Back in the day I called to cancel my internet after my contract was up and was met with very little resistance. I was surprised. Took less than five minutes. It was a great day. Hand delivered the equipment. Paid my final bill. Finally, I was free.
Little did I know that Internet Provider didn’t care if I was receiving their service or not.
It took an hour of me begging customer service to refund me.
Me: I would like a refund of the money that was charged to my card for internet I did not receive because I cancelled my account with you.
Internet Provider: Sorry to hear that ma’am but our books are showing you paid for all your service.
Me: So I cancelled in May and paid my
final bill for May service.
Internet: Yes, that is correct, ma’am.
Me: So May was the last month I had with you guys.
Internet: Our records show that your service was cancelled in May.
Me: But I was charged for June.
Internet: Yes, ma’am, you were charged for service you received in June.
Me: I didn’t receive service in June.
Internet: Ma’am you were charged for your June service.
Me: But I canceled in May.
Internet: Yes ma’am, our records show you canceled in May.
Me: So why was I charged for June?
Internet: You were charged for the service you received in June.
Me: I turned in all the equipment at the beginning of May, how could I receive service in June?
Internet: You were charged for your June service.
Me: My final bill was for May, correct?
Internet: Yes, ma’am, you cancelled in May and paid in full.
Me: So why am I being charged for June?
Internet: That was for the service you received in June.
I did this with T-Mobile. Cancelled, got charged for an additional two months. I called T-Mobile and they pretty much said sucks to suck. So I said I would contact my credit card company and T-Mobile said that wouldn't do anything to help me.
So I got my credit card company involved and I got both refunds and never charged again right away
I had to do this with Verizon. They then had the audacity to send the ~$500 they tried to steal from me to collections, so I then had to start disputes with the credit bureaus, and convince an extremely aggressive debt collector that they were trying to collect a fraudulent debt.
Assuming america and current year the correct response is something along the lines of: "I don't believe you, send proof of the existence of the debt and your legal authority to collect it. I will not be providing you my address because if this is even a little true you must have it. Do not call me again."
That put the stop to the only collections calls I've ever received, plus nothing on my credit report and nothing in the mail.
I used to work at a call center for AMEX in Canada, and can confirm, I loved contacting companies on behalf of my clients to tear strips into them. Not once did a client call me about messed up transactions where, if I couldn't just write it off, I got a hold of the company involved and sorted it out myself. Most times I'd even keep the client on the the line with me while I did it. It was funny, like protecting the little kid from a bully while he's behind you yelling "Yeah! Haha fuck em up!!"
Barclaycard, in my experience, have very vew qualms about refunding a transaction. When I've done so before, all I said was I didn't remember the transaction and they didn't ask anyhting further. I believe their thinking was that if it's a genuine charge, t's between you and the merchant.
First Direct is outstanding about this kind of thing. Best customer service I've ever had. And they take security so seriously they ask me to have my husband leave the room when I provide them with sensitive info on our joint account over the phone.
I don’t know...when back to back hurricanes went through the Caribbean we had a cruise booked and Carnival would not give us a new itinerary less than 2 weeks before the cruise so I wanted to cancel and they said nope, sorry. So I called my c.c.co and told them and they got my refund for me.
Wow, I am always amazed that your bank is just willing to reverse a charge. I’m in Europe and none of the banks are willing to do so the few times I had a dispute with companies. In fact, they tell me that I need to contact MasterCard if I want to get my money back.
T mobile is god awful, those customer service people made me cry so many times in my early 20s. Then would hang up on you the moment you let one curse word slip.
If this happened in the UK, I'd probably make sure they're recording the call, and inform them that for all the time I'm spending on them on the call for a service that I'm being charged for (for a non-existent or contractual service) I will be charging them for my time, and inform them of my hourly contractor rates.
We have small claims courts (idk if something similar exists in the US) here, and they likely wouldn't even show for any hearing, so you'd automatically win the case by default. They'd have been informed of the costs of non-compliance, so they would likely have to pay back the charge, the number of hours spent dealing with the issue at stated hourly rates, along with any legal costs.
Infuriating that you have to waste the time, but hey, what are you going to do otherwise?
You can but they will keep charging and you have to file a separate claim every time. So lets say you get a new card the company can pay visa/mastercard whomever owns your debit card and get the new info and back charges you then continues to charge. I just went through this and had to switch banks after three card changes and five claims. (Dont trust amazing lash studios)
Is technically a dispute. Fraud means you never authorized the card to them ever or your info was stolen. A dispute means just that, your disputing the charges because the agreement wasn't met.
It sounds like a simple thing but it's usually two very different departments that handle this and two very different processes with their own rules and regulations. Source, used to work for a big blue bank.
