Comcast Brazenly Insults Customer, Sends Monthly Bill Addressed To ‘A-hole Brown’

Comcast is not exactly a well-liked company in the United States, and that’s putting it nicely. In fact, Consumerist readers ranked Comcast as the Worst Company In America for 2014 (making it two-time winner… err loser). As Comcast ratchets up its lobbying efforts to win approval for its acquisition of Time Warner Cable, the unnerving shadiness of the company continues to emanate from its pores.

The latest chapter in the Comcast saga comes to us courtesy of consumer advocate Christopher Elliot. He details the story of Lisa Brown, who had a nasty run in with the company. After her family was experiencing financial difficulties, she made the fiscally responsible move of contacting Comcast to cancel the cable portion of their services. Mrs. Brown was told that she would be required to pay a $60 fee for the cancellation, which she was fine with paying. However, instead of simply removing the cable service from her account, she was transferred to a retention specialist — I think you know where this is going.

The retention specialist attempted to get Mrs. Brown to not only keep her cable service, but also sign a new, two-year contract. Yes, you heard that correctly. She called in to reduce her cable bill due to financial hardships, and Comcast is trying to get her to keep spending more money. “I was never rude,” said Mrs. Brown. “It could have been that person was upset because I didn’t take the offer.”

And that’s where this story takes a dive right into the toilet. When Mrs. Brown received her newest bill, not only was the $60 cancellation fee there in plain site — which she was expecting — the name of her husband, Ricardo Brown, was changed — something she was not expecting. Ricardo Brown was instead replaced with Asshole Brown. We’ve heard of poor customer service before, but this is downright crappy.

Mrs. Brown contacted her local Comcast office to have the offending name removed, but was confronted with a proverbial brick wall. She tried escalating the matter to the regional level without any luck. That’s when she turned to Elliot, who decided to get down the bottom of the matter. Elliott contacted Comcast and confirmed Mrs. Brown’s story, including the name change to Asshole Brown. It was only then that a regional VP for Comcast stepped into address the extremely poor customer service.

“We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change,” said Comcast’s Steve Kipp. “We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again.”

Comcast is now refunding the Ricardo family the $60 cancellation fee and it promises to change the name on their account. In addition, the employee that changed the name in the first place will be terminated.

Needless to say, this doesn’t give us much confidence in how customers will be treated if the acquisition of Time Warner Cable goes through. Time Warner Cable isn’t exactly known for stellar customer service either, so imagine the level of service that customers will be subject to once the two companies become one. I’m getting shivers down my spine just thinking about it.