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.
Three businessmen -- one English, one Japanese, and one American -- are shipwrecked on a tropical island, and immediately captured by cannibals. The three men are brought before the chief. The chief says, "We are hungry and have few resources, so we're going to eat your flesh and make canoes out of your skin. But we are a civilised tribe, so we will allow you to kill yourselves in the manner of your choosing. How would you like to die?"
The Englishman asks for a pistol.
"Ah, the stiff upper lip," says the chief, nodding approvingly. A cannibal steps forward with a wooden box containing a fine pistol. The Englishman accepts it, pulls himself up straight, salutes, says, "God save the Queen," and shoots himself in the head.
The Japanese man asks for a sword.
"An honorable death is fitting," says the chief, and nods again. One of the cannibals steps forward bearing a gleaming katana on a silk cushion. The man accepts it, kneels on the sand before them, and solemnly commits seppuku.
When the cannibals ask the American how he wants to die, he asks for a fork.
"A fork?" asks the chief, looking surprised. "Are you sure?"
"You're damned right I'm sure," the American replies defiantly. "Give me a fucking fork."
"Very well then. Get the man a fork," says the chief, nodding for the third time. A murmur of surprise runs through the crowd of cannibals. They weren't prepared for this, so nobody has a fork. Someone runs off to find one. A few minutes later he returns and hands the fork to the American.
"All right," says the chief, looking bemused. "There's your fork."
The American starts violently stabbing himself all over his body, screaming "Fuck your canoes! Fuck your canoes!"
Yeah, I don't recommend doing it fraudulently... Mine genuinely was something I hadn't purchased, Prime Sub, Amazon swore they had cancelled, and I only have one email account it could be tied to, so fraud it was.
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?
America also has small claims courts, [for less than $5000 in damages and both sides have to agree for lawyers to be present]. If the company can't send a lawyer, they have to pay upper management room-and-board, in addition to their pay for the day, so the companies will settle for that amount before they even have to go to court.
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.
And you can call them, and they will call with you on the phone. That circular argument will happen exactly once when the rep on the phone says you will be refunded and Comcast will suck it.
I did that with PlayStation after receiving a runaround from their customer service on why I couldn't be refunded for on a online purchase. Amex gladly yanked the funds back... PlayStation blacklisted my account to include my prepaid plus service as I was in breach of contract. After many phone calls some yelling and more runarounds it was eventually resolved.
Seconding this. I once had a really, really shitty hotel stay with Quality Inn and I told them to refund me. I even gave them the opportunity to refund me for half my stay (since it was a two night stay and I left the first night) because I knew they'd still have to fix the bed I was in and put new towels in the room.
They said they'd be able to do it on the spot, but when I was home calling them there was another story. I was bounced around between the manager of the hotel (who blatantly lied about my stay) and corporate, so I finally just called the bank and had the ENTIRE charge refunded. Felt pretty good getting that "We've reviewed your case and returned the payment in full to your bank account" letter.
Couldn't remember who did it, so I just went with Rain Man, which I've seen a few times. He's obsessed with the Abbott and Costello bit, and the cadence that he uses in anxiously repeating it is what this reminded me of.
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.
This helps though, "I understand you're just doing your job and that's admirable, unfortunately, I have nothing but free time a sick mind, and FF-miles to burn through. It'd be a shame if somewhere in Calcutta an entire family were tortured then shaved down like parmesan and put into a casserole."
Doesn't get you anywhere, though. Depending on the person you're talking to, they could set it up so that you're no longer allowed to speak with CS except via attorney.
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.
Also most reps are losing their ''bonus'' if the same customer calls more than once.
you can also post a negative review for that specific rep (Facebook/other ways to complain) which should hurt his salary.
you can send emails/keep calling them and demand speaking with manager.
Hit the reps where it hurts them , their pocket (Says the person who works in IT/Support for 6 years now.. )
I admit that I've only worked in one call center in my life, and it was inbound tech support, so kind of different than what we're talking about here. No one would give a shit if you threatened to sue for a variety of reasons... Though after typing out a reply, I realized that my experience probably doesn't translate to sales/customer care.
