5 ms·

I feel like if something this dumb happened now, there'd be no way to get it resolved that quickly, and without hiring a lawyer. Getting Comcast lawyers to resp

I feel like if something this dumb happened now, there'd be no way to get it resolved that quickly, and without hiring a lawyer. Getting Comcast lawyers to respond to you at all is the one bit in particular I can't picture happening.

coding123 3y ago
You can't even get a lawyer to call you back anymore because they're working from home too - which means they are at the beach all day with the kids, and will maybe check their voicemail in the next few days.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Have you tried to get in touch with a handyman, or a building contractor, or a pool service guy, or a CPA, or a doctor’s office or basically any service provider lately? Nobody seems to be picking up the phone anymore in any profession. I had to leave a message on a home painter’s voice mail saying “I have a stack of cash right here that I want to give to you to paint my house! Please for fuck’s sake call me back!”
  - derefr 3y ago
    Hypothesis: most service providers were previously operating on an interruptible work stack (LIFO), because persistently-annoying people could "jump the queue." Now with work-from-home they're doing strict FIFO (as they should!); and it turns out their queue is long.
    - mindslight 3y ago
      I've got a different theory. Tradespeople prioritize based on how much a job pays. So if you haggle them down, make them deal with insurance, or your type of job doesn't command much money, they'll happily keep you in their queue as an option in case work dries up, but won't be interested in doing your job as long as they're getting paid more for doing other jobs.
      - pmx 3y ago
        Which is entirely reasonable, no? They have every right to maximise how much they can earn in their available working time, they don't owe anything to anyone else.
      - derefr 3y ago
        That's logical as an argument, but I think it explains too much — why wouldn't tradespeople have been doing this before the pandemic? What was the counterveiling force to priority-queuing?
        mindslight 3y ago
        I'm sure it has always existed, but has seemingly gotten much worse. I'd say the general boom in demand plus the continual upwards price marches of trumpflation have made the dynamic much stronger. There's also a general feeling that the pandemic "changed things". I can't quite put my finger on the whole extent of that, but I can definitely see the overall feeling of everyone being out for themselves contributing to shamelessly playing the BATNA.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Oh man, lawyers are delightfully responsive, at least in my experience (both working as a lawyer, and working with outside counsel). I send emails after 11p and get a response before midnight, even as a pro bono client. Whenever that happens, I am reminded of what my life was like when all of my work emails were promptly responded to. I am also reminded that I should be glad to have escaped a world where such timeliness-at-all-hours is the expectation!
- qingcharles 3y ago
  I remember during COVID lawyers starting doing their court calls on video. They would regularly do them from the driving seat of their cars, and I watched one doing his call while shopping for groceries.
kelnos 3y ago
This ran through my head so many times while I was reading this. I hesitate to believe Comcast was ever a good company, but it seems they were a much better company back then. And yeah, I expect if this happened to anyone today, the first bit of advice anyone (including myself) would give them would be to get a lawyer to handle it.
charles_f 3y ago
Yeah, even accounting issues are unresolvable today. My cable company started charging me for an ultra HD TV supplement... While I have internet only. I didn't notice right away so a couple months went by. I called them, they stopped charging me, and credited my cable account back. But what is utterly crazy, is that that credit is never used. The months come and go by, and balance is still -$50 (i.e. I have an over payment of 50) I called a few times to get to money back, because, it's my money. I received 3 different explanations that were obviously made up and contradicting each other (call centers make shit up all the time). Eventually someone told me the balance will be paid off when I close my account and the only way I have to recover it is to change operators. Except they don't have competition where I am. It's trivial, not a jail time, but this simple enough process of "take that amount and write a cheque" is already impossible because a) no-one knows b) no-one cares c) I'm not gonna sue on such a low amount d) I can't leave e) there's no incentive whatsoever for anyone to expand some effort to understand what is happening to my account f) no-one has any sort of any power, and escalations are a myth
- londons_explore 3y ago
  'miss' a payment, and the credit will be used to cover it.
  - vxNsr 3y ago
    Yea this appears to be the easiest way to do it, turn off autopay, let your account go into default for a day or two, they’ll use the credit, then if your bill is higher than $50, just pay it off and turn autopay back on.
  - charles_f 3y ago
    I donno, there's a chance that the credit doesn't get used, they charge me interest and fees for missed payment, and I get to spend hours on the phone to get these reversed
nitwit005 3y ago
Legal can be much more responsive than the other parts of an organization. You can get away with ignoring customer complaints, but generally not their lawsuits, unless you're okay with losing by default.

