The second-worst experience I had with cancelling a service was with Comcast. Briefly: called up, told operator I wanted to cancel, they put me through to a special sales team attempting to keep me, eventually I pushed it through.
The real magic happens during the conversation with the sales rep; he asks why I want to cancel, I explain that the cost is high relative to the quality. He offers me more cost effective package, I explained that I had that package in the past and that the slow incremental increases in cost had turned me off them as a company. He goes on to say: "well, that is your fault, I'd never set up auto pay for a service" and continues to make the case that the convenience function of auto pay is actually an agreement with Comcast to increment the cost of my service without my explicit agreement to paying more.
Wow. Just wow.
Still, that's nothing compared to the calls I had with BT after someone hijacked my landline and placed hundreds of GBP worth of calls to Nigeria... but that is another tale for another HN story.
This didn't work for me when trying to cancel my Time Warner service. They kick you to the relocation department and demand to know the zipcode for your new address so they can confirm that they don't service it and try to redirect you to the relevant cable company's new service department.
I didn't have a zipcode for my new address, I was going to be crashing with a friend for a while, so that wasn't an option. On my third attempt (first, automated system. Second, live attendant, who kicked me out back to the automated relocation system), a lightbulb went off and I skipped the relocation options and told the rep I was just fired, I live paycheck to paycheck, and I had to move back in with my parents to try and scrape by.
He was extremely apologetic, but still "had" to go through the "can we lower you bills? what price would be acceptable for you to continue your service with us?" He had to "check with his supervisor," but the phone call ended after two minutes of holding with a successful cancellation!
...then I moved 2200 miles away to a city with multiple cable providers only to discover, surprise!, TWC still controls the area I live in. :'(
You would think so, right? I asked my rep and they still wanted to see if there was anyone else I wanted to transfer the account to, and then they asked if I wanted a discount for a service I couldn't possibly use.
Maybe I was an outlier, but it was really frustrating.
I had to call to cancel my AT&T account recently. The conversation was pretty short: I just told the rep that I was moving in with a roommate that already had service set up so I didn't need to transfer my own service (only about ~20% a lie).
The frustrating and insulting part was that I spent a really long time on hold before I was connected with the rep and every few minutes while I was on hold an automated message played saying something along the lines of "You can pay your bill, start new service, or basically anything except cancel way faster by going online!" It was bad enough without the constant reminders that I was only sitting there on hold because I wanted the one thing AT&T won't let you do online.
This is the way - create a scenario to which there is no possibility of continuing Comcast service. I claimed I was going to be living off the grid and had no need for whatever the internet provided. Was cancelled in under 5 minutes.
My worst was with Megapath (i.e. Speakeasy after it was bought up and they destroyed all that was ever good with it).
I filled out their web form to cancel and... nothing happened. Someone apparently called me at an odd hour without warning, but there was no message and no callback number so I couldn't figure out why.
They just kept billing me. Then I called up and asked to cancel on the phone and they told me you can only use the website. I told them I had done so already and that wasn't working--no feedback at all, just a form submitted into the ether.
After much arguing (including the point that my CC had expired and they were NOT getting any more money out of me, no matter what), I finally submitted that form while on the line with them. Lo and behold, it magically gives an email confirmation this time. I asked about the two months the service had been completely unplugged and unused, at which point they demanded proof that I'd submitted info to their broken webform.
At that point, I realized it was a scam from the very start where they set you up to fail to get away from their service and decided never to do business with them again.
I had a similar experience with MegaPath. One day my DSL went down and never came back up. I called support, no answer. 2 days later still no answer. I canceled my serice on their website and called Century Link for service.
Months go by, and I start getting mail (physical and email) from "Global Capacity" telling me that my account for DSL service is overdue and my service will be suspended if I don't pay. At first I ignored it thinking it must me a scam because I never heard of the company.
I get 2 more in the following months, the ammount they say I owe them still increasing.
I call Century Link, why I've had service from for months at this point, to confirm my bill is paid in full. It was and my service was not at risk.
Finally I break down and contact them. They explain to me that they purchased MegaPath. So I go to MegaPath's website, which is still online[1]. There's nothing about being purchased to this day. After searching around I find they did indeed purchase Megapath[2] -- AFTER my service went down and I canceled my account!
