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I've heard multiple times now that it's hard to cancel contracts at various providers, but I don't really see how this is an issue. If the official way (accord

by gst 12y ago

I've heard multiple times now that it's hard to cancel contracts at various providers, but I don't really see how this is an issue. If the official way (according to the contract) to cancel a contract is a phone call, what difference does it make if the remote party accepts this cancellation? Just state that you are cancelling the contract, make sure to get a recording (if legal in your jurisdiction) and chargeback all unauthorized future credit card charges.

chatmasta 12y ago
Yeah, of course this guy didn't have to put up with a phone call like this. Comcast has bad service, but I highly doubt this is the norm. He could have hung up and called again, no problem. But he stayed on the phone because after ten minutes, he was already drooling thinking about sending this recording to his buddies at Techcrunch. So yeah, maybe he's a bit needlessly overdramatic about this, but personally I'm thankful for the entertainment.
- personZ 12y ago
  The guy who he was talking to works for Comcast, is pursuing Comcast goals (which aggressively punishes agents who don't have high enough retention rates), and is recorded and often monitored by Comcast. The Comcast agent clearly has a list of complaints/responses that they use to try to defuse all complaints -- not that they've actually solved your problem, but rather that they made you think the call was no longer worth it and just give up trying to cancel. Their entire job as retention agents is to waste enough of your time, and try to press enough buttons, that you give up. The whole "I am waiting for the system to complete the process, so listen to my arguments while we wait" nonsense, for instance. Credit card companies do the same thing for activations, using the "waiting for the system to finish" to pitch insurance and other unwanted products. This is a problem. This is a major problem. This is why so many services allow you to sign up in seconds online, but require long, drawn out waste-of-time phone calls to cancel. To force you through this gauntlet, making most just forget about it. Cynically claiming that this guy manufactured this situation betrays logic of this situation. He dealt with what is a profound problem that most customers deal with.
  - chatmasta 12y ago
    I was able to cancel my account with comcast, just two weeks ago, in under twenty minutes. Are you saying that if he had hung up, and called again, he would have faced an equally long phone call? My point is that he did not have to put up with this. Obviously there are going to be some bad apples amongst the thousands of comcast customer service employees. He could have hung up on this guy, called back, and gotten a much more reasonable employee to cancel his account.
    - personZ 12y ago
      Twenty minutes? Did you maybe intend to say twenty second? Because twenty minutes sounds rather terrible. Secondly, realize that this guy's entire job is to do exactly what he did: This is what Comcast trains him to do; It's what they pay him to do; His rewards are based upon him doing exactly what he did. His role is not to fulfill your cancellation request, but to do everything possible to stop you from cancelling. Bad apple? He is probably the star of Comcast's retention department. Comcast will probably play this tape as training material.
    - squeaky-clean 12y ago
      Under twenty minutes is short? Seems like this blogger got it taken care of in 8:14, and that was still frustratingly long for all of us to listen to.
      - e98cuenc 12y ago
        He states that he started to record after ten minutes, so he only succeeded after ~18 minutes.
        squeaky-clean 12y ago
        Yeah, I was mostly joking about that, because bragging that it took 20 minutes is silly. I noticed it said he didn't begin recording until 10 minutes in, but the 8:14 was funnier ;) Besides, the ~18 minutes is still faster than the parent poster's claim.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Not buddies, his employees.
- jrells 12y ago
  Hanging up and calling back does work but it can be time consuming. I once spent an entire day calling and hanging up on Comcast in order to fix a problem (I knew what the problem was, but they wouldn't listen because it wasn't part of their script). When I got a rep that listened, it was fixed in 20 seconds, but I had literally just wasted my entire day already.
fpgeek 12y ago
And then they'll eventually send your account to collections, where it will be an even bigger pain to straighten out. Something similar happened to me with AT&T (now Comcast, I believe) in Chicago. I was moving away so I canceled service, returned my equipment in person and even got a receipt! But someone forgot to log something somewhere, so they kept sending me bills. For months, I kept calling and (foolishly) believed them when they said it would be straightened out soon... until they threatened to send my account to collections. In the end, it took a letter to the office of the CEO with the whole story and a copy of my receipt to fix things (and if it hadn't I'd already started researching my legal options).
- altcognito 12y ago
  Exact same thing happened to me with AT&T, and when someone informed me it was sent to collections, I informed them they would be hearing from a lawyer if it wasn't resolved in the next 24 hours. This was after I had documented proof that it had been paid. These companies are abysmal.
- mst 12y ago
  The last time that happened to me, collections took one look at the notes on the account, apologised, informed me that his manager was now writing an extremely annoyed email to billing, and had it fixed before I was off the phone. Collections tend to be more likely to play hardball, but they often also tend to contain smarter humans. Sometimes this helps.
  - Riseed 12y ago
    I did this once, and was impressed with how intelligent, friendly, and helpful the collections agency was. Unfortunately, billing responded to the collections agency by yanking the debt back from that collections agency and referring it to another, meaning I had to start all over again. I don't know if that's against the rules, but it didn't seem fair and certainly wasn't nice.
- crgt 12y ago
  Comcast ran the same scheme on me when I cancelled. Sent me to collections for "unreturned equipment" after sending me a receipt confirming receipt of equipment. My assumption was that it was retaliatory since I had the bank stop payment on a recurring monthly charge they billed me for after I had cancelled my service. Took months to sort out. Stuck on DSL now, but when you count the time I don't have to talk to Comcast, it still feels fast.
TomGullen 12y ago
It is a huge problem, it's bullying people into staying with them. Not everyone would be capable or willing to go through what you say you should do. If you're willing to go through it, good for you as it's a good form of protest (they'll get charged a lot for each chargeback). But if it ever gets to the stage where this it is now, it's totally broken.
- wildpeaks 12y ago
  Exactly. Another horrifying example of this is eFax: never ever EVER subscribe to that thing :(
lotsofmangos 12y ago
what difference does it make if the remote party accepts this cancellation? The continuation of provided service, followed by a bill in the mail. make sure to get a recording (if legal in your jurisdiction) And how exactly do you prove that it is a recording of a conversation with Comcast if their lawyers decide to dispute it?
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  Call records, plus recording, plus subsequent chargeback, would likely be enough to contest a "nuh-uh!" from their end.
- adrianb 12y ago
  I believe a more formal way to do it would be by registered mail. In Europe at least. Mail gets a timestamp that is trusted.
- Spoom 12y ago
  You don't have to prove things in a civil suit, you just have to provide enough evidence to show that it is more likely than unlikely.
brown9-2 12y ago
This plan seems to assume that there is a low or zero cost with the hassle of having to deal with those future billings.

