which is probably even lower, or faster).

I did that 4 months ago. Literally each month since then, it has crept back up so that it is now within $10 of the original bill. My only other options is an equally shady CenturyLink. I hate (yes, hate) internet/cable in the U.S. I truly wish we had some honest lawmakers who would do something about this.

Even though it is far from ideal, usually we have an agreement, me an Comcast, that the price will stay the same for a whole year (and I still could cancel service at any time with no penalties)

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#165

Post by mikestew »

linuxfan wrote: post #72
dayjah wrote: post #30

The second-worst experience I had with cancelling a service was with Comcast. Briefly: called up, told operator I wanted to cancel, they put me through to a special sales team attempting to keep me, eventually I pushed it through. The real magic happens during the conversation with the sales rep; he asks why I want to cancel, I explain that the cost is high relative to the quality. He offers me more cost effective pa…

I'm sick of comcast and its hidden fees. Their promotion last for one year and they never inform the customer (conveniently) soon after it expires. The bill keeps piling up and when you call them one day to cancel, they feed you some bs on downgrading to a basic package or even reducing your current internet speed. I had AT&T U-verses before switching to comcast and AT&T are no saints either. Is there a company that'…

In Washington, I've been pretty happy with Frontier. Well, "happy" might be a bit strong. Frankly, I rarely give them much thought. $60/month for (I think) 35Mbps up and down. Every single time I've actually checked it, it was indeed what they claim, and it rarely goes down. (About once every couple of months it'll go down for an hour almost exactly at 2300 or midnight; I assume some kind of maintenance.) I don't have to call them once a year to keep the same rate; bill shows up, I pay it, they keep giving me solid, no-bullshit service. Of the few times I've called for support, it's been a small wait and they quickly fixed the problem. My feelings about Frontier are about the same as I have toward the city water utility: I turn on the "tap" and internet comes out, I pay the bill on time every month, and rarely do I give it another thought. That might sound like damning with faint praise, but I think it's the highest praise possible.

Contrast to Comcast, my old provider. Fluctuating rates, horrendous customer service, advertised speeds that are nowhere near reality (I had 12Mbps package back in the day; it rarely was good for more than 3Mbps), and as reliable as an old Fiat. Oh, unlike the city water utility, do I have feelings about Comcast. The last time they were at my door I told the salesman I'd do without internet before I'd give another dime to them. Ironically, Comcast were the ones running billboards about how horrible Frontier would be when Verizon gave up on fiber and sold it to Frontier. Yeah, well, I've been a Comcast customer and I don't see how it could possibly be any worse. Turns out Frontier is just fine.

But you're not going to get Frontier unless you live in western Washington outside of Seattle, so this probably isn't much help.

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#166

Post by troels »

Kalroth wrote: post #37
frankthedog wrote: post #15

I actually just cancelled my Comcast account yesterday. The process was pain-free and easy, just told them "I'm moving in X days and do not need service at the new address." Granted, it was true, but if you are having trouble cancelling for low-quality service or any other issue, you may have better luck using that reasoning.

It's a sad state when we have to lie to get out of a bad relationship.

Listen Comcast - It's not you, it's me ...

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#167

Post by holyoly »

dntrkv wrote: post #88
jjulius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on the representative you speak with. There have been times where I've had to contact them and have had a pleasant experience, but as I detailed in another reply in this thread, I've also had godawful experiences where I simply couldn't believe the logic the representative was trying to apply to the situation.

Would you say their support is worse than other similar companies of their size?

What exactly is your point here? That bad customer service is okay so long as the company is big enough?

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#168

Post by chrisrogers »

picardo wrote: post #151
estsauver wrote: post #2

Hey HN, I was moving to Thailand ~6 months ago and I had to cancel my Comcast. Cancelling took way too long and was surprisingly frustrating. From talking with other people it seemed like the cancellation process was really frustrating for other people too, so we made this. My partner Eli (HN username: EliPollak) and I really want your feedback more than anything. We’re planning to expand into fixing other processes…

I saw that you're collecting credit card numbers on your form... You know that if you are storing them on your servers, you need to follow FDIC regulations, right? Otherwise, you are exposing yourself to a huge liability. I'd also be worried about whether you are disposing the credit card numbers you collect after they are done in a timely and secure fashion.... Edit: I meant PCI, not FDIC

PCI is the regulating body. FDIC is just concerned with bank deposit insurance. Looks like they're using Stripe, so I'd suppose they're tokenizing those card numbers before dealing with them.

Re: Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes

#170

Post by basseq »

My recent Verizon cancellation went very smoothly. No "retention" specialists. Just said, "I'm switching to a competitor."

I'm saving something like $50/mo with the change. Verizon sent me an email offering me a $40 statement credit to re-up. I laughed in their virtual faces.

Post reply on HN