Three words to follow up with: Class Action Lawsuit
http://www.millslawfirm.com/classaction.html
Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
321–330 of 356 posts
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#322I'm in the Bay Area. I recently switched from a Comcast business circuit down to a residential circuit. The Comcast Loyalty Rep was fierce. Insisting I owed them 60 days notice, even though I was in a month to month contract. Told me he had to have me sign paperwork to cancel that was going to take up to a week to e-mail to me. I put up a fight, insisted on a supervisor, whom conveniently was in a Chicago office for…
Out of curiosity why switch back to residential? I've been generally happy with their business service in both MI and FL. Seems like normally you don't have to deal with most of the BS that residential people do.
1. They raised my business circuit from $69/mo to $99/mo for 20/5.
2. They raised the cost of statics, from 5 for $9.99 to 5 $19.99.
3. They sent me a letter saying that there has been a billing mistake for the last 6 years, I have been being under billed for my service.
4. They raised the monthly modem cost to $9.95/mo and you have to use their modem as a business customer.
So I went down to a residential 50/10, no contract, provided my own modem for $44.95 a month.
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#323I'm in the Bay Area. I recently switched from a Comcast business circuit down to a residential circuit. The Comcast Loyalty Rep was fierce. Insisting I owed them 60 days notice, even though I was in a month to month contract. Told me he had to have me sign paperwork to cancel that was going to take up to a week to e-mail to me. I put up a fight, insisted on a supervisor, whom conveniently was in a Chicago office for…
One way to guarantee a reason to get a supervisor is to state "Because of the security nature of this call I am unable to reveal that information."
That is an interesting idea!
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#324I've had lots of trouble with ISPs before. About a decade ago Bulldog Broadband were the first to offer 8Mb service in London, and at a reasonable price, and they oversold so massively their staff couldn't cope. After a month of no service I called to cancel, and after 45 minutes on hold I gave up. I tried again. And again. Eventually I got through to someone who processed the cancellation. I got an email saying "To…
I don't understand why you put up with them charging you so many times. After the second fraudulent charge, I'd just deal with my credit card company directly. Call them up and have the charges reversed. You get your money back and they get punished by their card company for the fraudulent charge. If more people did this, instead of waiting on hold for hours to fight with customer service for your own money back, the…
afaik Europe doesn't have the same rules regarding chargebacks and it's much harder to successfully dispute a charge there.
Chargebacks only work the way they do in the U.S. due to regulatory requirements that the card companies allowed to go into law because they'd figured out how to profit any time a chargeback was filed.
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't use a debit card much but I heard that you don't get as many consumer protects with debit cards as you do with credit cards. If you're going to pay bills, for many reasons, use a credit card instead of debit cards.
You have virtually NO consumer protection with a debit card. Once the money is gone, it is gone. This is why merchant acquirers charge a flat rate of a few pence for debit card transactions, and an extortionate percentage for credit card transactions - chargeback risk. Cannae do with a debit card without bumping into Dante and his buddy in their digs first.
> You have virtually NO consumer protection with a debit card. Once the money is gone, it is gone.
Only if it's a card-present debit transaction (i.e., you entered a PIN). If you use your debit card and don't enter a PIN, it's automatically run as a credit card, and you have the same protections.
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just tell them you're moving to another state/country. Works for me
Or tell them you got free internet and cable for life from one of their competitors (and if they ask how you got it, tell them you changed jobs and you now work for them). It would be impossible for them to match that offer, so they'll just leave you alone. If they do match that offer, it's still a win! It has already worked for me more than once (unfortunately, nobody ever tried to offer me free service).
that only works if there IS a comparable competitor in your local market.
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#327I'm amazed at how calm he remains during this. I would've called the guy - regardless of whether he's "just doing his job" - every name under the sun and probably threatened to pay him a visit in person... That said, I guess if I were recording it to share on the Internet later, I might've been able to control myself slightly more than usual.