coding123 3y ago

You can't even get a lawyer to call you back anymore because they're working from home too - which means they are at the beach all day with the kids, and will maybe check their voicemail in the next few days.

ryandrake 3y ago
Have you tried to get in touch with a handyman, or a building contractor, or a pool service guy, or a CPA, or a doctor’s office or basically any service provider lately? Nobody seems to be picking up the phone anymore in any profession. I had to leave a message on a home painter’s voice mail saying “I have a stack of cash right here that I want to give to you to paint my house! Please for fuck’s sake call me back!”
- derefr 3y ago
  Hypothesis: most service providers were previously operating on an interruptible work stack (LIFO), because persistently-annoying people could "jump the queue." Now with work-from-home they're doing strict FIFO (as they should!); and it turns out their queue is long.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    I've got a different theory. Tradespeople prioritize based on how much a job pays. So if you haggle them down, make them deal with insurance, or your type of job doesn't command much money, they'll happily keep you in their queue as an option in case work dries up, but won't be interested in doing your job as long as they're getting paid more for doing other jobs.
    - pmx 3y ago
      Which is entirely reasonable, no? They have every right to maximise how much they can earn in their available working time, they don't owe anything to anyone else.
    - derefr 3y ago
      That's logical as an argument, but I think it explains too much — why wouldn't tradespeople have been doing this before the pandemic? What was the counterveiling force to priority-queuing?
      - mindslight 3y ago
        I'm sure it has always existed, but has seemingly gotten much worse. I'd say the general boom in demand plus the continual upwards price marches of trumpflation have made the dynamic much stronger. There's also a general feeling that the pandemic "changed things". I can't quite put my finger on the whole extent of that, but I can definitely see the overall feeling of everyone being out for themselves contributing to shamelessly playing the BATNA.
gnicholas 3y ago
Oh man, lawyers are delightfully responsive, at least in my experience (both working as a lawyer, and working with outside counsel). I send emails after 11p and get a response before midnight, even as a pro bono client. Whenever that happens, I am reminded of what my life was like when all of my work emails were promptly responded to. I am also reminded that I should be glad to have escaped a world where such timeliness-at-all-hours is the expectation!
qingcharles 3y ago
I remember during COVID lawyers starting doing their court calls on video. They would regularly do them from the driving seat of their cars, and I watched one doing his call while shopping for groceries.

kelnos 3y ago

This ran through my head so many times while I was reading this. I hesitate to believe Comcast was ever a good company, but it seems they were a much better company back then. And yeah, I expect if this happened to anyone today, the first bit of advice anyone (including myself) would give them would be to get a lawyer to handle it.

charles_f 3y ago

Yeah, even accounting issues are unresolvable today. My cable company started charging me for an ultra HD TV supplement... While I have internet only. I didn't notice right away so a couple months went by. I called them, they stopped charging me, and credited my cable account back. But what is utterly crazy, is that that credit is never used. The months come and go by, and balance is still -$50 (i.e. I have an over payment of 50) I called a few times to get to money back, because, it's my money. I received 3 different explanations that were obviously made up and contradicting each other (call centers make shit up all the time). Eventually someone told me the balance will be paid off when I close my account and the only way I have to recover it is to change operators. Except they don't have competition where I am. It's trivial, not a jail time, but this simple enough process of "take that amount and write a cheque" is already impossible because a) no-one knows b) no-one cares c) I'm not gonna sue on such a low amount d) I can't leave e) there's no incentive whatsoever for anyone to expand some effort to understand what is happening to my account f) no-one has any sort of any power, and escalations are a myth

londons_explore 3y ago
'miss' a payment, and the credit will be used to cover it.
- vxNsr 3y ago
  Yea this appears to be the easiest way to do it, turn off autopay, let your account go into default for a day or two, they’ll use the credit, then if your bill is higher than $50, just pay it off and turn autopay back on.
- charles_f 3y ago
  I donno, there's a chance that the credit doesn't get used, they charge me interest and fees for missed payment, and I get to spend hours on the phone to get these reversed

nitwit005 3y ago

Legal can be much more responsive than the other parts of an organization. You can get away with ignoring customer complaints, but generally not their lawsuits, unless you're okay with losing by default.