Why am I starting to think that Comcast doesn't care about its customers?

This is hilarious! It seems to me that they would rather have you cancel your whole service than HBO. Good thing I switched to FioS!

Sounds like you've been given a gift. Cancel Comcast and get the hell out of there!

I was hoping that chat would have ended with him telling them to cancel it all. Looks like he didn't, and Comcast was counting on that as well. Maybe they aren't so stupid after all.

Of course when the Comcast Executives start to actually notice that the churn-rates are excessive, they will boldy announce that they are "taking things seriously" and actually do something.

Of course that "something" will be completely superficial and not actually change anything.

I hope Comcast dies on the vine just like Sprint is doing right now.

o_O

Behavior like this is making it really easy for me to not get pay TV when I go off to law school this fall.

Comcast blows. Unfortunately, it will be a few more months before I have FIOS available. After that, it's bye-bye Comcast!

@Front_Towards_Enemy: It won't happen until Comcast has viable competition from truly comparable services in the majority of its market. Most people don't consider going without a viable option.

Call and tell them you want to cancel. Retentions will definately waive the fee to retain you.

As nice as Fios's HD is, their On Demand PALES in comparison to Comcast's. They really need to improve it.

I just got rid of all my movie channels on Cablevision. I think they do this too but I haven't seen my new statement yet.

The biggest problem with the online chat is the loacation of the representatives. When you call customer service you either talk to someone here in the US or Canada. Communication of your problem is easy, though resolution can still be a bitch.

But after going through an ordeal with online customer service earlier this year, I finally recived a call from one of Comcast's online customer service supervisors. The call came from the Phillippeans.

The ability to communicate with someone with a solid grasp of the english language is becoming difficult among major companies these days, and I'm sorry to see Comcast starting down that road.

I recently canceled Comcast cable and they didn't seem to care if I paid them $135 a month or not. I canceled at the local office which is the best way to cancel (they didn't give me a sales pitch or try to keep me with special offers they just canceled it). I have no TV service now, it is actually quite nice.

I like how everyone is crowing about FIOS in here. Between Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon, it's not like anyone has better customer service than the others. Different companies, same BS.

I'm waiting for my TV to stop working after the switchover to HD next winter. Then it will be cancel city, baby.

when my direct tv contract expires, im going back to the $12.00/month basic comcast package. im already using the $20/month dsl and am fine with it. gotta feed the gas machine, satellites first to go, then cellphones. seriously 75/month for 2 cellphones with nothing extra is crazy. 75/month for tv is crazy. the bundles are a good idea but priced about 3x to high. they should be fighting on giving me tv service and the cable providers should be paid by the commercials as well, not by me.

@mndjkc: One of my housemates received a customer satisfaction survey from Dell recently. Two of the standard options to mark for problems were along the lines of "Could not understand representative" and "Accent too heavy".

@swags: My wife is in law school, one of the first things to go was cable. Just too much homework!

I'd love to cancel cable or go basic, but I'd miss Top Gear too much on BBCA. Maybe I should just move to the UK instead.

For that matter I'd love to find a cell phone service that doesn't blow for under $60 a month too.

It is a total shame McAfee is total and utter crap when it comes to being an ISS. The only package worse is AOLs when it comes to not actaully protecting peoples computers.

@swags: Not only do these companies save money on call center labor, but I think the simple fact that they service is so useless when it's based off of a script and keywords, is actually making them more money.

Let's say I have a problem with a $10 charge that showed up on my bill once. Sad to say many americans would simply let it go if they knew they were calling an overseas call center.

The frustation and inability to actually resolve issues that we experiance most times we call or log-on to these places is training americans to feel that the antidote is worse than the poisen.

So rather than fight these small battles we let them go, to the finacial benefit of the companies. Win-Win for them.

Sorry, my grammer is still asleep.

I need to chime in here, I live in central Iowa and in a rural area to boot. The only option I can get for fast internet services in our cable company MediaCom and I also get my television services from them too. They have the exact same policy where they charge customers 1.99 to make any change to a service. I have successfully argued my way out of 4 of these ridiculous charges though. All it takes is some time and reasoning and maybe some lying on my part about not knowing about the charge or maybe that when I signed up for the service I was told I could cancel it without the stupid charge. So far so good.