Global Capacity are still threatening to cancel my service -- which I haven't had in about a year now. Every bill increases according to their monthly service fee. They also refuse to negotiate or admit that I canceled my service prior to their purchase of MegaPath. I don't know what to do at this point.
I have a feeling that Megapath was failing horribly and Global Capacity received unmaintained information from them. Either that or Global Capacity is a fradulent organization. Haven't decided which yet, but it may be a little of both.
If you used a credit card - you should have asked your credit card company to do a chargeback. I've only done about 4-5 in my life - and every time the credit card company always went in my favor. One time was even a scammy ebay seller - wouldn't talk to me so I contacted my credit card company told me to send the item back to his address and I would get my money back (the item in question was defective and did not state it in the ebay auction).
Unfortunately some people do abuse it - there was one guy who admitted on DSLreports forums that he uses his credit card to buy all items off ebay. And if he doesn't get it in 2-3 days he does a chargeback - even if he gets the item later. Which, I'm under the impression that when that happens Paypal may yank the funds from the seller's account. I don't agree with it - but I understand why.
My experience with Paypal disputes on the other hand...
For anyone in a similar situation with online forms seeming an official means, I now screencast myself in basically every transaction.
Shift+PrtSc and done.
Having never much been into recording screens before, this took a while to discover, but is not automatic behaviour.
There are lots of utilities for doing so. I use ShareX (with the above keyboard shortcut configures) and it is the most useful app I never knew I needed. http://getsharex.com/
[So useful, I just submitted it as a link. It took a long time to find and trust anything similar.]
Ah, BT... at times just terrible, at times really amazing.
In 2002 I'd rented an apartment in central London, and wanted ADSL, which was pretty new then. They came to inspect the wiring, very old copper they said, and put some new stuff in. No charge.
So with my new PC, 19 inch CRT monitor (fantastic resolution) and Alcatel modem (also free) I tried to connect. 2002 was when Windows XP was getting rolled-out en-masse, but I'd heard about Linux, and had purchased a Mandrake CD. Come 11pm, back from work, I tried connecting. PPPoE or something like that just didn't work. Called BT. They hadn't a clue. Explained it wasn't a supported operating system. But they stayed on the line with me for 1.5 hours trying to work a fix - I'd make a suggestion and they'd check on the internet if it would work, I'd type it in at my end of the line. Amazing service. Improbable today.
Biggest regret is not sending a compliment to the customer support representative. When you (as in, anyone reading this) do get good service, do send a compliment, as few people ever do. I know now that is does make a big difference not just on a personal level, but to the rewards customer support representatives get.
Both, with Comcast and AT&T, you usually have to call back yearly and threaten to cancel to keep the same rate (or to get the current new-customer rate which is probably even lower, or faster).
There's the problem right there. The secret is: don't give them anything to hang a hat on. Anything you say will trigger a scripted response and argument.
Just keep repeating you want to cancel; don't give any reasons.
I'm sick of comcast and its hidden fees. Their promotion last for one year and they never inform the customer (conveniently) soon after it expires. The bill keeps piling up and when you call them one day to cancel, they feed you some bs on downgrading to a basic package or even reducing your current internet speed.
I had AT&T U-verses before switching to comcast and AT&T are no saints either.
Is there a company that's honest with its customers?
I've signed up for promo plans from Comcast before, and made a note in my calendar it is expiring. Never had a problem with pushing for another promo when it is about to expire. If there is, then I'll reduce my service or switch providers (if I need to), but there is never any surprise that a promo is for a specific duration and when that ends I'll be paying the full price.
What DOES get me is their constant rate hikes outside of promotions, and that is a completely separate issue.
My experience with Google Fiber would point to customer service antithetical to that which is typically found in ISP's like Comcast. Not sure if that speaks to honesty per se, but it is definitely a welcome change.
