It sounds like the rep was fired from an Anime movie..

Impossible to answer without knowing what your current package is and what your other options are.

Is this TV, ISP, Phone, some combo?
Is DSL/FIOS/UVERSE available in your area?
Do you live in an apartment where your choices are limited?

Why do you think has Comcast hired ELIZA for customer chat support? Come, come, elucidate your thoughts.

This happend to me a month or so ago. I called comcast and get the price of my service lowered approx 20$ per month and then I get my bill the next cycle and the price hasn't changed. I call up and they say that nothing is in the system. I ask that they listen to the recorded phone call and the women says that not ALL phone calls are recorded. SO FRUSTRATING!

Absolute favorite line has got to be:

Jullan>
That depends unto you Noah

Noah_>
verily

@Darrone: Yon line hast gotteth to be classic.

@Darrone: That is a classic line. I have to wonder if he meant something else, or if he understood what he was typing

Hahahaha.

Made the end of my day at work quite enjoyable. And no, don't give Comcrap a second chance.

Paging Vince Ferrari

@Darrone:

Don't forget:
You try to give me succor and i feel like a sucker

I'd cancel if I were you Noah. Though I am canceling comcast already. I'm moving to CA in a few weeks and after we move we are NOT restoring our service with Comcast. We'll get our internet elsewhere. Comcast has proven again and again that customer service is not their priority and I'm done with it.

@Radi0logy: He knew, see the succor like. Plus, "verily" is latin-rooted, so if you took Spanish or French it's pretty similar.

Honestly, Noah sounds just like Jullain does.

@silver-bolt: ELIZA is contagious.

When I talk to CSRs on chat, I make sure to be as simple as possible, and not to use phrases that would be lost on someone who isn't American. It seems that as dense as Julian was, Noah was perhaps not making the conversation easy.

Something similar happened to me, although they didn't connect me to an old timey retention agent. They did tell me I would be switched to a cheaper plan.
In two weeks, the bill came, and- the bill didn't change. I signed up for FIOS within the hour.

@pecan 3.14159265: I thought the same thing, actually.

Everyone knows that chats and text messages can't possibly convey tone the same way spoken conversations do, so I don't think Noah was holding up his end of the conversation as well as he could have.

That said, tech support shouldn't really be handling billing calls.

That said, I didn't find Julian's possibly-ESL-speak to be all that bad. Not something I would ridicule, anyway.

I think I would have possibly GOUGED MY EYES OUT before continuing that conversation.

If you can cancel just do it.

I once had a Comcast online agent tell me to "have the sweetest dreams."

This was after they tried to tell me that an ad containing a Digital Voice screenshot was my actual control panel. I kid you not.

@dorianh49: Did you come to me to discuss why do I think Comcast hired ELIZA for customer chat support?

Noah deserves a gold star for his (her?) virtuous patience!

+2 for succor and verily in the same chat

I can understand why Noah was frustrated after 20 minutes late at night, but it seems unreasonable to have gotten crappy with the guy. Jullen didn't understand what the problem was at first, which is reasonable given the limited explanations possible in a little chat box. Then, for trying to help anyway as it became clear what the problem was, he got a smart mouthed kid giving him some attitude as thanks for his trouble.

The language barrier issues aside, I'm not willing to call Noah the victim here. Rather, he's the jerk customer giving the support rep a hard time for little reason, when the customer is the one who "called" the wrong support number in the first place.

Honestly this is somewhat frustrating, but it's just how the chat session support goes. It's tough to concisely, but clearly explain your problem in writing. It's even tougher when there's a language barrier, but I'm not convinced that even a completely English literate person would've avoided this confusion. Next time, if you're not 100% positive you can explain your issue in a little leetspeak-y chat, then just call on the phone to begin with.

The guy was trying to go the extra mile.

He doesn't have the authority to give credits. If everyday CSRs did, some bad apples would take advantage of that? He gave the OP the right number to call.

They should have spent the extra money and gotten CADIE.

@almigi: How does why do I think Comcast hired ELIZA for customer chat support make you feel?

@LordSkippy:
Does that question interest you?

Dave, Dave, what are you doing Dave?

@veg-o-matic:
That said, tech support shouldn't really be handling billing calls.

I'd swap a couple of words in that sentence: "That said, tech support really shouldn't be handling billing calls." Because really, they shouldn't. Wanting to be extra helpful is fine, but only if you can actually be of assistance. When you can't, you're just wasting the customer's time.

I had the exact same problem recently. I was canceling or downgrading because the price was too high and the agent on the phone said the only way to make things cheaper was to upgrade me. That made no sense but it made the price cheaper so I went with it. Instead of doing what he promised he kept my plan the same and signed me up for some 3 month trial thing that I did not authorize. Very very very long story short I ended up getting what was promised after 2 weeks repeatedly calling them on their lies.

Funniest part about this whole incident was at one point I was told the supervisor went on a lunch break but couldn't call back because they never saw her again. Best excuse yet Comcast.

