Friday 24 June 2016

Comcast bait and switch, false advertisement and run around customer service

Apparently reddit posts are the only way to get Comcast's attention so I guess I will do one too. Most of this is copy and pasted from an email I tried to send to them which bounced back. I edited it a bit to take out my personal information. It explains the situation I have gone through with Comcast and their tactics for dealing with customers. They will attempt to run you around and waste enough of your time calling and calling back until you give up. I can't even get someone to disconnect my cable and refund me for the full amount I paid. Anyways enjoy:

Website with false advertising: http://ift.tt/28R2lb5

My name is (inversedota) and I just moved to the US and signed up for comcast cable. I am completely shocked with how customer service is working right now especially after seeing commercials on tv for an initiative for better customer support. I have wasted almost 4 hours being run around in circles by customer service agents, sales agents, and loyalty agents. With my time being wasted, calls and online chats being disconnected after being unable to resolve my issue.

3 weeks ago I signed up for comcast cable. One of the huge selling points for me was xfinity's NFL RedZone channel. When I was looking at my options for cable and internet this was what I was looking for mostly. I picked out my internet and cable package seeing that NFLRedzone channel was included in the premier line. Before I confirmed my order I spoke to a sales agent. I asked them to confirm that NFL Redzone was included in the premier cable package. The agent did confirm it was included and I was excited and happy to pay top dollar for the cable experience I wanted.

This past Sunday I was checking out all the channels that came with my premier package but I noticed that NFL Redzone was asking me to subscribe. I opened up a chat with comcast customer service on your site which started my 3 hour run around with different agents. Initially the first agents told me that NFL Redzone is part of a sports package which was not included in my premier package. They offered the package for 1 month for free. I told them football doesn't start until September so that doesn't really help me. They apologized for the inconvenience but there was nothing they could do. I asked to speak to a supervisor which took well over 20 minutes to find. The supervisor said there was an error on the website and the sales agent was incorrect. They also mentioned a ticket would be filed to update the website and fix the error. The website is still incorrect as of 11am on Friday the 24th. I will attach a screenshot(imugr link at the bottom). The supervisor then explained that all they could do was offer me one month for free right now and apologized again for the inconvenience. I explained to the agent that this was not an inconvenience, I had been sold on a certain aspect of my package (including NFL redzone) and after I had paid for everything I am being informed it is no longer part of what I bought. This is false advertisement, bait and switch. I explained this is a legal situation and not a simple customer inconvenience. After the supervisor listened to my concerns said there was nothing they could do other than offer me 1 month for free. At this point I asked them to call me directly to resolve this over the phone. The customer service supervisor said they were not allowed to call but they would file a ticket and someone would get back to me within 24 hours on Monday by 5pm. I thanked her and then I asked to downgrade my service since the expensive premier package I am paying for no longer gives me the only channel I cared about having.

They then transferred me to a sales agent. When I asked the sales agent to downgrade my service because it no longer included NFL redzone the sales agent quickly told me my package should include it and he will transfer me to a customer service agent to fix my issue right away. I explained to him I just spoke to customer service and they said there was an error on the website. The sales agent was quick to let me know that I will definitely be receiving NFL redzone and the customer service people will take care of it. I once again protested and said I just got transferred to you because the customer agent and supervisor I spoke to confirmed that it would not be included unless I bought the sports package. At this point I also told the sales agent I had been in the chat for over an hour and didn't want to waste more time being told it wouldn't be included. He promised me that the person he would transfer me to would fix the issue for me right away and I would be able to have NFL Redzone. This was the tactic to make me not downgrade my service. He then "transferred" me which ended up just disconnecting the chat. I sat there dumb founded and then opened up a new chat with a new customer service agent and explained the past situation. I asked if they could see the transcript of my past interaction for the past hour and a half and she said they didn't have access to that. I said I had copy and pasted the transcript into a word document if they wanted to refer to it. They didn't want to see it. I told them the sales agent promised to resolve the issue for me today and NFL RedZone would be included. The customer service agent confirmed that the sales agent gave me misinformation. I would not be able to get that channel. I asked once again to be escalated to a supervisor since the sales agent promised that customer service would resolve my issue today without any problems. The supervisor offered the sports package at 5 dollars a month as opposed to 10 but said that was all he could do. I explained once again that telling a customer one thing and then after taking their money changing what you sold them is illegal and they should honor the original deal that I had made. He also took some time here to see if any other promotions could be applied to get the service for free or for less. It was at this time I had to step away from my computer for 10 minutes. I told the customer service supervisor in the chat I had to step away from my computer for 10 minutes but please do not disconnect me I will come back. By the time I had returned (8 minutes max) my chat had been disconnected.