In Washington, I've been pretty happy with Frontier. Well, "happy" might be a bit strong. Frankly, I rarely give them much thought. $60/month for (I think) 35Mbps up and down. Every single time I've actually checked it, it was indeed what they claim, and it rarely goes down. (About once every couple of months it'll go down for an hour almost exactly at 2300 or midnight; I assume some kind of maintenance.) I don't have to call them once a year to keep the same rate; bill shows up, I pay it, they keep giving me solid, no-bullshit service. Of the few times I've called for support, it's been a small wait and they quickly fixed the problem. My feelings about Frontier are about the same as I have toward the city water utility: I turn on the "tap" and internet comes out, I pay the bill on time every month, and rarely do I give it another thought. That might sound like damning with faint praise, but I think it's the highest praise possible.
Contrast to Comcast, my old provider. Fluctuating rates, horrendous customer service, advertised speeds that are nowhere near reality (I had 12Mbps package back in the day; it rarely was good for more than 3Mbps), and as reliable as an old Fiat. Oh, unlike the city water utility, do I have feelings about Comcast. The last time they were at my door I told the salesman I'd do without internet before I'd give another dime to them. Ironically, Comcast were the ones running billboards about how horrible Frontier would be when Verizon gave up on fiber and sold it to Frontier. Yeah, well, I've been a Comcast customer and I don't see how it could possibly be any worse. Turns out Frontier is just fine.
But you're not going to get Frontier unless you live in western Washington outside of Seattle, so this probably isn't much help.
Are they allowed to refuse to cancel your subscription if you don't provide sufficiently valid reasoning for whatever counter-question they throw at you, or something?
Why'd you even answer the second question/offer, let alone get into an argument about it?
"No thanks. I want to cancel my subscription, please."
If they continue to ask "but why?", I'd just start coming up with increasingly unlikely reasons.
> well, that is your fault, I'd never set up auto pay for a service
That's actually good advice. Faithfully un-checking the autopay box every month came in handy for me when Verizon tried to play "customer retention" hardball. As long as you have to explicitly sign every month, you have a bit of control.
Comcast is actually my only utility that I didn't set up autopay for because I was worried about exactly that. They really should have an "autopay until rate increase, at which point contact me" option since their service isn't charged on usage.
I "auto pay" all of my billa through my bank (Fidelity) and they have an option to automatically pay up to $x amount but just email me if the bill is higher. I'm pretty sure it was intended for bills that aren't quite the same each month, but it would also work here.
Most billers have the option to send the bill directly to my bank, for the ones that don't, then it has to be a fixed amount each month for Fidelity to auto-pay it.
Nearly all of these contracts with Comcast or similar companies will have a postal address you can write to and cancel. Even if they provide no cancellation postal address, look up their 'Agent for service of process', this is always listed somewhere. I never call to cancel, this is a waste of time and not necessary.
I've done this repeatedly (use certified mail, or recorded delivery, the term varies by country) and it's dead easy. I have cancelled service with no early termination fees at both Sprint and Verizon, and kept my subsidized phone while continuing on month-to-month service when they raised fees - a 'materially averse' change - always read the fine print. Same thing with AT&T dial-up back in the day.
This service looks interesting but really there is no easier way than sending a proper business letter and keeping proof of delivery. Only once did a company dispute receiving my letter and I emailed a scanned copy of the proof of delivery and that was it.
It sometimes helps to remind the company that falsely reporting a bad debt onto your credit record carries huge fines and you will definitely be checking to make sure they don't 'accidentally' forget or lose your paperwork, and that you have complete documentation and are prepared to defend. Be polite but do be firm, too.
You absolutely can send a letter, that's actually what we're doing behind the scenes for you! We're hoping to eventually integrate things like having a task rabbit pick up your equipment and drop it off at the local Comcast to make the experience even more seamless.
Haha beautiful, I was just typing this same idea in my other reply. Good luck, you are saving people lots of hassle for a low price and I hope you do well.
Seems like this business has a lot of room for liability. In the most minor example, who pays if someone from Task Rabbit tosses the equipment in the garbage?
Yes, time is money isn't it? Like anything else it's easier the more often you do it. I have a template letter I adapt, and I use the automated kiosk at the post office to send. Do it when you are out running errands and it doesn't add up to much time really.
