So Comcast doesn't have their retention soul-whores on duty 24/7. It was a 2-minute call because it wasn't with retention.

@legwork: BTW, good job John.

Just made my call to switch to Direct yesterday...more HD channels for cheaper monthly rate. hmmmm

I've had that happen to me once, but I never bothered to call back and choose the "I want to spend more money" button. I will do that next time I want to cancel something with Comcast.

Just wanted to note, I tried canceling twice before and every time I do, they offer me a lower price or extended the promotional price. I accepted, but the third time I was persistent and went straight to the point and said I wanted to cancel and didn't want to hear any of the "We'll extend your promotion" mumbojumbo. It's better for Comcast to have a customer than no customer at all.

I had that same experience once with Virgin Wireless when I stupidly bought a pay-as-you-go phone from them. It was IMPOSSIBLE to find a cancel phone number on their website.

Anticipating the run-around that I would get for canceling our cable internet from Comcast I decided I would just lie and say I was moving. Just be sure you know the name of a city that doesn't have Comcast service before you try this.

It worked and there was no, scripted "please don't leave us" conversation. Unfortunately, while service was disconnected, they forgot to stop billing (of course). They at least gave us our money back on that one.

@legwork: Here's a tip: If you're not in a market with competition, you don't get any retention attempt.

When I switched from comcast to Fios, I told the comcast lady that I was going to read more, and that was that.

@johnfrombrooklyn: What's to cancel on a pay-as-you-go phone?

@johnfrombrooklyn: why would you need to cancel a pay as you go phone? Just stop paying?

My girlfriend always wondered how I could get a rep on the phone immediately whenever I called customer service for anything.

The secret is, never select anything but the "Add services" option when calling your cable provider. If you choose downgrade or tech support, you will get buried in menus and stuck on hold. The moment you select Add Services, there will be a rep on the line waiting to take your money. Then just tell them what you want, and if they can't help you, they'll transfer you directly to someone who can.

I work in the call center industry and have since 1996. I have held almost every position with the exception of a Janator or an Outbound Agent (just as low). We have many different clients (mostly telecom) ranging from telemarketing to technical support consulting. I noticed a long time ago that our clients' retention departments always tended to close down before sales, tech support, and even general billing. I guess it makes sense. One night your ticked and want to shred the company and maybe after sleeping on it, you decide it's par for the course or not so bad. This is simply my opinion. FYI, I am a newere viewer to Consumerist but I like the way this site teaches you to properly dispute. A majority of your call center jobs are low pay and very unrewarding. However, there are good agents out there for all companies. Please give each one a chance and if they sound like idiots hang up and call back if the wait wasn't too bad. I would bend over backwards for a customer but it always ticked me off when they never gave me a chance before trying to escalate. Also, always get agent ids and never be afraid to give those to the next agent. If the agent you get is worth their salt, they will persue it themselves because the previous agent made their job that much harder. Anyways, have a good one.

i had this happen when i cancelled Cablevision (thank you for saving me FIOS). I sat on hold for over 10 minutes after pushing the number to cancel service. After losing my patience, I hung up and dialed back an pressed the number to upgrade and somone picked up in about 2 rings

I've called Comcast many times to change services and never had any problems downgrading or upgrading. I will say this though, one time I had to get my service moved to a new apartment but the person who lived there before me didn't cancel their service. The first time I called I was told my apartment complex would have to contact the previous resident and have them call Comcast, well that went no where fast, so then the second time I called I was told I just needed to bring in proof of residence. So, sometimes depending on who you talk things may or may not go smoothly.

I cancelled on monday, but I called during lunch. The whole thing took about 15 minutes, now I'm spending that 65 bucks a month on a mix of Hulu (free) and iTunes for the shows I would have bought anyways. I'm still waiting to be secretly signed up for 200 Showtime channels or some such.... sigh...

@Quibbs0: Oh, and an interface that actually makes sense! I couldn't even make a favorites list on my Cisco comcast box, flipping through 400 channels of home shopping is soul crushing. I miss Directv so so much :(

Very sneaky, sis!

Wow. There is absolutely NO excuse for that at all. This is why I hate automated phone customer no-service. It's like sending you through all kinds of "press this" menus only to never actually get a human. I've gotten to where I just don't press anything. Most (keyword is MOST) of the time I'll be automatically transferred to a human. Not all of the time, but most.

@shockwaver: It's the automatic top-up that is almost impossible to cancel. There are no directions anywhere on the site. And their voice interface system is very obnoxious. It tries to be hip and instead is just annoying.

@johnfrombrooklyn: Well obviously you're quite stupid. There's nothing to cancel. And on behalf of VM, I've used them for years and never had any problems getting contact information or getting help to resolve an issue. And I actually talked to real live people who were very friendly.