by gst 12y ago

chatmasta 12y ago

Yeah, of course this guy didn't have to put up with a phone call like this. Comcast has bad service, but I highly doubt this is the norm. He could have hung up and called again, no problem. But he stayed on the phone because after ten minutes, he was already drooling thinking about sending this recording to his buddies at Techcrunch. So yeah, maybe he's a bit needlessly overdramatic about this, but personally I'm thankful for the entertainment.

personZ 12y ago
The guy who he was talking to works for Comcast, is pursuing Comcast goals (which aggressively punishes agents who don't have high enough retention rates), and is recorded and often monitored by Comcast. The Comcast agent clearly has a list of complaints/responses that they use to try to defuse all complaints -- not that they've actually solved your problem, but rather that they made you think the call was no longer worth it and just give up trying to cancel. Their entire job as retention agents is to waste enough of your time, and try to press enough buttons, that you give up. The whole "I am waiting for the system to complete the process, so listen to my arguments while we wait" nonsense, for instance. Credit card companies do the same thing for activations, using the "waiting for the system to finish" to pitch insurance and other unwanted products. This is a problem. This is a major problem. This is why so many services allow you to sign up in seconds online, but require long, drawn out waste-of-time phone calls to cancel. To force you through this gauntlet, making most just forget about it. Cynically claiming that this guy manufactured this situation betrays logic of this situation. He dealt with what is a profound problem that most customers deal with.
- chatmasta 12y ago
  I was able to cancel my account with comcast, just two weeks ago, in under twenty minutes. Are you saying that if he had hung up, and called again, he would have faced an equally long phone call? My point is that he did not have to put up with this. Obviously there are going to be some bad apples amongst the thousands of comcast customer service employees. He could have hung up on this guy, called back, and gotten a much more reasonable employee to cancel his account.
  - personZ 12y ago
    Twenty minutes? Did you maybe intend to say twenty second? Because twenty minutes sounds rather terrible. Secondly, realize that this guy's entire job is to do exactly what he did: This is what Comcast trains him to do; It's what they pay him to do; His rewards are based upon him doing exactly what he did. His role is not to fulfill your cancellation request, but to do everything possible to stop you from cancelling. Bad apple? He is probably the star of Comcast's retention department. Comcast will probably play this tape as training material.
  - squeaky-clean 12y ago
    Under twenty minutes is short? Seems like this blogger got it taken care of in 8:14, and that was still frustratingly long for all of us to listen to.
    - e98cuenc 12y ago
      He states that he started to record after ten minutes, so he only succeeded after ~18 minutes.
      - squeaky-clean 12y ago
        Yeah, I was mostly joking about that, because bragging that it took 20 minutes is silly. I noticed it said he didn't begin recording until 10 minutes in, but the 8:14 was funnier ;) Besides, the ~18 minutes is still faster than the parent poster's claim.
bitJericho 12y ago
Not buddies, his employees.
jrells 12y ago
Hanging up and calling back does work but it can be time consuming. I once spent an entire day calling and hanging up on Comcast in order to fix a problem (I knew what the problem was, but they wouldn't listen because it wasn't part of their script). When I got a rep that listened, it was fixed in 20 seconds, but I had literally just wasted my entire day already.