I can say that if I were running a $5 'let us cancel for you' deal I'd damn sure be doing it all by letter though. No way I'd pay to have a bunch of employees sitting on hold with Comcast when I could crank out form letters and mail them in big batches. Possibly easy money if you have enough clients to scale it.
This is amazing advice and exactly the sort of thing I would forget when I need it. What I need is a guy like you on the payroll to handle crap like this for me. Who is going to remember this website (OP) when time comes to cancel. What you need is a service that is proactive and just handles stuff like this in the background
I was moving to Thailand ~6 months ago and I had to cancel my Comcast. Cancelling took way too long and was surprisingly frustrating. From talking with other people it seemed like the cancellation process was really frustrating for other people too, so we made this.
My partner Eli (HN username: EliPollak) and I really want your feedback more than anything. We’re planning to expand into fixing other processes that are really more painful than they need to be. We’re around to answer questions/chat and we’re also available by email at founders@airpaperinc.com.
Whenever I go to a new health care provider (or even, often, a health care provider that I have an existing relationship with), I have to fill out those silly medical history forms, and I'm like, "Dude, shouldn't you know all this stuff already?"
It would be nice to be able to say, "Hey, here's the doctor's office where I have an upcoming appointment. Find out what mundane paperwork they expect me to fill out, and fill it out for me." (Many offices now put the forms online so you can download them and fill them out ahead of time.)
Granted, it really only works if I can enter the info once and have you save it and regurgitate it as needed, and then that gets into tricky territory because you're storing sensitive health-related information. But it really would be a valuable service.
How about landlord negotiations? When your landlord tries to raise your rent to above-market rates, it's a pain to look up what the fair rate is and then draft a competent counteroffer letter.
I would suggest using HTTPS on your main domain. While you do include an iframe from a HTTPS source for the form that asks for a credit card, someone could MITM the main domain and replace the iframe source with something else, and the user might never know.
I saw that you're collecting credit card numbers on your form... You know that if you are storing them on your servers, you need to follow FDIC regulations, right? Otherwise, you are exposing yourself to a huge liability.
I'd also be worried about whether you are disposing the credit card numbers you collect after they are done in a timely and secure fashion....
PCI is the regulating body. FDIC is just concerned with bank deposit insurance. Looks like they're using Stripe, so I'd suppose they're tokenizing those card numbers before dealing with them.
I don't understand why your front page is so scrolly (Firefox on OSX) but I'm pretty sure it rendered wrong, I can scroll in the x axis past your nice pile of paper on the head of the page and despite my efforts I can't work out what 'Parkin...' you're making easier to get in SF.
This is a great idea! Once you figure out a good model for making processes like this efficient it will probably be easy to apply it to all kinds of problems (as your splash page hints). Good luck with this project.
Thanks! We'd love feedback as to what processes are painful. Keep us in the back of your mind when you're filling out paperwork and send us an email if it feels especially tedious? :)
I ran my connection 24/7 for a month, pulled 33TB of data down, they dropped me as a customer. Most pain free process, and a nice fuck you to Comcast as well.
I actually just cancelled my Comcast account yesterday. The process was pain-free and easy, just told them "I'm moving in X days and do not need service at the new address."
Granted, it was true, but if you are having trouble cancelling for low-quality service or any other issue, you may have better luck using that reasoning.
Likewise, I've moved 5 times in 5 years; each time, I call up and say I'm moving and need to cancel service, and each company - TimeWarner, Verizon, Comcast - has given me no trouble at all.
I'm really glad that that excuse made the process so painless for you, but I do have a cautionary tale about that.
Two years ago, I called them and tried cancelling my service because, like you, I was moving and my new landlord was providing Comcast to me as a part of my lease agreement. Despite my insistence that my landlord already had an account setup for me at my new house, I was kept on the phone for 30 minutes and the representative insisted that it would be beneficial for me to have my own account/service at my new house in addition to the line that's already there, and that I should just transfer my service. You can imagine how frustrated and furious that conversation made me.
I don't mean to deter people from using that excuse, because it still honestly seems like that should be the easiest way to cancel your account, but I do want people to bear in mind that it all depends on the representative you speak with.
