Every few days there’s a story about Comcast and how they completely screwed over one of their customers, or continue to screw over one of their customers. Surprisingly, after those stories make viral rounds, Comcast quickly fixes the issue and follows that up with a statement saying that this snafu was an anomaly. Forget the fact that there is a relentless barrage of these stories, as well as numerous fines and actions against Comcast for their crapitude, and forget that there has never, ever, been a consumer study that rated Comcast’s customer satisfaction above the Greek underworld ruled by Hades. Here’s the newest one:
Nearly two years after Consumerist reader Robert shut down his business-tier service with Comcast, he’s still fighting with the nation’s largest broadband provider over a $1,775 early termination fee that should not have been assessed. Comcast even admits the money shouldn’t have been debited from Robert’s bank account, but now says it’s his responsibility to sort the mess out with his bank.
Robert tells Consumerist he first signed on with Comcast for his small business in early 2011, agreeing to a two-year contract, which came and went in 2013 without any ceremony.
He downgraded his service to save money and then, when that contract was done, he canceled his service. Yes, that’s a pretty boring short story until you remember that Comcast is a modern day Grendel to humanities’ Beowulf.
That should have been the end of the story, but only weeks after closing the Comcast account, the boys from Kabletown decided that Robert was not out of contract, debiting $1,775.44 from the checking account tied to the Comcast service.
“After several calls I was told a blank contract was created without my signature,” Robert explained in an email to Consumerist, but even then Comcast was admitting it was an error and that Robert should receive a refund check.
[Crazy much?]
Robert got back in touch and was promised a check was on the way. After weeks turned into months, Robert, after repeatedly calling and asking for his money back, received an email from Comcast’s “Executive Customer Relations” saying that Comcast did indeed take money that was not theirs to take. And this:
“I understand you’re claiming that someone advised you Comcast would send a refund check for the last payment that was debited but this is generally not the way we handle these situations,” continues the condescending email. “We generally only issue a refund check for a disconnected account with a credit balance leftover. For your situation, you would have to dispute the payment with your bank.”
This was a charge from December of 2014. After the Consumerist contacted Comcast, they ended up getting a response saying that this was all a mistake of computers and check-cutting, but they were finally rectifying it and sending this guy the money. It’s in the mail.