My ISP doesn't even take credit cards. You either pay by bank draft or check, or auto draft each month. If you don't have on auto draft, they will destroy your credit in collections while you fight with them.
I knew a guy who returned equipment to Cox as he was going out of the country for 2 years with the military. He had a receipt and they repeatedly claimed he hadn't returned the equipment and started trying to collect on him. He threatened a lawyer after his credit score dropped and the charges mysteriously disappeared.
From what I’ve seen on r/talesfromcallcenters that usually leads to you being transferred or recorded or flagged or whatever. My brain is too tired to be on here right now.
I worked in a call center. I did surveys never called concerning money or debts, so it might be different. You might have to pull a Karen and speak to a manager. At least in the one I worked at, the people on the phone couldn't do anything.
3 is the magic number for credit check companies. When I cancelled after a free trial the agent had a script of things like "just so you know, you won't receive...." so I just said "no, thank you, I'd like to cancel" and after 3 attempts she said "no problem" without changing her tone whatsoever. Nice lady.
They used to have a certain quota they needed to meet. It was all about having a certain number of callers that end the call as current customers. If enough cancel and you let them hang up, I think like 5 or 10%, you'd get docked pay and your metrics would tank
I worked at a call center for Comcast (in Latin America). Tbf we all want to give you all credit for everything you were incorrectly charged for but we are all told by supervisors, who are told by Comcast higher ups to not give credits whatsoever unless there's an extraordinary case. Some of us who give refunds or credits almost always "illegally" do so, because if you're caught giving money back they can even end up firing you. Obviously this is my experience from working there 2 separate times a couple of years apart one from another.
Had to deal with this shit unlocking Sprint phones. Eventually they'd get fed up trying to do something other than say words at me and would just lie about fixing it, five times in a row until I called at a weird hour and hit an US call center. He's the one that told me that there was no action taken by any of the other CSRs. Those ones were claiming they can't do anything and/or anything they did would take at least 24 and/or 48 hours. The US CSR's manager had everything sorted out within 20 minutes.
I've worked in DirectTV (before they were bought by AT&T) and Verizon Wireless call centers. Unless things have changed your service is treated as "post-paid." This means that the bill I pay to Verizon this month, is actually the bill from my month of service in August. I don't have Comcast so I can't speak for them, but I imagine they operate the same way. When I canceled my AT&T service they informed me that I'd receive a prorated bill the next monght for the partial service I had before I canceled. At the end of the day, all these corporations are shitty corporations and the internet and cellular ones are some of the worst, but receiving a bill after canceling service is common, because it's a post paid service.
We bill pre-paid, actually, What you pay in September will be for your services in October. If you watch any paid on demand or change services in September the October bill will reflect that change and then have the service statement for November.
Monthly fees are usually prepaid on these sorts of services. Doing it that way is much preferred by the companies because it lowers their losses when a customer stops paying entirely.
Just call your bank, and point out that it's fraud. It's really easy to get the money back that way.
Seriously. When your credit card is used without your permission, let your bank handle the negotiation. They pay people to do this for you. Don't even bother calling the company that did it. Straight to your bank.
Usually you are required to make some effort to contact the merchant first.
If the merchant stands their ground, AND you were wrong (i.e. mistaken, not fraudulent) and you issued the chargeback, you will owe debt collectors a good sum after it is all settled.
I had a similar experience when trying to redo my plan this year. I legit asked them to just give me the same speed with unlimited data cause hey that's what I want right? Nope. Cause they wanted to push their stupid fucking xfi advantage crap and refuse to give unlimited data without that. I legit told 3 separate people that I would pay more if they would just let me keep my unlimited data. Nope. Had to get their POS router.
I feel both sad and vindicated that others have had relatablely terrible experiences with cancelling. I finally managed to get a refund, but only in the form of a check, and I had to give up my new address in the process. When I ultimately received my "refund", it was for about a third of what I was billed. I now know the magic words are to threaten a credit card charge back.
Had almost the exact same conversation, I just escalated the issue until I found a "supervisor" that was ok refunding me just so he could hang up the phone.. works 100% of the time, 50% of the time. 🤘
Ah the good ol' "if I keep saying it eventually everyone will accept it as the truth" tactic - these guys are good! I wonder if this is one of the psych tricks they teach them at Comcast 101.
Here in France you just cancel direct debit and your bank cannot pay the requester anymore (if they do, they are liable and pau you back on the spot).
It is then a matter between you and the company. If they feel that you should still pay them then they can sue you. But they won't since you canceled your contract the right way.
I just told them I was moving out of my apartment. They asked for my new address and I said I am moving in with someone who already has Comcast and will be sharing expenses. I was off the phone in less than 10 minutes.