I've canceled Comcast service several times now. I've got a pretty good routine down. Basically you just preference the call with "I'm canceling my contract with Comcast today. There is no discount, inventive, or conversation that you can give me that will convince me not to cancel. This cancelation needs to take less than 5 minutes and the phone call is being recorded".
Comcast customer service does seem to be much better now than it used to be. Possibly they got the hint that they were pissing everybody off enough to get voted into the top of the list for worst companies in the U.S. year after year after year.
I seriously don't understand the hate Comcast gets, I've cancelled service with them 4 times now, and it was always a simple 5 minute call. I think their service is on par, or better, with any other internet / phone / cable provider of that size, they always manage to find me some discount on my service whenever I call and complain about the price.
It all depends on the representative you speak with. There have been times where I've had to contact them and have had a pleasant experience, but as I detailed in another reply in this thread, I've also had godawful experiences where I simply couldn't believe the logic the representative was trying to apply to the situation.
Cancelling my Comcast service for cable television and internet involved these steps.
1) Gathering up all of my Comcast owned equipment (cable boxes and remotes, but importantly, NOT my cable modem, which I owned outright) and going to the local Comcast office. There I waited in a long line in a crowded, un-airconditioned office (in the heat and humidity of a hot August day in Maryland) for almost 2 hours. Then handing over the equipment and marking my account as cancelled took 25 minutes.
2) Calling the Comcast support line after they tried to bill me at the end of the following month for not actually supplying service to a home I no longer lived in. I was placed on hold for almost an hour before finally speaking to a representative, who told me that she didn't understand what the problem was because Comcast had no record of actually sending me a bill for the month after I moved.
3) Receiving a call a week later demanding I return my "Comcast owned equipment" before I could receive a refund on my deposit. I countered that I owned the modem outright and had merely given Comcast the MAC address of the modem so that they could authorize it on their network. The representative demanded that I prove that I actually owned the modem. The receipt I emailed from when I purchased the modem was not enough for them, they demanded "more proof" but could not actually offer an example of what proof I could offer. I hung up on that representative and immediately filed a Better Business Bureau complaint (I know, the BBB is a bit of a racket, but sometimes it gets some results).
4) The following day I received a call from a senior customer service manager apologizing for the "mix-up" with marking my modem as being a Comcast-owned piece of equipment. I received a refund of my deposit a few days later.
One piece of advice is to make FTC/FCC complaints instead of BBB complaints. Those agencies are actually pretty effective at suing companies into better business practices.
I have since learned the comparative uselessness of BBB complaints and the effectiveness of FTC complaints. This is the one instance where a BBB complaint worked for me. I've not had cause to make an FCC complaint since this happened, but I agree, the FTC has been very helpful.
The way I see it, they are rude to you by making you go through hoops, so I am rude to them. I repeatedly say "Please cancel" to every new rep I am transferred to and/or every time they ask me a question or go into a spiel.
The only time I will not say "please cancel" is when they ask me any information that needs to be verified in order to cancel. This has worked with Comcast as well as a handful of other service providers that I wished to cancel. I have never been on the phone more than 6 minutes. Try it out.
This is usually my strategy, but it failed hard with TWC. No matter what I did, they would redirect me to the automated "relocation" service and ask for my new zip code. They did this even when I told them I wasn't moving, they do it just to get rid of you. I even tried saying "I just no longer want internet, I feel like it is bad for my health." and sure enough "click Please enter the zip code...."
You know you've pissed off your customers when people start building business models around cancelling your services so they don't have to deal with you.
Readit News
The real magic happens during the conversation with the sales rep; he asks why I want to cancel, I explain that the cost is high relative to the quality. He offers me more cost effective package, I explained that I had that package in the past and that the slow incremental increases in cost had turned me off them as a company. He goes on to say: "well, that is your fault, I'd never set up auto pay for a service" and continues to make the case that the convenience function of auto pay is actually an agreement with Comcast to increment the cost of my service without my explicit agreement to paying more.
Wow. Just wow.
Still, that's nothing compared to the calls I had with BT after someone hijacked my landline and placed hundreds of GBP worth of calls to Nigeria... but that is another tale for another HN story.
Me: "I'm moving."
