Last updated on January 26, 2009
 |
As mentioned before, back on 29-Jan-2008 I had Wide Open West cable service installed at home, cancelling Comcast service the same day. The following day I waited in this long line at the Comcast office in Troy to return the cable modem, obtaining this receipt showing that the hardware was received. Save for the refund I am owed for January service, this should have completed my business with Comcast.
Today when I arrived home from work I found this bill from Comcast, requesting payment for service for 30-Jan-2009 through 29-Feb-2009. After two phone calls which resulted in the IVR system telling me that there were extended hold times, no available automated callback times, and that I should call back later before hanging up on me, 9pm rolled around and Comcast’s billing department closed.
Going against my better judgment I tried the Comcast Live Chat Support. After being passed off from Jennifer.25657 to Charlon.35491 I had a difficult, convoluted chat resulting in my being told that “Yuo can dis regard the bill you received.” (Here [PDF] is a transcript of the chat, if you’d like to read it. It does a great job illustrating Charlon.35491‘s outstanding reading comprehension skills.)
Tomorrow I will be attempting to call Comcast again (possibly recording the call) to double-confirm that there is no expectation of payment and that I am owed a refund for overpayment in January. What baffles me is how a company which supposedly has an integrated, electronic billing system can list a service as canceled but still issue invoices for it. I guess this is the Comcastic service that one should expect.
That transcript reads like an automated IVR script. Not sure it really passes the Turing test.