Cable companies sometimes get a bad rap. They make you sit at home, all day, waiting for them to come fix your connections. They charge you outrageous prices for things you can watch on Hulu the next day for just $8. And, they can call your boss and tell him you complained about their service, which ultimately leads to your termination.
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Wait, what? That actually happened, you say? Well, yes it did.
In 2013, an accountant from a prestigious law firm decided he was going to start using Comcast as a cable provider. He signed up for a 9-month promotional pricing offer, but then they started charging him for things outside of the offer. He was being charged for set-top boxes that had yet to be activated, and on top of that, someone in the Billing department had misspelled his last name, which lead to some of his bills not being delivered.
He attempted to cancel his service later that year, but then a Comcast representative convinced him that the billing issues would be resolved and that he would get free DVR service and The Movie Channel® for 3 months as compensation. Unfortunately, they didn’t just send him one DVR, they sent him multiple DVRs, and then charged him $1,820 for all the extra equipment.
Being an experienced accountant, the man made a detailed spreadsheet of all the charges, overcharges, hidden fees, and other wrongdoings committed by Comcast. He brought the sheet and the unwanted equipment back to Comcast and told them he was not paying his bill. But Comcast was not impressed and sent his unpaid bill to collections. He called to complain, and while doing so, he mentioned that Comcast’s billing and accounting issues should probably be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private sector oversight operation. Comcast agreed to send service reps to the company, twice, but no one ever showed.
After the phone call, someone from the Comcast office contacted the man’s employer to complain about him. Comcast claims the man name-dropped his company in order to gain leverage from Comcast, which the man denies doing. This ultimately led to an ethics investigation and the man’s termination. His employer explained that the reason for the dismissal was an e-mail from Comcast that summarized conversations between him and Comcast employees. The man was never shown the e-mails and insists that he never used his company’s name to gain leverage. He has not, yet, filed a lawsuit, but it will be interesting to see who he decides to go after if he does end up pursuing one.
I’m confused, this article states he was “using Comcast as a cable provider for his prestigious accounting firm”. That seems incorrect and that he must have been using it personally at home. Otherwise, it would not have been a problem for him to mention the employer’s name when calling to rectify the situation.
Yes Linda you are correct, we have changed the article to reflect this discrepancy. However according to the linked article…
“Remember how we briefly mentioned above that Conal worked for a large, prestigious accounting firm? Comcast certainly noticed that fact, especially since that firm is one that does business with Comcast.
At some point shortly after that call, someone from Comcast contacted a partner at the firm to discuss Conal. This led to an ethics investigation and Conal’s subsequent dismissal from his job…
Comcast maintained that Conal used the name of his employer in an attempt to get leverage. Conal insists that he never mentioned his employer by name, but believes that someone in the Comcast Controller’s office looked him up online and figured out where he worked.”