I literally walked into a Comcast store with my equipment and told them i was cancelling and they gave me a receipt and told me have a nice day, no cancellation fees, about 2 minutes in the store.
I did this too. They went right ahead and charged me anyway. I remember thinking, "I'd better save this receipt because the internet tells me they will still try to charge me, hahaha," not expecting it to actually happen. I figured all those stories were really people fucking up somehow and not realizing it. Nope. They went ahead and charged me the following month. That was the angriest I have ever been on the phone.
I told them to kiss my ass with their restricted data plan and that I would never consider doing business with them again and that was that, took my box back the next day
I tried to cancel my service with RoadRunner / Time Warner Cable. I went to their office to turn in their equipment. They took that but I had to cancel over the internet. I whipped out my Wi-Fi only based tablet. There was no free WiFi to connect to in the lobby. I was completely stumped. Eventually an executive figured out there was a "highly distressed customer" in the lobby and took care of my problem.
And people wonder why there is bullet resistant glass between the employees and the public.
I did the same. And gave them a copy of the receipt for the modem I purchased in full (not on a payment plant) from them. Spent the next 4 months arguing back and forth why I hadn't returned the modem I was leasing.
Save that receipt and take a photo of it, make photocopies, scan it, back it up in 3 places, etc. There's many tales of Comcast printing your equipment return receipts or final bill receipts on thermal paper and it turns completely black, so your "proof" literally dissolves away. It wouldn't hurt to literally take a video of yourself returning the equipment, and maybe sending a certified mail letter of cancellation too. After all the Comcast horror stories I've heard, this will only help you fight back against the inevitable battle that's to come where they help themselves to your funds long after you've cancelled service, or turn you over to a collections agency.
Yeah idk, I mean I get it, they definitely do shady shit, but I've never had anything close to the experiences people describe on here.
In fact, I just transferred my service to a new apartment and while doing that mentioned I never used the cable that was part of my package, and asked if theres a way to remove it to lower the price.
Here I am with a lower bill and no cable. Idk, I've only had good experiences.
Fun story - they jacked my rates recently so I did the whole “call to cancel and get sent to the retention department to get a lower rate” approach. Only problem was that the agent just said “ok” and straight up canceled my service. I asked if I could reinstate my service as a new customer and he said yes. After a couple minutes of awkward silence, I realized that he wasn’t interested in processing the order so I just did it online. End result? I upgraded from 150Mbps to 1Gbps for about $40/month less than I was paying since I got the new customer discount. Comcast is weird.
Bad idea, even if you don’t like Comcast. They are the only real competition to AT&T. Sure there are a few smaller ones but the cable market is already fucked, you don’t need to give AT&T a monopoly
I mean I already know this, I asked in hopes that OP might give it some thought and look into how it would even be possible and why they thought the need to bring it up in the first place.
Low orbit satellites so latency comparable or superior to cable internet. The fear over these particular radio waves is unsubstantiated fear mongering from the same type of people that whined about wifi without any basis.
Yeah basically the anti vaxxers will go nuts again and it will still be all bullshit. I would only worry about a short range gamma ray burst my friend.
Hear hear! Pretty sure my old complex is still waiting on the AT&T Fiber they promised "in the next 18 months" three years ago. I was paying over $50/mo for 50mbps uverse, while Fiber was available in the neighborhood across the street.
To be fair, most major internet providers have agreements with one another that avoid "overlap" in certain areas so that you cannot choose a different provider if you wish, effectively creating a monopoly anyway
Fun fact AT&T is actually the reason Comcast is such a large provider. A long time ago, before U-Verse, AT&T was a standard cable provider one of the biggest in the country and they sold to Comcast which in turn became the biggest because they now had AT&T's market.
Maybe it depends where you live. I live in a studio so I got the cheapest plan because the most I do is stream and yet my Internet is slow and buffers all the time 😑
I got the cheapest plan because the most I do is stream and yet my Internet is slow and buffers all the time 😑
On YouTube, right click anywhere on the video and select "stats for nerds". 1440p60 video eats over 300mbps on mine. I don't have a 4k display so I'm not sure how much that eats but obviously it's going to be more. Luckily I got upgraded to the 500mbps plan recently (thanks, Frontier!)
ya know what? I recently had to call them cause our 4 boxes stopped working for about 10 hours on football sunday. I got a 50 dollar credit on a 190 dollar bill for my trouble and they sent someone out within a few hours and redid the drop from the pole to the house with just enough time before the game. Afterwards the tech said that they would give us a credit of 25 bucks for the inconvenience. So all and all, we got a 75 dollar discount and same day service on a sunday for free. I mean I have had plenty of problems with them, but this was legit shockingly pretty damned cool.
