How’s your blood pressure this morning? Well, prepare for it to be raised through the roof after you hear tech blogger Ryan Block’s conversation with a representative for Comcast, after he tried to cancel his Internet service with the company.
Block, the former head of Engadget and current AOL product guy, called Comcast to ask the company to perform a simple task – cancel his subscription – but ended up being led through a maze of questions all intended to leave him so exasperated that he’d choose to stick with the company.
According to Block, his wife had already spent 10 minutes on the phone with the representative, before his persistent questioning upset her to the point where she handed Block the phone. Block then proceeded to record the call and upload it to the Internet, where it has garnered a lot of attention.
Discussing his experience with the Comcast rep, Block writes:
The representative (name redacted) continued aggressively repeating his questions, despite the answers given, to the point where my wife became so visibly upset she handed me the phone. Overhearing the conversation, I knew this would not be very fun.
What I did not know is how oppressive this conversation would be. Within just a few minutes the representative had gotten so condescending and unhelpful I felt compelled to record the speakerphone conversation on my other phone.
This recording picks up roughly 10 minutes into the call, whereby she and I have already played along and given a myriad of reasons and explanations as to why we are canceling (which is why I simply stopped answering the rep’s repeated question — it was clear the only sufficient answer was “Okay, please don’t disconnect our service after all.”).
Comcast also issued a statement regarding the call to Vice’s Sam Gustin, saying: “We’re investigating this situation and certainly want to apologize to the customer. This isn’t how our customer service representatives are trained to operate.”
Listen to the audio recording below.
