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Listen to the Worst Comcast Agent in the World Refuse to Disconnect Service

by Fox Van Allen on July 15, 2014

If you’ve ever tried to cut the cable TV cord, then you know how difficult an experience it can be. Your cable company has customer retention specialists trained to do whatever it takes to keep you as a customer. Usually, this just means offering leaving customers better prices to entice them to stay. Usually.

Last week, AOL executive Ryan Block and his wife Veronica Belmont called up Comcast to close their account and switch to another cable provider. Their customer service rep would have none of it, however. After 10 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to end service via the worst customer service agent in the world, Belmont handed the phone over to Block, who had the foresight to start recording the conversation.

In the incredible 8-minute recording above, Block constantly asks the agent to end his service. Each time, the agent refuses, demanding to know why the couple was no longer “interested in the fastest Internet in the country.” Listening to the whole thing, it’s hard to decide what’s more shocking: that the agent was so relentless, or that Block was able to keep his cool during the entire runaround.

For its part, Comcast apologized for its insanely passive aggressive representative in a statement.

"We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and are contacting him to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives. We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect."


Topics

Internet & Networking, News, Computers and Software, Blog


Discussion loading

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From sheri on July 17, 2014 :: 10:39 am


This is similar to the experience I had with Sirius XM radio when I attempted to cancel service…very high pressure and very annoying.

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From aw on July 17, 2014 :: 10:46 am


There may be justice after all that it was an AOL executive—I had a similar experience with AOL several years ago when I was cancelling, including a threat that the cancellation would show up on my credit report.

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From BJIN on July 17, 2014 :: 10:46 am


A CS Rep is SUPPOSED to have exemplary LISTENING skills. THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT completely went over the head of this Comcast CS Rep. What he did was try to “brow beat” this customer into keeping the Comcast cable service when the customer clearly wanted to cancel his Comcast service. This Comcast CS Rep was obnoxious, ignorant and made sure that the customer was annoyed with him. In my opinion, this Comcast Rep should be fired, immediately, if not sooner . . .

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From Wayne Mizuki on July 17, 2014 :: 11:13 am


I had a customer Service Agent hang up on me when I was trying to resolve an modem problem at my mother’s house. She was telling to to disconnect the splitter that Comcast sent so the internet would work. I was in shock when she agreed that we wouldn’t be able to watch the cable if we wanted the internet. After a 5 minute discussion on how stupid this was to have my mother pay for cable, internet & phone but she could only use one, she hung up on me !!!!!!!

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From Mary Withrow on July 17, 2014 :: 11:53 am


I got new cable boxes and needed help, everytime I would get one person they would transfer me to another “Online Specialist” I would not advise the online either…I was online for 1 hour and 45 minutes with no solution but to take my box back in the end…

I would highly advise your followers to do this simple task…Keep corporations from taking control over the Internet by submitting a comment to the FCC. Let the FCC know that we don’t want an Internet fast lane for corporations and a slow lane for everyone else - THIS IS ANOTHER WAY OF CHARGING US BIG MONEY TO GET FAST ONLINE SERVICE -THE COST WILL BE TO US and anyone who owns a web site should be concerned.  If we give them a inch, they will mile.  Help keep the internet free - Heres the link - http://action.sumofus.org/a/open-internet-FCC-comments/2/4/?sub=mtl

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From Josh Kirschner on July 17, 2014 :: 1:06 pm


The deadline for submitting comments on net neutrality to the FCC is July 18th. I hope everyone makes their thought heard on whether we trust the large cable providers to act honorably in their dealings with Internet content providers.

Can you imagine if the FCC’s proposed rules had been in place 10 years ago? Every site would currently be streaming at 56k, with the exception of a few major corporations that could afford the “fast lane” fees.

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From Margaret Bosse on July 17, 2014 :: 12:36 pm


My son was attempting to cancel our Time Warner subscription and had the same experience.  We were moving and our AT&S telephone service couldn’t be moved with us. So we decided to bundle everything with Verizon at new address.  My son’s conversations with the Time Warner Customer service was horrible. The rep wouldn’t disconnect the service at our old apartment and continued to charge us even after we had already moved.

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From Angie Pagan on July 17, 2014 :: 12:37 pm


I’ve had Comcast since January and I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve had to call over 25 times for problems with the service, constant extra charges on my bills, and other issues. I’ve been hung up on twice. One time simply because I asked for the supervisor. The only thing that keeps me with them is that there is no other provider that services my area

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From Anna Taylor on July 17, 2014 :: 1:37 pm


The temptation is to hang up and call back but chances are, you’ll get another just like this. Nobody is this annoying on purpose. They have to be because their boss’ listen to them on the phone and if they are not persistent, they loose their jobs. Trust me, it’s much easier to say “Oh I’m sorry you’re leaving us and we hope you’ll come back again—-Next call”

This is all management so in order to embarrass them into changing their “policies” is to bring public attention to it every time. If everybody does every time the policy will change immediately.

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From mike on July 17, 2014 :: 5:52 pm


Every time a negative article comes up all the negative comments come up The only problem I have had is that they are way expensive, I have had no problems with customer service. We will see what happens on Saturday when I go to DirectTv and have to turn in my equipment.

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From timewaster on July 17, 2014 :: 6:00 pm


Both ends of this conversation are jerks. Sorry. They are.  “Task rabbit”?

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From Barbara on July 20, 2014 :: 1:32 pm


I’ve had plenty of experience with AT&T reps given me erroneous “information” about their services. It’s impossible to say whether they are intentionally dishonest or just ignorant, but the outcome for the consumer is all the same. The telecom industry is way out of control.

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From Linda on July 20, 2014 :: 8:35 pm


I have Verizon Fios but this sounds like the person I talked to when I had Time Warner Cable.  I cancelled after many years of the worst customer service I have ever dealt with.  I am in customer service and I would never deal with a customer this way.  TWC, which I know has combined with Comcast.  Well, bad customer service combines with bad customer service.  I would have hung up, which I did many times with TWC. I would never switch from my Verizon Fios. Their customer service is so over & above all this nonsense.

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