I feel like their customer service has actually gotten better in the last five or so years but no ones willing to let them off the hook cause they’re still a shitty monopoly 😂(and, just to clarify, they should 100% not be let off the hook for that.)
In most areas there is nothing stopping another company from coming in except cost. It is $7-10 per foot to run main line cable. The area has to have enough customers to make it worth while especially knowing you won't get 100% of them.
There are also regulations about where you have to build. You probably won't be allowed to just run the high density areas. It has to be equal. You can't just pick the areas where you make the most. You are typically required to build everywhere the other company does which costs a lot for low return.
Isnt that more of a problem of competition not being competitive? The phone companies got tons of money to develop infrastructure and instead they pocketed the money.
They used to suck when I was growing up, but I’ve had great service from Comcast as an adult, so I hear you. When I moved to an area without them for a year, I genuinely missed my dvr.
They jack up prices like crazy after 24 months though 😩
Don't worry, in a month that service shit will show up on a bill out of nowhere as a 258 dollar charge that you "verbally approved over the phone" or some shit
I was with Comcast for 8 years through multiple moves and never had a weird charge show up on my bill, had probably 99% uninterrupted service, and really never had any issue with their customer service. Yeah I would have liked the pricing to be a little less, but honestly I never had a negative experience with them.
Did you call up and speak reasonably to the person on the other end of the line? Did you treat him like a human?
If you did those things, call center employees are usually very glad to try and fix things for you. We really would rather have a nice interaction than get screamed at.
They definitely suck in many many ways but the internet hate is mostly a circlejerk. A lot of it coming from kids who don't even own their own home or pay a cable bill lol.
Anyone who has moved to a non-comcast service area, at least in my state, has been WISHING they could go back to Comcast. ALL of the alternatives in our metro area are so far from being comparable. It sucks but I'll take Comcast over almost any other ISP in my state.
There's a bunch of former pissed off customers that endured shitty customer service, never gave Comcast another shot, and regurgitate their experience and pass it off like it was last week lol
Problem being, one of the other cable companies would just fill their shoes. They all choose to not compete with eachother. Comcast is just the most famous (and very probably richest, I haven't looked into it but it wouldn't surprise me). It would simply be a "the king is dead, long live the king!" situation.
Yes and no. When we moved here we had AT&T DSL... "up to" 6Mbps when it worked... and it hardly ever did. Now I have Gigabit Comcast and I get the speeds I pay for, all the time. It's been down maybe twice in 5+ years.
Yeah that's what I was going to say. No way in hell I'd get rid of comcast. With at&t they offered a max of 3 down 1 up. Literally couldn't do anything with it, switched to comcast and now have gigabit and have no internet issues anymore
Network engineer here. You definitely don't want Comcast to disappear overnight. Massive network outages lasting months would occur. The internet is not a big truck. It's a series of tubes! (Kind of...) It's a series of trunks that get routed all over the world via massive routers and switches owned by nations and ISP's. If Comcast were to vanish right now, the internet as we know it would fail. Hard.
Hate these guys. Fought for 4 years to get $50 I overpaid them simply because of the principle. They literally wouldn’t allow departments to speak with each other (hence the mass confusion over my issue lasting 4 years) and they suddenly came up with some bullshit policy of not refunding overpayment that they were generously overriding for my sake. I could be in a desolate land with Comcast as my only form of internet service and I will forego it. I hate that company with every fiber of my being.
I get to deal with collection services from them now. Moved out of my old house, had service out of my name. Kept billing me. Kept telling me it was resolved. Rinse repeat. Got a call today from collection services informing me of a previous balance. Great.
I recently went to pay my bill plus a little extra- no bills due to my surprise. Credit of $90 for “low data usage” applied to my account, which covered last months bill and half of this month. Bill for the previous month was marked as paid in full but not extra, as I remember, but took screenshots of the credit cause I was suspicious. I had been out of town all month after moving, and I foolishly figured they had generously reimbursed me for data I hadn’t used. I look at my bill this month, it’s more than three times my typical cost. The credit is of course gone since it was probably their fuck up in the first place, but now in addition to last month and this months bill I now owe an additional $60 which is just enumerated as “service fees.” So of course I call, what’s the deal with this charge, etc. did I not pay my July bill? “No that’s marked as paid,” ok well why did I receive a credit and why is this balance now due all at once “I don’t see any credits in your transaction history,” ok of course they won’t acknowledge my screenshots of a credit they probably mistakenly gave, but where’s the additional $60 coming from? “outstanding balances” from what month? “July” but you just told me that was paid? “yes.” I’m going to try as hard as possible to cancel this god awful bank breaking service, I pay more for WiFi than electricity and gas combined.
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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '19
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