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Nothing is harder than cancelling internet service, with the possible exception of cancelling a gym membership. In order to cancel Mediacom's 'service,' I had

Nothing is harder than cancelling internet service, with the possible exception of cancelling a gym membership. In order to cancel Mediacom's 'service,' I had to send a letter[1] to them, with copies to their general counsel, threatening 99 kinds of lawsuit. I made the letter intentionally deranged, complete with footnotes about financial BDSM, to give them the impression that I would actually do it. They cancelled the account. It was pretty fun to ignore the panicked calls from their lawyers for a bit too. Once I had to cancel an entire credit card to get out from under a gym membership. [1] https://gowder.io/pgmediacom.pdf https://gowder.io/pgmediacom.pdf

pteraspidomorph 6y ago
The last time I changed my mobile phone number I did it to get away from the incessant harrassment from a gym after I canceled my membership (canceling was itself extremely difficult).
- ianai 6y ago
  This sort of stuff should be regulated and outlawed out of existence.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    It's already illegal, potentially for multiple reasons, at least here in England.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Laws only work if they're enforced. It can be illegal but how much effort does it take to actually get the problem investigated by the relevant authorities?
      - Silhouette 6y ago
        Well, harassment can be a criminal offence here, and depending on the circumstances actual police officers will turn up to formally notify someone that a complaint of harassment has been made against them. I imagine uniformed police officers turning up at your corporate HQ would be enough to get most businesses' attention.
- Gustomaximus 6y ago
  Make sure you do negative reviews on FB/Gmaps. I feel this is one of the great beauties of the internet. It's so much harder for companies to hide behind branding when they display bad behaviours.
kazz 6y ago
That whole ordeal sounds horrifying. What is it about cable/internet companies that seems to make them awful across the board?
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  They are monopolies that aren't regulated as utilities and have zero competition from the public sector.
  - AceJohnny2 6y ago
    > They are monopolies that aren't regulated They are actually heavily regulated. But they use that regulation as a way to prevent new competitors.
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      >> regulated _as utilities_
- shoulderfake 6y ago
  0 competition and regulatory capture so nobody new can come in
  - dingaling 6y ago
    The UK ( whence comes this article ) has a very competitive ISP marketplace, there are several dozen ISPs vying for my custom at my property using a variety of connection technology. But most people in the UK sign-up to the Big Three ( BT Retail, Virgin, TalkTalk ) due to their intense advertising and bundle 'deals'. So those three consider themselves the market and compete with one another for that pool of customers. Naturally they make leaving difficult because they have spent so much on acquisition. The other 20% of customers shop around based on individual requirements. I've been with my small, efficient ISP for 12 years and have no reason to change.
    - 6y ago
frogpelt 6y ago
It is astounding that things escalated to this point within two weeks of you signing up.
imheretolearn 6y ago
This is an anti-pattern that some companies follow. I remember trying to cancel an account from a grocery delivery service. There was no option online to cancel the subscription. The only option was to call them during their working hours which were different from mine because we were in different time zones. After waiting for 30mins I finally got connected to a human on the other side. They tried pressure sales tactics to get me to continue with the service even though I made it clear that I did not need their service anymore. The call itself took about 30 minutes. This is such an egregious waste of my time just to cancel a frickin subscription. These services cost actual money. On the other hand, there are "free" newsletters which hide their unsubscription button under layers of pages and clicks. It's a good thing gmail provides an "unsubscribe" button on the top. There should be a service which basically manages all your subscriptions(bits/bytes & atoms/molecules) in one place and allows you to activate/deactivate them. I would definitely pay for such a service. Or a website which ranks services based on ease of use, cost, cancelling headaches, most important clauses in their terms of use etc.
- techsupporter 6y ago
  > After waiting for 30mins I finally got connected to a human on the other side. They tried pressure sales tactics to get me to continue with the service even though I made it clear that I did not need their service anymore. The call itself took about 30 minutes. This is such an egregious waste of my time just to cancel a frickin subscription. This brings back memories of one of my first jobs. I worked for a call center outsourcing company doing overnight tech support for a nationwide ISP that would advise you when you received mail. One of the things we did was to dump all calls into the same call queue after 2am in my time zone so the first four hours of my shift were normal technical support calls and the last six hours were everything, including billing. The contract owners in Virginia were very motivated that we continue the heavy-handed "retention" efforts even in the generalist phone queue. I remember one script we were given for cancellations ran to fifteen pages, including notes and policies. But one of the myriad nice things about working in the middle of the night is there are no managers around to give a shit and the on-shift Quality Assurance rep was an employee of my call center company, not of the big ISP like on other shifts, and the overnight QA people officially gave zero shits. If anyone wound up in the all-purpose queue asking to cancel, we'd all do it with minimal hassle because we hated the process as much as the soon-to-be-ex-customers. (When Virginia rolled out new policies to "verify" script compliance, like flagging cancellations made on calls with a handle time under ten minutes--which is saying something in itself--we'd just put the customer on hold for 12 minutes to "process the cancellation" and go on a free break.)
reitzensteinm 6y ago
I once paid twice as much for a gym for the no lock in plan, with pay as you go in advance for a month. They offered me as low as a three month contract with direct debit and I refused. The guy signing me up thought I was nuts. I think everyone else is nuts.
- thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
  I think I might agree with the guy signing you up: what about the Direct Debit Guarantee? (assuming UK from the term 'direct debit')
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Gyms will claim you signed up for a 12 / 24 / whatever month subscription, and then the guarantee doesn't apply. https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/directdebitguarantee.aspx https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/dir... "It cannot be used to address contractual disputes between you and the billing organisation. "

pteraspidomorph 6y ago

The last time I changed my mobile phone number I did it to get away from the incessant harrassment from a gym after I canceled my membership (canceling was itself extremely difficult).