I waited on Monday for someone to call me. I waited all week but no one from Comcast contacted me. This morning I called myself and explained the situation. I explained I had been waiting for a call from someone who could resolve this issue and had received no call. After I explained the issue to the technical support agent she she offered the same $5 dollar discounted package for 12 months. I told her this is the same thing that happened on Sunday I am still waiting to hear from someone who can resolve my issue of not receiving what I was sold on when I paid comcast weeks ago. She explained that all she could do as technical support was offer the $5 dollar a month discount which is not what I was looking for. I understood that as a technical support agent she didn't have much authority but I had been waiting all week to receive a call from someone at comcast who can take this issue seriously. She transferred me to the loyalty agent.

I explained to him that telling a customer they will be getting one thing, taking their money and then when delivering the product failing to deliver on the services and features promised initially is a legal issue. I need to talk to someone about this serious issue and was dumb founded how this could happen. He said all he could offer was the $5 dollar discounted package. I said if that is all he can do I want to cancel my service, have all my money refunded and be done with the situation. I can stream this online if I wanted it that bad and it was no longer worth it to me. He went into sales mode telling me if I only keep the internet it will cost me 75 bucks a month. I said I wanted the cable box gone and a refund for everything I paid for and if I want to watch anything I will stream it online. I explained that I paid for an agreed upon set of services and features and they failed to deliver on that. If they were not willing to honor the original deal I am entitled to a full refund. I said once again this is an issue of false advertisement, a formal complaint will be made with the FTC and is a legal issue. Instead of going through with the my cancellation and refund he asked if I would like to speak to the legal team. I said I am still waiting to hear from whoever was suppose to call me on Monday who was going to resolve this issue for me. If that is who I was waiting for a call from then sure. The agent then transferred my call abruptly, the "legal response team" that he transferred me to must have been a fax machine. The line screeched and made high pitched noises for a few minutes and then disconnected my call. If this was my first customer experience with Comcast I might have thought it was an accident. But after witnessing being "transferred" when really the agents just disconnect you I have to think this is a tactic to waste more of your time.

My experience with trying to get this resolved is agents who offer the same promotion of a month or two free or discounted service for 12 months. I have played the run around game with different customer service agents for over 4 hours of my time now. Each time I get disconnected or sent to a fax machine when the issue cannot be resolved. I waited for a call from someone at comcast who would take this issue seriously all week before calling comcast directly this morning. I was promised someone would call me on Monday by 5pm and that never happened either.

This is my first experience ever dealing with Comcast, I just moved here from Canada. I am well aware of the running joke that Comcast customer service is the worst. I was happy to see commercials on TV that said Comcast is committed to improving their customer service experience.

This is without a doubt the worst customer service experience I have ever had in my life. This is a straight up scam, bait and switch, false advertising, whatever you want to call it. Promising certain features and services at a price point and after taking a customers money telling them they have to pay more to get those features is a terrible way to run a business and I have no idea how this is allowed to go on. Not only that but the website is still advertising NFL Redzone is included in the premier package almost a week later! So this scam is STILL going on and still affecting people after a ticket was filed on Sunday about updating the website.

I have all the transcripts from the 3 hours I spent in online chats with agents on Sunday minus a few bits at the end when I was "mysteriously disconnected". I tried to get the recording of the fax machine noises after technical support and loyalty agents transferred me there when they could not resolve the issue but was disconnected before I could record it. The transcripts are well over 10 pages on Microsoft word and this post is long enough. So I wont include them.

Here is the screenshot where the false advertisement is still on their site as of June 24th at 11:43am PST: http://ift.tt/28WP83W

I am sorry for such a long post but now you can see how I wasted so much time being run around by their customer service.

tl;dr Comcast sold me on certain packages and channels being included in their "premier package" tell me after taking my money that I need to actually pay more money for those channels. Customer service and loyalty agents give you the run around and disconnect your calls to waste as much of your time as possible so you will eventually get frustrated and give up.



by InverseDota http://ift.tt/28YFw7g

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