Clerk: "Oh, where to? We can set up your service ahead of time so it's ready when you---"
Me: "Ireland."
Clerk (disappointed): "Oh."
I didn't have a zipcode for my new address, I was going to be crashing with a friend for a while, so that wasn't an option. On my third attempt (first, automated system. Second, live attendant, who kicked me out back to the automated relocation system), a lightbulb went off and I skipped the relocation options and told the rep I was just fired, I live paycheck to paycheck, and I had to move back in with my parents to try and scrape by.
He was extremely apologetic, but still "had" to go through the "can we lower you bills? what price would be acceptable for you to continue your service with us?" He had to "check with his supervisor," but the phone call ended after two minutes of holding with a successful cancellation!
...then I moved 2200 miles away to a city with multiple cable providers only to discover, surprise!, TWC still controls the area I live in. :'(
Maybe I was an outlier, but it was really frustrating.
The frustrating and insulting part was that I spent a really long time on hold before I was connected with the rep and every few minutes while I was on hold an automated message played saying something along the lines of "You can pay your bill, start new service, or basically anything except cancel way faster by going online!" It was bad enough without the constant reminders that I was only sitting there on hold because I wanted the one thing AT&T won't let you do online.
Let's hope I never need a US credit rating for anything.
I filled out their web form to cancel and... nothing happened. Someone apparently called me at an odd hour without warning, but there was no message and no callback number so I couldn't figure out why.
They just kept billing me. Then I called up and asked to cancel on the phone and they told me you can only use the website. I told them I had done so already and that wasn't working--no feedback at all, just a form submitted into the ether.
After much arguing (including the point that my CC had expired and they were NOT getting any more money out of me, no matter what), I finally submitted that form while on the line with them. Lo and behold, it magically gives an email confirmation this time. I asked about the two months the service had been completely unplugged and unused, at which point they demanded proof that I'd submitted info to their broken webform.
At that point, I realized it was a scam from the very start where they set you up to fail to get away from their service and decided never to do business with them again.
Months go by, and I start getting mail (physical and email) from "Global Capacity" telling me that my account for DSL service is overdue and my service will be suspended if I don't pay. At first I ignored it thinking it must me a scam because I never heard of the company.
I get 2 more in the following months, the ammount they say I owe them still increasing.
I call Century Link, why I've had service from for months at this point, to confirm my bill is paid in full. It was and my service was not at risk.
Finally I break down and contact them. They explain to me that they purchased MegaPath. So I go to MegaPath's website, which is still online[1]. There's nothing about being purchased to this day. After searching around I find they did indeed purchase Megapath[2] -- AFTER my service went down and I canceled my account!
Global Capacity are still threatening to cancel my service -- which I haven't had in about a year now. Every bill increases according to their monthly service fee. They also refuse to negotiate or admit that I canceled my service prior to their purchase of MegaPath. I don't know what to do at this point.
I have a feeling that Megapath was failing horribly and Global Capacity received unmaintained information from them. Either that or Global Capacity is a fradulent organization. Haven't decided which yet, but it may be a little of both.
[1] - http://www.megapath.com/ [2] - http://info.globalcapacity.com/global-capacity-acquires-mega...
Unfortunately some people do abuse it - there was one guy who admitted on DSLreports forums that he uses his credit card to buy all items off ebay. And if he doesn't get it in 2-3 days he does a chargeback - even if he gets the item later. Which, I'm under the impression that when that happens Paypal may yank the funds from the seller's account. I don't agree with it - but I understand why.
My experience with Paypal disputes on the other hand...
Shift+PrtSc and done.
Having never much been into recording screens before, this took a while to discover, but is not automatic behaviour.
There are lots of utilities for doing so. I use ShareX (with the above keyboard shortcut configures) and it is the most useful app I never knew I needed. http://getsharex.com/
[So useful, I just submitted it as a link. It took a long time to find and trust anything similar.]
In 2002 I'd rented an apartment in central London, and wanted ADSL, which was pretty new then. They came to inspect the wiring, very old copper they said, and put some new stuff in. No charge.
