Cancelling Comcast call, loool

[Thor]

http://gizmodo.com/its-completely-ab...ast-1605040001

Have you ever tried to cancel your cable service? Have you ever successfully tried to cancel your cable service? It may very well be one one of the hardest things you ever have to do—just ask Ryan Block. Or better yet, listen to the whole, infuriating 8 minutes for yourself.

[fatso]

Man, that is brutal.

My spouse was a Comcast subscriber for about 5 years a while back and I lived her with her for one of those. I remember Comcast's service being pretty terrible, but nothing like this. It was always very difficult to connect with someone, you could never get what you were asking for, etc. I'm sure service reps are pushed to not let subscribers cancel their services, but I can't believe this kind of extreme behaviour is encouraged.

Side note, kudos to the subscriber for not blowing up on the rep.

[StrykerSteve]

Sigh

[burn_this_city]

XM Sattelite Radio is terrible for this too. I phoned to cancel my subscription and was magically disconnected when I said cancellation. They also sent me to collections after my cc number changed and their autorenewal wouldn't work.

[Lego Man]

That is absolutely insane.

I've had a similar experience with Rogers about two years ago, and I will never ever again use a Rogers product ever again if I can help it. Besides all the arguing, I had to call Rogers on three separate occasions to cancel my cell phone service because each time that I did they didn't put through the cancellation - despite me having all the confirmation numbers and stuff.

I hate Rogers with the intensity of a thousand black holes.

[Senator Clay Davis]

When companies try to do this it doesn't dissuade me, it makes me wanna cancel even more and tell everyone I know to cancel too.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

XM Sattelite Radio is terrible for this too. I phoned to cancel my subscription and was magically disconnected when I said cancellation. They also sent me to collections after my cc number changed and their autorenewal wouldn't work.

They are brutal.

Rogers isn't much better either. I called them at the end of November to cancel my service for when I moved in January. I explicitly told them I did not want television service at my new residence, just internet. They begged and pleaded, and offered me everything under the sun to not cancel, but I insisted. Then they kept calling me for weeks after with sales pitches. When I received my bill in February, I was being charged for cable. I called to complain, and they told me that I had to pay it because I didn't give them a month notice. They told me that they had no notes from November saying that I was cancelling, only that I was moving. In order to get that fixed, I had to call a specific person with Rogers and it had to be between 8am and 4pm on weekdays.

When I called that person, they were snarky and said that I should have called them when I first moved in and noticed there was cable service on the television instead of waiting for the bill to come, thereby insinuating that I was trying to pull a fast one by getting a month of free cable. The thing is, I never hooked up my cable box to check because I assumed that I would have no service. I was so angry I told them to cancel my phones and internet with them, which at that point they finally agreed that I wouldn't have to pay for the cable.

[Senator Clay Davis]

And I mean they literally pull this kind of crap at any given moment, not just when you're trying to cancel. I've been on the phone with Shaw for technical support and the guy tries to get me to upgrade to a new box because it has "fewer issues" (and costs an extra $12 a month). It's absurd.

[Regular_John]

Wow, two things:

1) That caller has the patience of a saint, I've have blown a gasket around the 3rd time he said "you don't want the fastest internet service?"
2) What pressure are those sales people under to keep customers from cancelling? Some of his sighs and frustrated grunts along the way sounded really desperate. Like "if I lose another customer today I'm out of here" kind of desperate.

[DownInFlames]

I think it's funny that Ryan works for Engadget, who are owned by AOL. They're the kings of making it impossible to cancel their service.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Wow, two things:

1) That caller has the patience of a saint, I've have blown a gasket around the 3rd time he said "you don't want the fastest internet service?"
2) What pressure are those sales people under to keep customers from cancelling? Some of his sighs and frustrated grunts along the way sounded really desperate. Like "if I lose another customer today I'm out of here" kind of desperate.

He sounded like the real life version of Gil from the Simpsons lol.

[bubbsy]

this is awesome.

The big providers are evil garbage. Love when ridiculous stories like this come out.

[Regulator75]

Brutally hilarious.

[Luder]

Cancelling XBox Live is pretty goofy as well

[Bob]

Originally Posted by Lego Man

That is absolutely insane.

I've had a similar experience with Rogers about two years ago, and I will never ever again use a Rogers product ever again if I can help it. Besides all the arguing, I had to call Rogers on three separate occasions to cancel my cell phone service because each time that I did they didn't put through the cancellation - despite me having all the confirmation numbers and stuff.

I hate Rogers with the intensity of a thousand black holes.

Bell put me through similar grief many years ago, but when I moved away from Rogers I did the more obvious thing: ported my number. It automatically cancels your service with no need to call in. Also worked with Shaw.

[Huntingwhale]

That guy was way to nice. This happened to me when I cancelled my credit card a couple years ago and it took all me telling the guy off harshly for 30 seconds before I got what I wanted.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

2) What pressure are those sales people under to keep customers from cancelling? Some of his sighs and frustrated grunts along the way sounded really desperate. Like "if I lose another customer today I'm out of here" kind of desperate.

I was also wondering this. It almost seemed to me like there were trying to get me to call back and cancel at a different time, thereby passing the buck to the next employee.

Do they penalized when someone cancels?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Do they penalized when someone cancels?

I'm sure they do; or at very least the numbers are tracked and reported. So at a staff meeting it shows that CSR A was able to convince 87% of their cancelation calls to keep their service, whereas CSR B only had 65%.

If CSR B had already been pulled into the manager's office that morning and told he had to get his retention numbers up, I can see the call going that way.

I know Bell was the same way years ago. I would always call to cancel my service, and when asked why I would tell them Shaw had a better offer. I would get a discount for staying with them. Similar thing with Bell's tech support. The first 3 steps were to cycle the power (soft reboot), pull the power cord for 2 minutes (hard reboot), and then next was to unplug for 2 hours. (Which would force a renewal of at least on software lease.) First level techs would hate that I had already tried all 3 when calling them; as they could not have me power off for 2 hours and ask for me to call back. If they could; they could mark the call as resolved. Now they have to mark it as unresolved and put me over to 2nd level.

[bubbsy]

i don't think there's any real point to switching providers any more. Once a year, I get on a call wtih my provider (rogers) and tell them i'm thinking about choosing another vendor as my bill is too high (very real truth).

Within 15 minutes i am put on a promotional 12 month plan with decent discounts.

It's just interesting hearing what the call sounds like if you don't take their retention offers and still want to cancel.

[photon]

The CSR in the call basically says as much in the call, that they are paid based on keeping customers, trying to guilt the guy into staying. Just because your crappy company chooses a crappy way to incentivise their CSRs and employs crappy pressure sales tactics doesn't mean I should get a product I don't want.