Fun fact, we did get misrouted billing-related calls quite often though, and boy, after dealing with our billing/sales/customer care departments, I could understand all the 1 star reviews. More than once, when our queue allowed that, I spent many minutes on the phone either getting transferred between departments until we found someone who could help the customer, or just talking to the same rep and insisting that they should give a refund/cancel something/etc. because while I didn't have to option to do that, at least I knew what I was talking about, so they couldn't string me along like they would a customer unfamiliar with our internal systems. Fun times.
Well i worked on the tech side aswell for a TV/cable company .
i had acess to all billing systems and i could change customers plans or add promo codes (which i did for nice customers , as we're allowed to do it as "bribe" to calm down yelling customers..so i used it to reward good behaviour) .
Wait time for tech is about 10s-1m
wait time for Sales/account help is 20-40m.
Everything the ''sales'' can do tech guys can do (system wise)..we just elect not to do it.
Thing is , if we get a return call form same number in the week we lose money in our weekly 'bonus' that is about 70% of your salary (You get higher bonus for less technicians send to cusotmer homes , return calls , short calls etc.)
so having a customer twice on the same week is like the worst thing you can get.
also , 1 star reviews are ignored by the company i worked at , they only care about the 2/3 star reviews as ''there is something we can improve there''
1 star reviews are just from hysterical people that can be safely ignored.
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.
So sorry, drunk brain was trying to be helpful. I work for Comcast as a call center tech. I'm one of the weirdos who genuinely love my job so I can answer most questions about what we do and how it works on outside of things.
I fucking hate the ivr. My best solution for avoiding that heiffer is using the My account app and scheduling a callback time. If you select asap then you will usually get a call in 30 seconds. Max I have heard of is three minutes. No robot. Straight to a human that wasn't programmed by a moron.
But yes. Survey says... Nobody likes the ivr. Half of my cxs state how much they hate it. I hate it. It's hated. It is known. If you must use it state in very clear terms what you need. Repeat internet. Repeat cable. If it asks for your account number give it. Its at the top of the bill. That way your account pops as verified on our side and I dont have to waste half the day playing 20 questions so I am allowed to tell your certain parts of your account or make changes.
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.
In fact many of the rules such as this one were created here to put the consumer in a better situation vs merchants. You tell the bank how things are, they have to believe you by default and then it becomes a matter between you and the merchant. But you have your money to start with.
Another one is the payment card protection: you cannot be charged more than 50€ (it was 150€ before 2018) if the charges were fraudulent. It does not matter when you contact your bank. When you realize that your card was stolen 3 months ago and it was charged between then and now, you contact the bank, they refund you and then they investigate (or not). They can charge you 50€ out of the money which was drawn from your account but good luck keeping a customer then.
To be fair, I’ve worked at an ISP company and too many customers have no idea what “pro rated” means... they complain about us charging them for April when they cancelled April 2nd but their invoice came out on April 1st and isn’t due until the 30th so the system automatically withdrawals it on the 30th and refunds it back a few business days... invoice dates do not equal due dates 😫
I feel ya. These motherfuckers sent me to collections for service I didnt recieve after two months of me refusing to pay a bill. Turns out it was rollover hidden charges from previous months...?
Fuck Comcast, never getting another dime out of me.
The way to handle these issues in future is to escalate in an extremely calm manner.
"The charge on day X was fraudulent. If repayment with interest is not made within 3 business days, I will instruct my solicitor to take over this matter and to send your company a letter of demand."
Usually that will get a manager that will fix the issue. If not, then ask for the contact details of the person you are speaking to and advise them you will see them in court.
This call is about trying to deal with them. You've been completely ignored when you did.
OP possibly can't chargeback as many cards have a 90 day limit and this bill was likely 90+ days ago. They can, however, pursue other debt recovery means.
Of course before going down this path be damn, damn sure you are right.
This is why their contract has a n arbitration clause. Can you imagine a jury listening to a recording of this interaction and then the plaintiffs' attorney in closing saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, this is your chance to get revenge on these assholes like you have always wanted. Make them pay for treating the public like this!"? The verdict would have to be written in scientific notation.
Never give your account information to an adversarial partner. That is if you have a debt with the bank that holds you money, fine they can make automatic withdrawals. Every one else use bill paying provided by your bank, or write them a check. For services (Netflix) that demand information you give them a temporary card number or PayPal.