1.99 is cheap. Knology tried to charge me $10 to cancel the premium movie channel package we had. After debating it for 10 minutes with a CSR she suddenly became able to waive the $10 fee.

@mndjkc: Charging excessive, unwarranted, or even illegal fees has become a legitimate business model. We've seen it escalate with banks and credit cards for years and now the rest of the economy is catching up. Ars Technica's recent article on cramming highlights how impotent regulators are when it comes to dealing with this too.

@DashTheHand: If you have even the most rudimentary DSL (we have the 768kb happy-saver plan) you can bittorrent all 10 seasons of Top Gear in HD, unedited (a full hour vs. 42 minutes for the BBCa version). Usually about 13 episodes per series, 350 Mb per hour.

That's a bargain! DishNetwork charges $5 to downgrade your service. I should know. I downgraded today.

Well they got you to keep HBO, didn't they!

Are you sure this isn't just because you were trying to cancel through chat? Do you still get charged $1.99 if you try to cancel HBO over the phone?

"Reader Jonathon wanted to cancel his HBO so he contacted one of Comcast's infamously useless online customer service representatives."

I'm sorry to divert from the topic, but I resent that remark. Judging the rest of us, by the actions of a small minority is very disrespectful, and detrimental to progress. Don't insult the work I do through generalizations that come, for the most part, from CSR's that work for companies like Nucomm and Convergys.

I may not be ecstatic about my job, but I do take pride in the work I do for the people who I talk to everyday.

And if you really want to get rid of it without a charge, cheat the system. Get yourself to tech support, and act like you thought you were going to sales/billing/retention. For the most part the divide between tech support, and sales/billing/retention does not usually include what fees each side charges for what actions.

Most likely someone at CDV/internet tech support will rip the HBO off of the account, and never even give a charge a second thought.

But be warned, if you call during the busy period, and they have alot of customers holding, you may get handed off to someone in billing/sales/retention.

It's almost as if Comcast is begging you to cancel your service. Some may consider such a decision akin to throwing the baby away with the bathwater, although, if you have a fugly Comcast baby the decision seems clear. Which would you choose?

DirecTV or Dish Network and pray there's an open wireless network nearby.

Hey wait a sec... That's what I'm doing.

I actually just canceled my HBO with the online chat (18$ for a channel I never watch), and they never mentioned a charge to cancel?

Honestly - I haven't had awesome service with the customer service on the phone, but next time I have an issue with my account I'm going to their chat system.

@DashTheHand: I'd love to cancel cable or go basic, but I'd miss Top Gear too much on BBCA. Maybe I should just move to the UK instead.

At least in the Philly area, they just took Top Gear out of On Demand :(

@ComcastAnon: I'm sorry, but the Comcast CSRs are precisely why we canceled our service and switched to DirecTV 5 years ago. The only time I could understand the crappy attitude was when I stood in a HUGE long line holding my converter box with a dozen other folks also returning their equipment to get our from under their nasty, unhelpful service.

That was the smartest thing I've done. My biggest fear of switching was an occasional lost satellite signal, but in all honesty, our Comcast cable went out far more often than our DirecTV has. (I think DirecTV has gone out twice - and very temporarily - in those 5 years.)

I remember the headaches, the horrible phonecalls, and the terrible terrible service provided by Comcast. I don't want you to feel badly about what you do for a living because I'm sure there are some shining stars in the company. I've just never had the opportunity to meet them and I can only speak to what I know.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the blatant lie the employee told about there being "no supervisor on shift". That can't possibly be true. I once needed to speak to one at another company and got fed that line, but when I called the rep on it, she admitted that there was actually a supervisor but that they only called people back, they didn't take calls.

So I guess the point here is that it's harder to be blown off if you're on the phone, pushing for what you need. Call Comcast and push until the fee is waived. Sure, it's only $2, but it's $2 you can do something about.

@swags: "Behavior like this is making it really easy for me to not get pay TV when I go off to law school this fall."

You say that now. Wait until you have all those empty hours to fill which something -- anything -- to take your mind off the soul-killing horror that is law school. I self-hypnotized with Animal Planet 24/7 and made enough hand-crafts to supply a small nation. One of my friends BUILT A BOAT FROM SCRATCH IN HIS BACK YARD. The other option is constant drinking to insensibility.

But as soon as I was DONE with law school, it was like, "see ya, cable!"