So with my new PC, 19 inch CRT monitor (fantastic resolution) and Alcatel modem (also free) I tried to connect. 2002 was when Windows XP was getting rolled-out en-masse, but I'd heard about Linux, and had purchased a Mandrake CD. Come 11pm, back from work, I tried connecting. PPPoE or something like that just didn't work. Called BT. They hadn't a clue. Explained it wasn't a supported operating system. But they stayed on the line with me for 1.5 hours trying to work a fix - I'd make a suggestion and they'd check on the internet if it would work, I'd type it in at my end of the line. Amazing service. Improbable today.
Biggest regret is not sending a compliment to the customer support representative. When you (as in, anyone reading this) do get good service, do send a compliment, as few people ever do. I know now that is does make a big difference not just on a personal level, but to the rewards customer support representatives get.
My only other options is an equally shady CenturyLink.
I hate (yes, hate) internet/cable in the U.S. I truly wish we had some honest lawmakers who would do something about this.
Just keep repeating you want to cancel; don't give any reasons.
Pretty crazy to imagine the incentives Comcast must put in place to get sales reps to act like that.
I had AT&T U-verses before switching to comcast and AT&T are no saints either.
Is there a company that's honest with its customers?
I've signed up for promo plans from Comcast before, and made a note in my calendar it is expiring. Never had a problem with pushing for another promo when it is about to expire. If there is, then I'll reduce my service or switch providers (if I need to), but there is never any surprise that a promo is for a specific duration and when that ends I'll be paying the full price.
What DOES get me is their constant rate hikes outside of promotions, and that is a completely separate issue.
Contrast to Comcast, my old provider. Fluctuating rates, horrendous customer service, advertised speeds that are nowhere near reality (I had 12Mbps package back in the day; it rarely was good for more than 3Mbps), and as reliable as an old Fiat. Oh, unlike the city water utility, do I have feelings about Comcast. The last time they were at my door I told the salesman I'd do without internet before I'd give another dime to them. Ironically, Comcast were the ones running billboards about how horrible Frontier would be when Verizon gave up on fiber and sold it to Frontier. Yeah, well, I've been a Comcast customer and I don't see how it could possibly be any worse. Turns out Frontier is just fine.
But you're not going to get Frontier unless you live in western Washington outside of Seattle, so this probably isn't much help.
Why'd you even answer the second question/offer, let alone get into an argument about it?
"No thanks. I want to cancel my subscription, please."
If they continue to ask "but why?", I'd just start coming up with increasingly unlikely reasons.
"Doctor's orders."
"Lost a bet."
"Religious reasons."
"Sacrilegious reasons."
"I'm gluten-free so I quit computers and phones."
"I literally have no money."
That's actually good advice. Faithfully un-checking the autopay box every month came in handy for me when Verizon tried to play "customer retention" hardball. As long as you have to explicitly sign every month, you have a bit of control.
Most billers have the option to send the bill directly to my bank, for the ones that don't, then it has to be a fixed amount each month for Fidelity to auto-pay it.
Criminals were tampering with phone lines in junction boxes, using them to make expensive calls.
I've done this repeatedly (use certified mail, or recorded delivery, the term varies by country) and it's dead easy. I have cancelled service with no early termination fees at both Sprint and Verizon, and kept my subsidized phone while continuing on month-to-month service when they raised fees - a 'materially averse' change - always read the fine print. Same thing with AT&T dial-up back in the day.
This service looks interesting but really there is no easier way than sending a proper business letter and keeping proof of delivery. Only once did a company dispute receiving my letter and I emailed a scanned copy of the proof of delivery and that was it.
It sometimes helps to remind the company that falsely reporting a bad debt onto your credit record carries huge fines and you will definitely be checking to make sure they don't 'accidentally' forget or lose your paperwork, and that you have complete documentation and are prepared to defend. Be polite but do be firm, too.
Cheers!
I can say that if I were running a $5 'let us cancel for you' deal I'd damn sure be doing it all by letter though. No way I'd pay to have a bunch of employees sitting on hold with Comcast when I could crank out form letters and mail them in big batches. Possibly easy money if you have enough clients to scale it.