This guys have it rough. I used to call them a lot and I can't recall a single instance where I saw someone raising their voice had a better outcome. The only had a more stressful call. The operator pushes it a lot but consider this: he is probably paid like shit and he probably get commission on how many customers he can retain. Maybe if he loses too many he can even lose his job. Knowing this and knowing that their…
I think I'd try negotiating directly with the operator:
"How much commission do you get if I don't cancel? Oh, $50? Well, tell me your paypal or bitcoin address and I'll send you that much if you disconnect this right now..."
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#328I've heard multiple times now that it's hard to cancel contracts at various providers, but I don't really see how this is an issue. If the official way (according to the contract) to cancel a contract is a phone call, what difference does it make if the remote party accepts this cancellation? Just state that you are cancelling the contract, make sure to get a recording (if legal in your jurisdiction) and chargeback a…
And then they'll eventually send your account to collections, where it will be an even bigger pain to straighten out. Something similar happened to me with AT&T (now Comcast, I believe) in Chicago. I was moving away so I canceled service, returned my equipment in person and even got a receipt! But someone forgot to log something somewhere, so they kept sending me bills. For months, I kept calling and (foolishly) beli…
I doubt there is any kind of actual contract in play, so either party can choose cancel the relationship at any time. I would just send a written notice in addition to making sure they've heard about the cancellation on the phone (and recorded it). As long as they've been reasonably notified, you're not buying their services anymore.
Big business (and especially the collections agencies they usually send this kind of supposed "debt" to) love to say a lot of things, but that doesn't make it legal.
So they claim some account is "in collections", implying you have some sort of debt to them. If they say that publicly[1] and that hurts some future opportunity due to the "bad reputation", then a libel (or slander, as appropriate) lawsuit should be filed. While each case would be different[2], you create a lot of the mess by acknowledging their incorrect claims.
Business walk away from stuff all the time, and so can you. If any restrictions were desired, they should have been written into a proper contract beforehand.
incidentally; this is also why "identify theft" is a stupid term - nobody stole your identity, which is immutable. What someone did was defraud a bank to get money. You were not a party to that transaction (or crime). The fact that banks wan to be lazy ad not do proper background checks on people they loan money to does not give them the right to recover that money from a 3rd party, not does it put any amount of fault on that 3rd part). Calling such a situation "identify theft" instead of "lazy bank loses money and blame it on an innocent 3rd part" is a modern version of "they were asking for it" style victim blaming.
[1] I include Experian/Equifax/TransUnion/etc in this - despite. Saying something incorrect - with the purpose of advising another business that that you are probably an expensive risk - is the very definition of libel.
[2] As always, check local laws and ask a lawyer
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then again, it might make huge money too, since so many companies play hardball retaining customers. How would that result in this endeavor making money? In any case, this is not actually a problem that is difficult to solve. Yes, a phone call like that is utterly infuriating, but you can still cancel your service at the end of it. Maybe people would pay money to avoid dealing with that. Maybe. But you do it, what, o…
Actually, there was a company that would take all your bills, call up the companies representing you, and get your bill lowered. They made 10% off that (so if they lowered your comcast bill from $90 to $60, they'd make $3 on it).
I'd like to know if this company exists and how to find them. And if they don't exist, why they failed?
Re: Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the point of "cc" on an email was to prove you've sent something to someone. How can you achieve the same with a letter? I can obviously just write the same letter twice and send it to two different places, but neither will know the other was also sent the same thing.
> I thought the point of "cc" on an email was to prove you've sent something to someone. It doesn't prove anything, but it does provide notice. > How can you achieve the same with a letter? On a letter, you can acheive the same thing that cc: does on an email by putting cc: on the bottom of the letter, after the signature line, and then making identical copies of the letter and setting to both the addressee and the o…
This is a fascinating thread. I wonder if formal letter writing is still taught in grade school?