Comcast ‘No Fees’ Promise Conveniently Ignored, Until Caught By Recording
A Comcast “no fees” promise was being conveniently ignored, until someone confronted them. That person was Tim Davis, who had recorded previous conversations with the company’s customer service representatives.
It appears that the recordings paid off.
Big cable providers as well as most major ISPs are known for their tricky practices, a fact pointed out by Last Week Tonight host John Oliver. Verizon found a way to insist on slowing the bandwidth for their top users and still make it legal, and Comcast has a reputation for being difficult to work with as well.
Comcast seems to have some shady business practices, as revealed in a recorded phone call provided by Tim Davis. They had made promises and not kept them, until they heard their own people making the promise and then agreed to refund his money. The recording was revealed in the video below, which contains some strong language and may not be suitable for public or work viewing.
The Comcast “no fees” promise appeared broken after Davis suffered from connectivity problems after about two weeks of no issues after moving. The Comcast CSR told him it would be no charge to have someone come out and fix the issue, which was verified to be on Comcast’s end. Davis knew better, having dealt with them before.
Davis goes on to say that by recording the call himself, he was not breaking any laws.
When Davis received the bill later, he noticed fees for things like a “failed self-install,” which meant that the problem was on his own end and Comcast had lied. Having tested it himself and verified it over the phone with them, he knew it was their issue.
Apparently the tech lied in his notes after a bout of rude service, Davis explains, and Comcast proceeded to charge him for things they had verified to be false.
It wasn’t until after Davis confronted Comcast with their “no fees” promise, using a recording of the original call, that the charges were refunded.
MT @dadrone they also forget good service “Comcast conveniently forgets no fees promise ’til confronted by recording” http://t.co/t5MqAlmR4b
— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) August 12, 2014
The cable ISP lied to Tim Davis and tried to get extra money out of him using shady business practices. While most of us are not surprised by the way Comcast acted, it’s still a problem that likely thousands of customers across the U.S. face in silence.
With Mr. Davis’ example, we should learn a simple and unfortunate lesson: Always record your phone calls with any company who you think will try to lie to you. That was how he caught the broken Comcast “no fees” promise and confronted them with it.
[image via electronpencil]
