THE 8:15 AM FUCK YOU CALL

This morning some poor puke working in the Philippines woke my wife and I up at 8:15 a.m. and started babbling on and on about being unable to do shit.

It was literally one of the most pathetic calls with a service agent I have ever had.

"I am calling to tell you that I can't help you at all from my department and YOU ARE STILL FUCKED."  Then why other than your feeding pellet dropped into the tube and your headset turned on did you call me you imbecile?

I asked him to cancel the service completely. Nope, of course he couldn't do that.  His world is just calling people to tell them THEY ARE FUCKED when his pellet drops.

So I asked him to get me to a supervisor who could cancel the service. He couldn't do that either. Apparently he is literally strapped to the desk making his YOU ARE FUCKED calls until the end of his shift.

THE BIG F.U. - How Comcast Wastes Your Time Until your are Despondent

So I figure out I got fucked at the counter with the wrong pricing. I decided to go online and remedy the situation.  The website says they have 24 hour support.  Of course this is a BIG FUCKING LIE. What they have is a bunch of sad sacks in the Philippines who aren't allowed to do anything.  What follows is a 45 minute chat with one of their agents.  I should warn you that what you are about to read is so pathetic I really do feel sorry for this agent. She basically is in charge of precisely 0 and she is supposed to sign up new customers.  What she doesn't realize is that she is being turned into a GRIN FUCKING MACHINE, a corporate cog who spews the corporate line once they have you in their snare.  After 45 minutes of this complete bullshit, I decided to provoke her a bit and share the unvarnished truth of her pathetic existence.  As a good cog, she didn't veer from the script. HOW FUCKING PATHETIC.

analyst Roselima has entered room

Roselima: Hello Ken, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Roselima. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Roselima: It's a pleasure having you here on this chat. How are you doing today?

Ken: Not bad. I tried to sign up with this promotion earlier today and it was not set up correctly.

Ken: Can you please apply this promotion.

Ken: I want the blast plus as I have submitted

Roselima: That is not good to hear. However, I am here to assist you with all your concerns today.

Ken: with hbo free for 6 months.

Roselima: Let me go ahead and pull up your account.

Roselima: Thank you so much for your loyalty! To protect your account I will need to verify some additional information. Would you please provide me with the last 4 digits of your social security number?

Ken: I have all the equipment so I don't need you to send anything.

Ken: They gave it to me at the office today

Ken: 3342

Roselima: Thank you so much for verifying your account.

Roselima: Let me go ahead and double check that one for you.

Ken: If you could cancel what they did today, I just want this package

Roselima: May I ask if you went to your nearest Local Office to pick up the equipment?

Ken: I did.

Ken: They promised me i was getting this package.

Roselima: Thank you for confirming.

Roselima: As what I am seeing here, you ordered Blast Plus for $49.99/mo for the first 6 months and it is added already in your account.

Ken: The agent insisted I was getting blast plus for 39.99

Roselima: Oh! I see.

Ken: If that is what you are seeing, please cancel that and put through what is in the shopping cart.

Ken: what is in the shopping cart is blast plus for 39.99 with HBO

Roselima: Thank you for that information. I appreciate it.

Roselima: May I ask if the services are already activated on your end?

Ken: they are not

Roselima: Thank you for that information. I appreciate it.

Ken: the box is not plugged in yet

Roselima: Let me double check everything for you here on my end.

Roselima: Please bear with me.

Roselima: May I ask if the order was placed via online?

Ken: So we are chatting because I just ordered service online. What was signed up earlier today was done in the Comcast office.

Roselima: Thank you for that information. I appreciate it.

Roselima: Ken, I understand that you want to get promotions via online, we do have different promotions and processes for orders via online, phone and Service Centers.

Ken: So please cancel what occured at the office today and put through this order.

Roselima: Since you already picked up the equipment, the services will be activated right away once you install them.

Roselima: And since your service is already connected here on our end, we may not be able to cancel the services you ordered in the Local Office earlier.

Roselima: The process for activating your services will be completed within 24 hours.

Ken: Please contact a supervisor and try. I was promised this package and if I can't get it I will just have to cancel completely and move to Uverse.

Ken: As a consumer, I simply cannot accept how what you do in your own offices and what you do online could be so disconnected. It is infuriating and a complete waste of time for your customers. It results in complete mistrust of comcast.

Roselima: I do understand your concern, Ken. I will do everything here on my end.

Roselima: Please bear with me for awhile.

