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Behind The Veil Part 3: Comcast Rep Confirms That You Should Always Record Customer Service Calls
from the we're-listening dept
As you probably know by now, Comcast has been in the news quite a bit lately for all the wrong reasons. It started with a recorded call of one Comcast customer attempting to cancel his service before being passed over to a "customer retention" representative who had watched entirely too much Boiler Room. Comcast made a great deal of noise about how this wasn't how they told their reps to conduct their business, which, thanks to the Verge's call for input from past and current Comcast employees, was shown pretty conclusively to a complete lie. It's been a pretty, nice, little lesson in why breeding the kind of monopoly that Comcast tends to hold in many areas of this country is a really crappy idea. The other lesson that this should be teaching all of us is the importance of recording customer service calls with Comcast*.
And that appears to apply even for customers of Comcast that aren't trying to flee their brand of customer service. Tim Davis uploaded a (NSFW due to language) recording to YouTube of a couple of conversations he had with Comcast's customer service.
* Oh, but if you're recording your call, you may want to pay attention to the local laws about such things.
And that appears to apply even for customers of Comcast that aren't trying to flee their brand of customer service. Tim Davis uploaded a (NSFW due to language) recording to YouTube of a couple of conversations he had with Comcast's customer service.
If you can't listen to the audio, or want a quick breakdown: Tim had moved recently and chose to relocate his Comcast service because, according to the video, he didn't have a choice due to a lack of competitive providers. I've gone through this myself several times in Chicago; it sucks. In any case, he did the internet portion of the install himself, as I too have done several times. All went well until a few weeks later when he was experiencing intermittent outages. An initial call with Comcast confirmed the problem was with the wiring outside the home, not the internal setup. Tim recorded that conversation, including when a Comcast rep confirmed that there is no charge to have a technician do work on outside lines to provide adequate service. Makes sense. A tech comes out, fixes the outside line issue, tests the network inside the home to assure connectivity is restored, and leaves. Then this happens.
All is fine until a week or two later when Davis receives a bill that includes $99.99 for "Failed Self Install," another $32 for "Failed Video [Self Install Kit]," and $49.95 for "Wireless Network SET Up." That's $181.94 in total. But, insists Davis, the problem wasn't that he failed to do the self-install correctly or that there was a failed self-install kit, since the problem involved cables entering his property that he never touched. Similarly, the tech never set up or did anything with Davis's WiFi system, so the set-up charge is bogus.When Tim calls up to dispute the charges, he's told several things. First, the rep applies a "discount" that wipes out about fifty dollars. Then she insists she cannot apply any credits because all of the tech's service charges are valid, despite Tim informing her of both the recording of the call with the other rep that said there would be no charge and the fact that the tech would have had to have the apartment landlord's approval to access what the tech claimed he'd worked on. Instead of applying a credit, she suggests she upgrade his internet for a year for free instead, which would be of a $60 or so value. $121 or $60 in temporary service upgrades...guess which Tim wanted? He insisted the bogus charges to be credited back to him. The rep then claims she'd get back to him. When she did, she confirmed that everyone on the planet should be recording their calls to Comcast's customer service.
She eventually calls back later than planned, and after escalating his call one final time she tells him that the full $82 will actually be credited back to his account. When Davis asks why she couldn't simply do that during the earlier call, her explanation is enough to make you pound your head through a wall in frustration.Everyone got that? Customer service reps dealing with disputed charges will try to "negotiate" with you and you only have a chance at legitimate recourse if you record all your calls with them. Keep digging, Comcast. I don't think the grave is big enough yet.
"We try to negotiate, and again, that is a valid charge," she answers. "But since I advised my manager that there is a recording and you were misinformed, then she's the one who can approve that $82."
Seemingly flabbergasted, Davis asks to confirm, "You're telling me that if I didn't have a recording of that call, you wouldn't have been able to do it?"
"Yes, that is correct," answers the rep, confirming that the only way to get Comcast to erase a bogus charge from your account is to have recorded evidence that you were promised in advance that the call would be free.
* Oh, but if you're recording your call, you may want to pay attention to the local laws about such things.
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Something I've always wondered
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Re: Something I've always wondered
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Re: Something I've always wondered
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Re: Something I've always wondered
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Re: Re: Something I've always wondered
Its their fault for not asking permission but assuming it, and using badly worded warnings via automated message. It is never the reps that say it anymore, its the IVR that informs you of it. No option to refuse and continue, you have to get to a rep and then go round and round with them...most places now reps have the option to force record so their managers^H^H^H supervisors have more records to pick and choose from, but the system still automatically will record without the rep knowing if they are being recorded.
Still, i like your style Anon, even if i have no idea how it'll fly in court.
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Re: Something I've always wondered
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Re: Something I've always wondered
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Comcast to English Translation
We try to negotiate, and again, that is a valid charge,
English:
We always f*** over our customers whenever possible, and like I fraudulently claimed before, that is a charge that our system puts on every bill that we send out as long as a technician has been dispatched to your general area,
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You need to record your interaction with the tech also.
$200 for Pivothead glasses do I fine job of recording interactions.
Then, when you get the bill, inform them of your Tort Letter that you will sue for attempted fraud for treble damages.
Let a judge settle the matter.
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Let a judge settle the matter."
You vs. a mega-corp. Do I have to tell you which one the judge will favor? The legal system is corrupt.
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2. Hope you have another provider ready because if you sue them they will probably blacklist you.
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Now it IS true that the mega-corp will more likely comply with legal and procedural rules better than the little guy, which gives them a better chance of success.
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It's bad enough we don't have competition to drive improvements but this just adds insult to injury.
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Does that mean that Davis can sue for attempted fraud?
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Davis' problem in a suit would be that since he caught and avoided any damage, there are no damages to sue over. Had he been deceived, he could sue for the $150 and possibly legal fees related to a suit.
I know that since we are in the US, people think that you can sue someone for millions of dollars just for being an ass, but that's not actually the case.
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(parody)
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Re: (parody)
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Re: (parody)
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There's no way that this is an accident
The only way this happens is that people are trained to do this and required to do this by management. Ordinary human beings placed in customer service roles don't magically become lying, fraudulent jackasses: they only get that way if someone forces them to, on pain of losing their job.
So all this hand-wringing on the part of Comcast brass is bullshit. Not only did they know about all this, they're the source of it. And I'm sure they know, to the last penny, just how immensely profitable it is to rip off their own customers at every available opportunity.
The guy in this story was lucky: he was clueful and paranoid. For every one of him, there are thousands of Comcast customers who are relatively uneducated, poor, elderly, and not nearly as well-equipped to defend themselves from vicious predators such as Comcast customer reps. What percentage of Comcast's profits have come from those people?
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Re: There's no way that this is an accident
First, I think you are being overly generous to say that ordinary human beings are not already lying, fraudulent jackasses. It has been my experience that many of them are.
Second, people can be directed to this kind of behavior with both a stick and a carrot - having monetary incentives for retention and not giving refunds would work just as well (possibly better) than threatening their jobs.
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I have tried it a few times and have had reps forced to escalate the call to a supervisor, had them require I come to a physical location to conduct business, and have had reps simply be able to disable it (or so they claimed).
It can be pretty funny because it is typically not a request they have a script for.
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