I was moving to Thailand ~6 months ago and I had to cancel my Comcast. Cancelling took way too long and was surprisingly frustrating. From talking with other people it seemed like the cancellation process was really frustrating for other people too, so we made this.
My partner Eli (HN username: EliPollak) and I really want your feedback more than anything. We’re planning to expand into fixing other processes that are really more painful than they need to be. We’re around to answer questions/chat and we’re also available by email at founders@airpaperinc.com.
Thanks!
Whenever I go to a new health care provider (or even, often, a health care provider that I have an existing relationship with), I have to fill out those silly medical history forms, and I'm like, "Dude, shouldn't you know all this stuff already?"
It would be nice to be able to say, "Hey, here's the doctor's office where I have an upcoming appointment. Find out what mundane paperwork they expect me to fill out, and fill it out for me." (Many offices now put the forms online so you can download them and fill them out ahead of time.)
Granted, it really only works if I can enter the info once and have you save it and regurgitate it as needed, and then that gets into tricky territory because you're storing sensitive health-related information. But it really would be a valuable service.
Thanks!
Not that hard these days, viz. https://www.rentometer.com/
"penaut" vs "peanut"
Sincerely, Your personal spelling pedant
I'd also be worried about whether you are disposing the credit card numbers you collect after they are done in a timely and secure fashion....
Edit: I meant PCI, not FDIC
Sorry!
~Earl
Sorry that I don't have more substantial feedback.
Error 524 Ray ID: 22f55b2fa1040f2d • 2015-10-03 02:55:01 UTC
I ran my connection 24/7 for a month, pulled 33TB of data down, they dropped me as a customer. Most pain free process, and a nice fuck you to Comcast as well.
You were able to download 33TB of data off of a Comcast line! :)
Granted, it was true, but if you are having trouble cancelling for low-quality service or any other issue, you may have better luck using that reasoning.
Two years ago, I called them and tried cancelling my service because, like you, I was moving and my new landlord was providing Comcast to me as a part of my lease agreement. Despite my insistence that my landlord already had an account setup for me at my new house, I was kept on the phone for 30 minutes and the representative insisted that it would be beneficial for me to have my own account/service at my new house in addition to the line that's already there, and that I should just transfer my service. You can imagine how frustrated and furious that conversation made me.
I don't mean to deter people from using that excuse, because it still honestly seems like that should be the easiest way to cancel your account, but I do want people to bear in mind that it all depends on the representative you speak with.
1) Gathering up all of my Comcast owned equipment (cable boxes and remotes, but importantly, NOT my cable modem, which I owned outright) and going to the local Comcast office. There I waited in a long line in a crowded, un-airconditioned office (in the heat and humidity of a hot August day in Maryland) for almost 2 hours. Then handing over the equipment and marking my account as cancelled took 25 minutes.
2) Calling the Comcast support line after they tried to bill me at the end of the following month for not actually supplying service to a home I no longer lived in. I was placed on hold for almost an hour before finally speaking to a representative, who told me that she didn't understand what the problem was because Comcast had no record of actually sending me a bill for the month after I moved.
3) Receiving a call a week later demanding I return my "Comcast owned equipment" before I could receive a refund on my deposit. I countered that I owned the modem outright and had merely given Comcast the MAC address of the modem so that they could authorize it on their network. The representative demanded that I prove that I actually owned the modem. The receipt I emailed from when I purchased the modem was not enough for them, they demanded "more proof" but could not actually offer an example of what proof I could offer. I hung up on that representative and immediately filed a Better Business Bureau complaint (I know, the BBB is a bit of a racket, but sometimes it gets some results).
4) The following day I received a call from a senior customer service manager apologizing for the "mix-up" with marking my modem as being a Comcast-owned piece of equipment. I received a refund of my deposit a few days later.
One piece of advice is to make FTC/FCC complaints instead of BBB complaints. Those agencies are actually pretty effective at suing companies into better business practices.
The only time I will not say "please cancel" is when they ask me any information that needs to be verified in order to cancel. This has worked with Comcast as well as a handful of other service providers that I wished to cancel. I have never been on the phone more than 6 minutes. Try it out.
http://consumerist.com/2014/04/08/congratulations-to-comcast...