@HRHKingFridayXX: I'm with you. Canceled cable, got an antenna for the whole house, use hulu, ps3 and youtube for everything else. I gave a up a little, and saved a lot

@dalejrfanfreak: I had that issue when I bought my place, the previous tenant didn't cancel. They made me fax in my HUD to have it turned off and transferred

I tried to call Zales one time to cancel a credit card. I automatically press 0 whenever calling 800's for obvious reasons... Zales is actually programmed to say, "thank you and goodbye" and hang up on you when you press 0. I think that's pretty lame when 0 is commonly accepted for give me a human being.

This is why I love [www.gethuman.com] between the numbers there and picking sales, you'll get a human quickly in 99/100 cases. Oh man, 100 cases... that sorta depresses me :(

Where's Frank and Bonnie?!

"Tee-hee LOL ;-)"

What's the excuse for this one?

I've finally had it and cancelled my Comcast internet after 5 yrs of hell. I'm just going to go to a cafe w/ my laptop from now on.

@drb023: Hmmm... I think I'm okay with punishing people for not paying attention to the instructions. Now, if they tell you that 0 is supposed to do something else and it hangs up on you, that's bad... but if at the end of their voice-jail prompts they say "Press 0 to end this call" and you just pressed 0 immediately out of habit, it's not their problem. It's actually a tech-geek way of looking at it... 0 to "turn off" the call.

@drb023: Sadly I can't get an antenna in my apartment building (downside of living in an urban area)... but that's def the next step. I'm also hooking up a mac mini to my tv so I can watch everything there.

@legwork: I tried to do this exact same thing last month (downgrade during non-normal hours) and was told, by a CSR, that I had to call back between 9am-5pm.

Their 24/7 customer service also only applies to stuff they can fix over the phone using their first-level support scripts. They won't get a technician involved outside of normal business hours.

@magnoliasouth: Pressing zero a few times can do that, too.

@David Brodbeck: I've gotten a tech scheduled when I called at 2AM once. The tech couldn't come out for 2 days (the next opening they had available). But at least the process of scheduling worked.

The actual problem was a receiver at the head end and they had it fixed by 8AM. I don't know if my call resulted in that or not. They might have gotten lots of calls. The sad part is 2 days later, the tech showed up and I told him of the experience. I suggested they need to do better at customer service to figure out where the problem actually is. He suggested to just let the tech roll and not even to call back to cancel when the problem goes away ... for job security :) So we shot the breeze for about 45 minutes and he checked on his paperwork that the problem was now fixed.

So funny. I just got an automated call from Comcast today. They "urgently" needed to talk to me about my account and asked me to press one to speak to a representative. Concerned, I did so. I was told that all reps were busy, that my call was important to them and would be taken in the order it was received. Funny since they called me but, whatever.

I stayed on hold for 15 minutes while I did housework when finally, the call dropped. I was cut off. So, I called the regular CS number to find out the problem. What was it? Nothing. Everything was fine. The girl had no explanation as to why the "system" called me.

@MBEmom:

Most of the times is because of a past due.

As much as I hate Comcast, someone has to point out that this could be a staffing issue, where the queue was supposed to open but closed automatically because nobody was skilled in it. That just implies Comcast is incompetent instead of shady, but we already know both are true.

@shockwaver: And remember to stop going too.

@god_forbids: I meant, of course, to stop using the device and racking up charges.

@eddie9999:

Or you could just insist on canceling.. they can't really force you to keep the service. I think it's all in how you talk to someone from the get go. If they can tell that you're not going to take any gruff from these swine, then they'll leave you alone. It's the same thing as walking downtown in Chicago. You get hit up by scammers/homeless all the time if you don't hit the streets with the appropriate demeanor.

I knew better than to call Comcast to cancel. As soon as Verizon FiOS was installed, I took my equipment down to their office/storefront. That was Jan. 5 - long line that day. When I got to the counter rep, he asked me if I'd called in - "Nope." After that, he treated me pretty dismissively - there wasn't anything resemble a user friendly feel there. I've been to their storefronts before and this experience was no different - unhappy, underpaid employees.

Verizon - no paragon of perfection - at least has friendly people in their stores AND once you've moved to FiOS for Internet and TV, you really don't want to go back to an inferior product set from cable if you don't have to. . .

Nah, it's even better when Comcast transfers you to a higher-level tech support queue...but they've already gone home for the night! After waiting over an hour on the queue, I picked up another line and called back in, saying I've been in the advanced tech queue for over an hour and no one's picked up. The 1st level tech tells me they've already gone home and to call back tomorrow. "what time do they open in the morning?" I asked. 8am. So I went to bed, left the phone on speakerphone and wandered into the den a little before 8a.

I figured they can eat the 800# DID cost for 9+ hrs & it'd totally trash their call metrics. It also meant I was first in line when the advanced techs finally dragged their butts in to work.