@Nick1693:
Trying, but not really succeeding. If you can't actually help the customer, its best to just tell them how to get in touch with people who can, promptly. Instead, Julian wasted half an hour of Noah's time. That's not going the extra mile, that's just jerking the customer around.

That is excellent. I love how the guy doesnt understand that Noah should have gotten the number right away. The CSR had no authority to make billing changes or modify his account but he just wanted to talk about how great Comcast is. This is priceless.

Companies of America. Hear my words...or read them! We want our CSR's in America. See how much time was just wasted. Is it fun pissing off your customers? Is it worth possibly losing a customer? Yes yes you want profit but we want decent service. This is an issue that an American could have resolved in about 5 seconds. Indians may understand the basics of english but they DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DIALECT.

"verily"

Ha. Priceless.

@JRB: I don't think so. Sometimes it's easier to express complex issues in writing. And I also disagree that Noah acted inappropriately. He was certainly crabby, but that's the price that customer service will have to pay so long as it is designed to confuse and deflect, rather than actually solve problems. It wasn't confusion, it was deliberate deception.

After working with highly educated people who have a hard time putting their thoughts into words, I have to say that Jullan did a fantastic job with conveying his thoughts. He didn't fix the problem, but I really don't think there's an ESL issue here.

Question 1 from the support guy was: "You are asking why is it that you are having the same bill without any reductions done, am I right?"

Which basically was Noah's problem, instead of answering no like a smart a*, if Noah had answered yes, perhaps the support guy would have said: "I can't help with billing problems" instead of wasting both of their time trying to figure out what the problem was.

@veg-o-matic: From my own experience, I would also guess that Noah thought Julian had more information to begin with than he actually had. That always makes things confusing.

@TacoChuck: I think he was trying to distinguish between "give me free money" and "I was already promised a reduction".

The guy may not have been effective, but atleast he wanted to help. What really gets me is when you talk with someone who makes no effort to even appear to care about the problem...

@calfuris: You cant always know in advance if your attempt will end in success or failure.

Atleast the guy tried. In my opinion, thats much better attitude than someone who just assumes failure and gives up before trying.

If he had succeeded, the outcome would have been much better than if he had just passed it on. He took a gamble and failed.

Though trying for 30 minutes is not all that cool. He should have given up sooner.

@JRB: I partially agree.

It was very obvious the chat guy couldn't help by half way through the conversation. The OP was looking to beat up on someone. It's a pretty disingenuous situation.

It's like Consumerist stories where the OP trades 20 emails with a company and then complains about their incompetence - but when you read the emails you see that by the third or fourth exchange it's obvious the customer wasn't going to be helped by whomever they were communicating with.

@calfuris: We were discussing you--not me.

@Michael Belisle: Interesting. Tell me more about why ELIZA is contagious.

To play the devil's advocate here, I work in sales and billing customer support, and the reverse type of thing often happens to me.

If you press 0 "to speak to an agent" it will come directly through to us, although the options are pretty clear: press 1 for tech support, 2 for customer service or 0 to speak to an agent.

So customers will come through telling me something of theirs isn't working, and because tech support is usually much busier and I'm passable at troubleshooting, I will try to the best of my ability to fix the problem.

If in the end I can't help them, I explain I have to put them through to someone in technical support, and people will often be mad that I didn't do this in the first place.

But half the time I can fix it. And they could have pressed 1 like they were supposed to. So, just saying.

@TacoChuck: I was thinking the same thing after reading that. I couldn't understand why he replied no to that question.

@calfuris: @liquidnumb: Both fine points. I do not disagree.

First of all, even though Noah is right he's a total ass. You shouldn't go off on someone like that for trying to be nice to you. That's how bitchy customer service reps are born.

Second of all, the fact that you were promised a credit, and never received it, shows you how much Comcast values your business. You should have been going into chat to cancel your service, not ask for credits that some rep promised you when you called the first time, that you have no proof of. Do you even know what that sounds like to the guy on the other end?

Third, any/all chat is in India, Phillippines, or other. Even Mexico now. It's too expensive to pay US citizens to do it anymore. Do not expect to speak to someone proficient in English when you go on a chat.

and fourth, why are you with Comcast? :P

@Lucifer_Cat: Uh, yeah you can actually. At least this guy could. He was unequipped to help the OP out, and as soon as he was aware of that, he should have ended his involvement. He didn't have to make an attempt to help the OP when, well meaning or not, he didn't have the necessary tools to actually do so.

@arl84: I didn't get that he was going off on the guy. He asked him a very valid question. If the support flunky was unable to help the OP, why the holy hell would he think it's a remotely good idea to waste half an hour of his time? It's clear that the OP was annoyed, but being that the tech-support fellow misrepresented himself and wasted his time, he comes off pretty tame there. As for the credit/cancellation issue, the guy on the Comcast side of the equation doesn't matte. Oh, he's free to think whatever he wants when presented with a seemingly strange scenario, but he's still required to do his f'ing job. So if the OP was promised a credit on his account, it doesn't particularly matter how it sounds to the Comcast flunky. Comcast flunky needs to do his job and look into it. By the way, when you ask questions like "Why are you with Comcast?", you tread awfully close to BTO territory.