I've used the Comcast chat before and it's utterly useless. Tried to transfer service from my old apartment to my new one and I had to explain it to them multiple times before they could understand it...and then they told me they couldn't do that over the chat. Useless.

HOWEVER, huge tip for getting a breathing human being with a brain at Comcast (few and far between I know) - call the local number that's on your bill. I live in the DC area and called the (703) number on my bill for service and have consistently spoke to helpful, intelligent people who actually cared about helping me. They're at the Manassas, VA call center. Will use that # 100 % of the time in the future.

If there's one thing I've learned in my years of online banking and account management, it's that to get anything outside of strict policy done, you need to speak on the phone to a CSR or supervisor. It's a lot easier for a lot of us to do things online, but at the same time, online representatives have absolutely no power to do anything outside the box. I've tried with several companies to have fees waived and none will do it online - but when I called they waived them. It's a lot harder to go through with tough talk or to resist a sales pitch from someone who is being nice to you on the phone than to someone who is nothing more to you than text on a screen, and don't think companies don't know this. In general, I think of online service as an ATM - you can do basic transactions, but you can't get the ATM to waive a fee or reverse a charge.

Bottom line, if you want to get your HBO dropped without paying a fee, you're probably going to have to call.

It's Comcastic!

@Eyebrows McGee: From scratch? I doubt it. Did he plant the trees for the lumber?

Well then.

@mndjkc: "The frustation and inability to actually resolve issues that we experiance most times we call or log-on to these places is training americans to feel that the antidote is worse than the poisen."

Tell me about it. It often costs me more in time to get bad charges fixed than I make for the same time at work.

@Eyebrows McGee: : "Behavior like this is making it really easy for me to not get pay TV when I go off to law school this fall."

You say that now. Wait until you have all those empty hours to fill which something -- anything -- to take your mind off the soul-killing horror that is law school.

Isn't that what alcohol is for?

@Eyebrows McGee: Maybe I'll actually get interested in programming again and find an outlet there. I haven't written a single line for my own amusement since starting this other soul-killing career of business application development that I'm eagerly abandoning after five years.

If that fails, there's always porn.

My favorite is when companies charge me a fee to pay my bill over the phone. RCN tried to do that to me when I lost my paper bill so I canceled instead of paying. Unfortunately, I switched to Comcast, as it's the only other option. But, they've never tried to assess a fee for paying my bill over the phone.

Anyone who expects to get real service from a "customer service chat room" is deluded. It's always a third party company, and they don't have any more access to your account or special functions than you do when you log in to your account online.

God I wish we had FiOS in MN!

@wallapuctus: I love companies that charge you more for a service that costs them less. To pay my rent online I would currently have to pay a percentage of my rent as a fee (it came out to around $40)

All those who think that Switching to FIOS will get them a better customer service are so in for a surprise.

@ comcastanon: Headline is accurate, sorry.

DirecTV is psychic with their commercials lately

Hey, I'm Jonathon. To answer a few questions;

1). I did not cancel because I have no alternatives in my area. They have my by the short and curlies and they know it. I will not pursue it any farther because it's not worth the time and frustration. Yes, I know that they are counting on that. I guess you can call this a victory for Comcast. They earned $1.99. And some great PR.

2). No, I expect no better CS from Verizon FiOS (which I covet and yet, cannot obtain), but I do expect competition to stimulate churn and improved offerings. Service included.

3). As to whether or not I am deluded expecting decent customer service from a chat interface. I've come not to expect decent CS at all, from anybody. Anywhere. Ever. At least through a chat console I don't have to listen to 20 minutes of muzak, navigate through 9 circles of voice menu hell, and wade through accents thicker than molasses. Essentially, if I'm going to waste my time I want to waste it efficiently.

Yes, I know I could go with satellite and DSL, but that's really just cutting off my nose to spite my face. I don't save that much money, the CS is no better, and the product is less than ideal. At this point I am willing to give AT&T Uverse a try, even knowing that AT&T CS is the devil spawn and the company itself is as evil as three Cheney's in a Cheneymobile. Alas, not available in my area.

Do you still need a land phone-line to get the good stuff on Directv (DVR, order ppv off remote)? That's why I left for cable, I use cell only at my house. I've been thinking about losing HBO, at least for the summer, since Entourage won't be back till Fall anyway.