Roselima: Just to clarify everything, Ken. You ordered Blast Plus $39.99/mo for the first 6 months + free HBO in your nearest Local Office, am I correct?

Ken: That is what I asked for and that is what I was told I was getting.

Ken: But I see it is priced at 44.99 instead of the correct price of 39.99.

Roselima: Thank you for that information. I appreciate it.

Ken: Clearly your office personnel cannot access the same promotions.

Roselima: Ken, What I can do here for you is to create a ticket to our Escalations Team for this error to be addressed properly. I will not make changes on your account but within 48-72 hours, the Escalations Team will contact you for any updates about this matter.

Ken: So a 5 dollar a month adjustment for a valid promotion requires the escalation team?

Roselima: And for your convenience, I will take note everything you said earlier.

Ken: I just want to make sure I've got that right for my blog post.

Ken: Are you capable of canceling my service entirely right now?

Roselima: Our Escalations Team is the one who handles customer issues, Ken. What we do here on my end is to process new orders seen via Comcast.com. There is no need for you to worry. Your issue will be properly.

Ken: I am done. This is 45 minutes of my life I want back. I can live without Comcast.

Ken: Cancel everything. I will drop off the box.

Roselima: Cancelling of services is not something that can be done via chat. Billing details needs to be discussed prior to removing the service that you no longer need from the account. We do not recommend discussing it via chat for security purposes. I can refer you to our Customer Care Center at 1-800-266-2278 to remove Blast Plus from the account.

Ken: So you are going to erase the shopping cart for the order I just placed, there will be no record of the 39.99 promotion and I will start all over trying to explain your error. Not worth it.

Ken: Get me to someone who can cancel this service.

Ken: Customer care is not open.

Ken: I have now wasted almost two hours with Comcast.

Roselima: Ken, what I can do here for you is to create a ticket to our Escalations Team, the charges in your account will be changed once it is further verified by them.

Ken: so what do I do with the box in the meantime?

Ken: I am just paying your service charges and waiting for you to call me with no service?

Ken: That is insane.

Roselima: Once everything is verified on their end, correct promotional code will be applied then we will credit the previous excess cgharge.

Roselima: You may use them right away, Ken.

Roselima: Your services are already connected here on our end.

Roselima: They should be activated already once you install them.

Ken: The number they should call to get this resolved is 415-425-3003.

Roselima: Thank you for that information. I appreciate it.

Ken: ...not the number on the account as that is a home number. In 48-72 hours I'll be at work.

Ken: Please put that number on the escalation.

Roselima: Yes, Ken.

Roselima: Thank you so much for your cooperation and understanding.

Roselima: No worries. I will take note everything here on my end.

Roselima: And your issue will be addressed properly.

Roselima: Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Ken: I really don't understand. I have to say that I really feel sorry for you. No one should have to work in a job that has this little authority. It is undignified. Thanks for at least understanding that you couldn't help me.

Roselima: I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. I can certainly understand your frustration, and I really appreciate the opportunity to make things right.

Roselima: I will now create a ticket for your issue and rest assured, our Escalations Team will call you within 48-72 hours with the number you provided me.

Designed to FUCK - HOW COMCAST STEALS BY DESIGN

So I left Comcast for years. Done. Sick of them wasting my time, changing, my pricing...outages etc. etc.

Yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet again. Oh am I regretting it already!  I happened to be by the office, and of course the person at the counter couldn't find the deal I found online.  She did her best to find something close and I resolved to call Comcast to make the adjustments.

As I looked around the office, it was very clear what Comcast is doing. This racist bunch of corporate thieves systematically are gouging the poor.  In line you could see many hardworking folk, and many people of color.  Some people were coming to pay their bills. Some probably just wanted to have basic programming in their language to have a connection to the culture and their homeland. So what is Comcast's institutional answer to this population?  CHISEL THE FUCK OUT OF THEM.  

Even if you could navigate their English language site and find one of their limited time bait and switch WE'LL FUCK YOU LATER, DON'T WORRY deals, you'll never get it at the counter. Why?  Because they are counting on a chunk of this population just barely eeking by paying for a bit of cable and not being able to afford Internet to even find these deals. They hope they say "A BIG, SEEMINGLY RESPONSIBLE CORPORATION WOULDN'T FUCK ME AT HELLO, WOULD THEY?" and they just sign up.

Little do they know that the smiling agent at the counter is setting them up to be corporate canon fodder...to be fucked for years by a corporate titan that doesn't give a rats ass about them.  YES YOU ARE FUCKED and so is that person behind the counter in a job so umempowered that it is just undignified to work there.