fpgeek 12y ago

And then they'll eventually send your account to collections, where it will be an even bigger pain to straighten out. Something similar happened to me with AT&T (now Comcast, I believe) in Chicago. I was moving away so I canceled service, returned my equipment in person and even got a receipt! But someone forgot to log something somewhere, so they kept sending me bills. For months, I kept calling and (foolishly) believed them when they said it would be straightened out soon... until they threatened to send my account to collections. In the end, it took a letter to the office of the CEO with the whole story and a copy of my receipt to fix things (and if it hadn't I'd already started researching my legal options).

altcognito 12y ago
Exact same thing happened to me with AT&T, and when someone informed me it was sent to collections, I informed them they would be hearing from a lawyer if it wasn't resolved in the next 24 hours. This was after I had documented proof that it had been paid. These companies are abysmal.
mst 12y ago
The last time that happened to me, collections took one look at the notes on the account, apologised, informed me that his manager was now writing an extremely annoyed email to billing, and had it fixed before I was off the phone. Collections tend to be more likely to play hardball, but they often also tend to contain smarter humans. Sometimes this helps.
- Riseed 12y ago
  I did this once, and was impressed with how intelligent, friendly, and helpful the collections agency was. Unfortunately, billing responded to the collections agency by yanking the debt back from that collections agency and referring it to another, meaning I had to start all over again. I don't know if that's against the rules, but it didn't seem fair and certainly wasn't nice.
crgt 12y ago
Comcast ran the same scheme on me when I cancelled. Sent me to collections for "unreturned equipment" after sending me a receipt confirming receipt of equipment. My assumption was that it was retaliatory since I had the bank stop payment on a recurring monthly charge they billed me for after I had cancelled my service. Took months to sort out. Stuck on DSL now, but when you count the time I don't have to talk to Comcast, it still feels fast.

TomGullen 12y ago

It is a huge problem, it's bullying people into staying with them. Not everyone would be capable or willing to go through what you say you should do. If you're willing to go through it, good for you as it's a good form of protest (they'll get charged a lot for each chargeback). But if it ever gets to the stage where this it is now, it's totally broken.

wildpeaks 12y ago
Exactly. Another horrifying example of this is eFax: never ever EVER subscribe to that thing :(

lotsofmangos 12y ago

what difference does it make if the remote party accepts this cancellation? The continuation of provided service, followed by a bill in the mail. make sure to get a recording (if legal in your jurisdiction) And how exactly do you prove that it is a recording of a conversation with Comcast if their lawyers decide to dispute it?

ceejayoz 12y ago
Call records, plus recording, plus subsequent chargeback, would likely be enough to contest a "nuh-uh!" from their end.
adrianb 12y ago
I believe a more formal way to do it would be by registered mail. In Europe at least. Mail gets a timestamp that is trusted.
Spoom 12y ago
You don't have to prove things in a civil suit, you just have to provide enough evidence to show that it is more likely than unlikely.

brown9-2 12y ago

This plan seems to assume that there is a low or zero cost with the hassle of having to deal with those future billings.