When we got home yesterday, we were surprised to find a weird “activate your device” message when we tried to go online. I turned on the TV, and there were no cable channels. Something was afoot.

So I called the number on the “activate” screen and had an automated message tell me that my account was delinquent, I owed hundreds of dollars, and my service had been discounted. Imagine my shock to learn this when I’d had NO PREVIOUS NOTICE. Even worse, I couldn’t get through to a customer service representative without paying my bill first (sleazy — what if it had been your mistake?).

Long story short, when my card number was stolen back in October, the bank canceled it and issued a new one. I forgot that the old one was registered for your automatic payment program, so your were unable to process payment in November and December. Fair enough, but maybe you could have mentioned that to me at some point before taking the extreme step of disconnecting my service.

Clearly you had my email address. While I received weekly “Xfinity What to Watch” spamails that I was too lazy to unsubscribe from, I never once received a “hey, there’s a problem with your payment” notice. And when I called to try to talk to a human being about the problem, the automated voice verified the last four digits of my phone number, so obviously you know how to reach me by phone. In fact, after a second call when I could finally reach a real person, I received an automated telephone survey, so calling me is proven to work. Not once, though, did I receive a “hey, we’re going to disconnect your service” call during the last two months.

And while we’re at it, we’re on the verge of 2011 and you’re my cable and internet provider. Don’t you have the technology to pop up a message on a screen saying, “hope you’re enjoying this, we’d like you to keep enjoying this, but can we talk about the problem with your card number? please call.” On the TV or on my computer screen — your choice. Or go old school because you know what else still works? Postal mail, a channel you and I will be returning to using.

Honestly — in 2010, you couldn’t find *some* way to contact me to let me know there was a problem? On top of that, I now have to go anti-green and re-activate paper bills if I want to be sure I see problem notices, because the only billing-related emails I received from you during the last two months looked exactly like the one below. Which looks exactly like every other “your statement is ready for viewing” message I get each month.

That message is the only billing-related one I received from you for the entire month of December. If you saw that message every month from your electric company, would you think there was a problem? Would you expect a little something more from them that they’re turning off your service? I expected more from you.

Yes, I could have logged in during those two months and seen a notice on the screen, but I also think you could have added a notice to that email or sent a separate notice to make sure I knew there was a problem. Good customer service this ain’t.

And now you want to charge reconnection fees because you disconnected my service without any heads up that there was a problem. Seriously?

Now that I’ve calmed down, I’m submitting the following requests so that others don’t have to spend a frustrating evening the way I did.

• Change your procedures so that customers using your e-bill service receive separate notifications that there’s a problem with payment. Or add a notice to the standard te
  8 Comments on An Open Letter to Comcast/Xfinity, last added: 12/29/2010
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  joel goldstick said, on 12/28/2010 7:10:00 AM
  

  We’ve all been abused by the cable companies. I have Time Warner. What irks me most is that when you go to their website its flash I think. impossible to navigate, and nothing but sketchy marketing stuff.

  And these are the people who want to control the internet?

  Where is there skill set?

  walt crawford said, on 12/28/2010 9:20:00 AM
  

  Simply appalling, although given the source (Comcast, not you) perhaps not surprising. When one bank switched me to a new credit-card number, I forgot to change one autopayment–for that presumably-dead medium, the print newspaper. Oddly enough, the old-fashioned non-digital SF Chronicle managed to not only let me know there might be a problem, right away, but give me a grace period to make the correction.

  Maybe Comcast is too busy producing those ads showing us how wonderful their customer service is to actually, you know, fix customer service.

  Rich Allen said, on 12/28/2010 10:11:00 AM
  

  Hi Jenny

  You should read the Comcast and other customer service horror stories on Consumerist.com (a Consumer Reports website). If you try everything with Comcast customer service, you might want to launch an Executive Email Carpet Bomb:

  http://tinyurl.com/yk3lemt

  Cheers

  Heather said, on 12/28/2010 10:27:00 AM
  

  Oh how I loathe Comcast. When they forced all subscribers to upgrade to digital devices regardless of desire in the fall, we were denied the same service we’d been using for years (basically antenna service with some digital Telemundo — great for football!!!). They wanted to charge us rental fees for devices we didn’t want or need, and refused to listen to what we were saying. They only wanted us to upgrade to some sort of full cable service. Instead, we canceled our cable service completely and now rely on Netflix and the library for our DVD and television series. Yeah!

  Good luck.

  SafeLibraries said, on 12/29/2010 11:04:00 AM
  

  Jenny, I say you should not only get the reconnection fees waived, but you should get 2 months of free service in recognition of the extremely poor customer service. I had the same situation — the bank deactivated a card due to a large scale fraudster. I got a new card. My ISP sent me a notice via email that there were problems with my payment. I checked, updated my card, clicked the recharge button and all was well. Something like that must happen to many people. It is unbelievable that you are the first person with that problem. It’s likely happened many times before and the company never did anything about it. I hope your public letter helps spur them into some kind of action. Thanks.

  Lynn said, on 12/29/2010 12:38:00 PM
  

  Forget Comcast if you can live without cable TV (I’ve never had it and no longer have any broadcast TV in the house). Clearwire has great customer service.

  Amelia said, on 12/29/2010 8:16:00 PM
  

  I’ve had great success with Comcast by complaining on Twitter. They have a few employees who keep tabs on negative comments posted to Twitter, and will respond promptly. When I had an issue (was quoted a discounted price by one customer service rep, and then told that it was wrong and I would be charged more), I was contacted and given a phone number to their Executive Customer Care line, where they bent over backwards to fix it. Give it a try!

  jenny said, on 12/29/2010 8:34:00 PM
  

  Thanks for the advice and support, everyone. I did tweet a link to this post to the @comcastcares account, and @comcastbill responded pretty quickly. We ended up having as much of a conversation as you can have in direct messages on Twitter. He said all of the right things and was sympathetic, but I have yet to hear about the fees.

  I’m very disappointed that he didn’t show up here to participate in the discussion, though. I hope he’s just waiting to do that until he can report back about the fees. How they handle that piece in particular will tell me if they want to keep me as a customer. We’re talking about a whopping $4, but it’s the principle of it, especially because @comcast_bill said they know this is a problem.

  I am seriously reconsidering our choice of provider, because the original phone conversation to work through all of the billing issues turned up further problems on the cable tv side of the bill. When I called to cancel all of the movie channels except HBO and SHO a few months ago, the live chat rep didn’t highlight the fact that he was giving me a promotional price and that it would expire. So our bill was about to go up by $21 without my approval or even knowledge. The whole thing was such a negative experience that I canceled HBO and SHO, too, so they can thank Comcast for our lost subscriptions.

  The ball is in their court, so we’ll see what happens next. I’ll report back when I hear from them.

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