The Browns of Spokane, Wash., were having money problems so the wife, Lisa, called Comcast to cut the cable TV portion of their service. She was passed to one the company’s infamous “retention specialists” who couldn’t convince her to change her mind. So the specialist changed the name on her bill for wha
t she kept. What had been addressed to her husband, Ricardo Brown, was now to “Asshole Brown”.
She told blogger Chris Elliott that she was never rude during the conversation.
But it gets worse. She visited her local Comcast office and they refused to fix it. She then phoned higher-ups and they refused to fix it.
She then went to Elliott who was dubious of her story until he actually saw the bill. He then contacted Comcast’s public relations department who confirmed Mrs. Brown’s story.
Comcast has agreed to give the Browns a two-year refund.
Any legislator looking to get some nice ink could start a crusade to make it illegal for any communication cancellation to last more than seven minutes.
Asshole Brown, Comcast Horror Story
Two things…
Whether Mrs, Brown was rude or not is irrelevant. The Comcast employee who did this committed a serious customer service sin. And every supervisor or manager in Comcast’s organization who was informed of this and did nothing compounded that sin. I work in customer service, and it is true, the customer is always right, even when he is demonstrably wrong. That is, you have to be polite when you deal with the public, no matter how rude or childish your customer may become.
Second, I disagree with the suggestion that legislators need to get involved. There’s already enough State interference in this scenario. What legislation we need is to prevent the kind of competition-destroying agreements that exist today. I thank God that I live in the Lehigh Valley, where there is competition, even if it’s only between 2 cable providers. It keeps them honest, well, more honest than Comcast, at least.
–Second, I disagree with the suggestion that legislators need to get involved. —
Fair point, Brad. What is needed though is more competition and one suspects that Comcast is doing everything it can to keep that from happening