ianai 6y ago
This sort of stuff should be regulated and outlawed out of existence.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  It's already illegal, potentially for multiple reasons, at least here in England.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Laws only work if they're enforced. It can be illegal but how much effort does it take to actually get the problem investigated by the relevant authorities?
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      Well, harassment can be a criminal offence here, and depending on the circumstances actual police officers will turn up to formally notify someone that a complaint of harassment has been made against them. I imagine uniformed police officers turning up at your corporate HQ would be enough to get most businesses' attention.
Gustomaximus 6y ago
Make sure you do negative reviews on FB/Gmaps. I feel this is one of the great beauties of the internet. It's so much harder for companies to hide behind branding when they display bad behaviours.

kazz 6y ago

That whole ordeal sounds horrifying. What is it about cable/internet companies that seems to make them awful across the board?

throwawaygh 6y ago
They are monopolies that aren't regulated as utilities and have zero competition from the public sector.
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  > They are monopolies that aren't regulated They are actually heavily regulated. But they use that regulation as a way to prevent new competitors.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    >> regulated _as utilities_
shoulderfake 6y ago
0 competition and regulatory capture so nobody new can come in
- dingaling 6y ago
  The UK ( whence comes this article ) has a very competitive ISP marketplace, there are several dozen ISPs vying for my custom at my property using a variety of connection technology. But most people in the UK sign-up to the Big Three ( BT Retail, Virgin, TalkTalk ) due to their intense advertising and bundle 'deals'. So those three consider themselves the market and compete with one another for that pool of customers. Naturally they make leaving difficult because they have spent so much on acquisition. The other 20% of customers shop around based on individual requirements. I've been with my small, efficient ISP for 12 years and have no reason to change.
  - 6y ago

frogpelt 6y ago

It is astounding that things escalated to this point within two weeks of you signing up.

imheretolearn 6y ago

This is an anti-pattern that some companies follow. I remember trying to cancel an account from a grocery delivery service. There was no option online to cancel the subscription. The only option was to call them during their working hours which were different from mine because we were in different time zones. After waiting for 30mins I finally got connected to a human on the other side. They tried pressure sales tactics to get me to continue with the service even though I made it clear that I did not need their service anymore. The call itself took about 30 minutes. This is such an egregious waste of my time just to cancel a frickin subscription. These services cost actual money. On the other hand, there are "free" newsletters which hide their unsubscription button under layers of pages and clicks. It's a good thing gmail provides an "unsubscribe" button on the top. There should be a service which basically manages all your subscriptions(bits/bytes & atoms/molecules) in one place and allows you to activate/deactivate them. I would definitely pay for such a service. Or a website which ranks services based on ease of use, cost, cancelling headaches, most important clauses in their terms of use etc.

techsupporter 6y ago
> After waiting for 30mins I finally got connected to a human on the other side. They tried pressure sales tactics to get me to continue with the service even though I made it clear that I did not need their service anymore. The call itself took about 30 minutes. This is such an egregious waste of my time just to cancel a frickin subscription. This brings back memories of one of my first jobs. I worked for a call center outsourcing company doing overnight tech support for a nationwide ISP that would advise you when you received mail. One of the things we did was to dump all calls into the same call queue after 2am in my time zone so the first four hours of my shift were normal technical support calls and the last six hours were everything, including billing. The contract owners in Virginia were very motivated that we continue the heavy-handed "retention" efforts even in the generalist phone queue. I remember one script we were given for cancellations ran to fifteen pages, including notes and policies. But one of the myriad nice things about working in the middle of the night is there are no managers around to give a shit and the on-shift Quality Assurance rep was an employee of my call center company, not of the big ISP like on other shifts, and the overnight QA people officially gave zero shits. If anyone wound up in the all-purpose queue asking to cancel, we'd all do it with minimal hassle because we hated the process as much as the soon-to-be-ex-customers. (When Virginia rolled out new policies to "verify" script compliance, like flagging cancellations made on calls with a handle time under ten minutes--which is saying something in itself--we'd just put the customer on hold for 12 minutes to "process the cancellation" and go on a free break.)

reitzensteinm 6y ago

I once paid twice as much for a gym for the no lock in plan, with pay as you go in advance for a month. They offered me as low as a three month contract with direct debit and I refused. The guy signing me up thought I was nuts. I think everyone else is nuts.

thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
I think I might agree with the guy signing you up: what about the Direct Debit Guarantee? (assuming UK from the term 'direct debit')
- DanBC 6y ago
  Gyms will claim you signed up for a 12 / 24 / whatever month subscription, and then the guarantee doesn't apply. https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/directdebitguarantee.aspx https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/dir... "It cannot be used to address contractual disputes between you and the billing organisation. "