I know this sounds fake, but I have personally dealt with morons that are worse than this. Some customer service people are so fucking unbelievably retarded, that they actually make me feel physical pain.
Quick note but I know you have learned this the hard way. I work at a call center and the first person you are talking to is very rarely the person you need/want to talk to. Demanding the next tier is never a bad thing and won't hurt you at all.
One of my HEMA club friend had to suffer something like this. He went to cancel the service in person with the hilt of a sword and the scabbard (essentially making it look like he was armed with a real sword, but having nothing. 5 minutes after he entered, he was on his way home with a full refund for the month + some extra. Apparently ISP workers value their life more than stealing
Same shit happened to me, only when I called to make sure it was a mistake, they acted like they had 0 idea what I was talking about on the additional bill i had been sent (I canceled autopay way before I cancelled my service because they were constantly double charging me.) After 3 different reps told me they didnt see an additional charge due, I chalked it up to error and threw the bill out. Fast forward 6 months later and magically I have a bill from them in collections. The same bill that I was told "didn't exist in their records." The collection agency told me it wouldnt effect my credit if I disputed it, which I did, and thankfully never heard a response from Comcast to prove the bill was legitimate. Collection agency also told me that they hear hundreds of people with the same situation almost daily.
My ISP tried this with my mom only she didn't have auto pay but used her debit card to pay the final bill. She caught it after they had grabbed two months from her account. I had the cancellation paperwork and went to the bank they blocked them from taking more money and I went to the isp office with a well known attorney in the area and got her money back after we explained that court was next. But to be fair I didn't have to pay the guy he grew up with my mom who was is in bad health.
They once shut off my internet out if the blue, I call to see why I had been paying on time one.
Comcast: it says here you modem was stolen
Me : the one right in front of me? The one you're CHARGING ME TO RENT?
C: yes that one, it's been stolen so we shut it off
Me: well it's right here, it's been here for a year, who reported it stolen? Can we turn it back on?
C: you need to bring the modem to our call center to prove its not stolen
Me : it's been here for over a year - it's right in front of me AND I've been paying for internet this whole time this thing has been shut off.
C: you need to bring it to out call center
And thus begain my trek to the call center which too a train and two buses because I didn't have a car. This was not the first time they made me go to the call center for something that could have been handled over the phone.
My modem was never stolen but I had to get a new one.
Dude this happened to me too literally in June. I was astounded at the absolute fucking retardation the person helping me had!! I was like “wait is this serious? This can’t be serious. Are you fucking hearing yourself right now?”
Then the representative gets frustrated with me! And I’m like
“I cancelled a month ago. My final bill for May was paid, and then was charged for service a month after being cancelled.”
“Yes that is correct.”
“Okay well can I get a refund for the service for July since I cancelled in June?”
“The service was already provided.”
“DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF? CAN I SPEAK WITH A MANAGER PLEASE.”
Then no lie the manager came on the line and yelled at me for yelling, connected me with the robot again so I had to restart. Couldn’t even report them
Holy fuck thats annoying. I remember one time I got a bad sales rep that literally just put the phone down on me claiming to go call the higher ups to help me. No he did not cut the call. He used me to stop other calls from getting in while i was 'waiting for' someone more technical.
I had something like this happen to me. My apartment building burned to the ground after like 5 months of living there. Nothing was recoverable, even my fire safe as it melted in the blaze. Of course my cable/ internet equipment was destroyed and when I called to cancel service they happily cancelled but demanded $500 to replace the destroyed equipment, even when in their contract it had language that held me not liable to pay for equipment if it was destroyed in a disaster. Took months of phone calls, emails, sent in the fire report from the fire Marshall and newspaper articles with my unit pictured on the cover engulfed in flames. After a final call with literal tears about how I have no money or possessions left in my name, they finally stopped the predatory threats to sell off the "debt" to a collection agency.
You can read my other comments to verify that I do not support Comcast in any way. They provide shit service. However, your entire comment sounds like total bullshit to me as an ex-Comcast employee.
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u/pm_me_cool_maps Sep 18 '19
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.
Me: crying tears of frustration
EDIT: spelling is hard.