Comcast billed me beyond cancellation

[Driver100WM]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Maryland
I was not under any contract and owned my own equipment. Billing date was 13th of every month. I called on 12/11/14 to cancel. Cancellation was easy and I recorded it with the Comcast rep confirming that I will not be further billed and refund will be mailed to me. However, Comcast still sent me a bill for the next billing cycle (Billing cycle ended on 25th which I paid in full, and the next billing cycle begins on 26th of current month). I immediately had three chats with Comcast online reps, and they all said I can be rest assured that I'm not being further charged, and refund is coming my way (those three reps all quoted different refund amount). I have the chat logs so I think that should be sufficient proof that I owe Comcast no more money, but even if I have the chat logs, I do not want to run the risk of getting my credit hurt and facing the collection agency. Comcast reps all said it will take time for the charge for next billing cycle will be removed from account as my physical disconnection from my street pole is dependent on Comcast techs availability. So it turns out calling in to cancel does not actually disconnect Comcast service and you still get billed even though you may be told no payment is needed. The next bill (which Comcast reps told me to disregard) is due 1/4, and Comcast is adamant the earliest their tech can come out to disconnect me from the street pole is 1/3. Advice from a legal professional was to wait until January to see if Comcast send another bill given I have the chat logs that can protect me, and if I get another bill to send Comcast the chat logs. Your thoughts?

 

[Zigner]

I'd wait and see too. If you still get billed, then I would go to their closest office in person to get this resolved.

 

[jajature]

not recommend

The company is a big minus for me!

 

[commentator]

Usually their local offices will not deal with payment issues. If you go in to try to discuss billing issues, they'll hand you a telephone and tell you to call the customer service center from this phone. For that you have to go to Indonesia or Malaysia or wherever their telephone customer service (what a joke!) is located. That's so you cannot reach across a counter and strangle the person you are speaking with.

If you are persistent, keep calling back about an account, you eventually are transferred to speak with the most competent person on the layering. But I can give you a story about my on-going war with Comcast which involves not three, but seven different calls so far, giving us seven different sets of information, amounts we owe or to be refunded and promises and reasons why things happen.

Don't worry excessively about their sending you to collections at this point, however. They will go on and and on with you before doing that. It doesn't even sound like they have established what you might owe, you haven't been billed for it yet. I also think waiting to see what they come up with next would be the best action.

I cancelled my service at one location, attempted to re-start or re-enroll or get hooked up at another location, got three or four different prices and sets of instructions on how to do this, (have the logs dates, names of the reps and exactly what I was told in each call. One rep actually confessed to us that when they pull up your account in their system, they have before them your record which shows every inquiry that has been made on this account. Of course this does not mean that they do not force you to go through the whole story again each time.)

Meantime, these hooters owe me a refund for one whole month's service at the old location which I paid for before it happened, as one always does. And which incidentally is what you are doing I strongly suspect. You are not paying for the service after you receive it, you are being billed ahead for the next month's service. If you paid in December. it's possible you don't owe them anything, you are due a refund for at least most of the month of January.

I have been told this balance will be (1) applied to my next month's bill at the new location (2)refunded to me at my new address (3) refunded to me but it must be sent to my former address because that's where the service was to have been received (4) never refunded to me because I shouldn't have gone on and paid it (5)applied to the service of the new people who are in the old location. And so on and so on. Most of which is delivered in broken English and makes no sense whatsoever. If you become the least bit loud or sharp with them, they'll hang up on you.

And you know what, these people have already got such a huge monopoly on our cable services in this area that there's not much "if you don't like it you can go elsewhere," because they've, with the total blessing of our idiot state legislature, pretty much put everyone else out of business.

Persist. I know this involves a huge amount of holding the phone, wasted time, and grinding it out. But as long as you are not ignoring their bills, as long as you are engaged the dispute process with them, they probably will not be reporting you to collection agencies or ruining your credit. Right now I suggest you wait till you get your next bill, and then sit down with your phone battery fully charged and a comfortable location, and call them again. Good luck. I hate them heartily too.

 

[Zigner]

When telling the OP to go to the local office, I was referring to the cancellation matter. He keeps getting billed because the account hasn't actually been cancelled.

Usually their local offices will not deal with payment issues. If you go in to try to discuss billing issues, they'll hand you a telephone and tell you to call the customer service center from this phone. For that you have to go to Indonesia or Malaysia or wherever their telephone customer service (what a joke!) is located. That's so you cannot reach across a counter and strangle the person you are speaking with.

If you are persistent, keep calling back about an account, you eventually speak with the most competent person on the layering. But I can give you a story about not three, but seven different calls, giving us seven different amounts and promises and reasons why things happen.

Don't worry excessively about their sending you to collections at this point, however. They will go on and and on with you before doing that. It doesn't even sound like they have established what you might owe, you haven't been billed for it yet. I also think waiting to see what they come up with next would be the best action.

I cancelled my service at one location, attempted to re-start or re-enroll or get hooked up at another location, got three or four different prices and sets of instructions on how to do this, (have the logs dates, names of the reps and what I was told in each call) Meantime, these hooters owe me a refund for one whole month's service at the old location which I paid for before it happened, as one always does. And which incidentally is what you are doing. You are not paying for the service after you receive it, you are being billed ahead for February's service on that bill you'll receive in January. So don't worry about that they can't come and disconnect until the second or third.

I have been told this balance will be (1) applied to my next month's bill at the new location (2)refunded to me at my new address (3) refunded to me but it must be sent to my former address (4) never refunded because I shouldn't have gone on and paid it (5)applied to the service of the new people who are in the old location. And so on and so on. Most of which is delivered in broken English and makes no sense whatsoever. If you become the least bit loud or sharp with them, they'll hang up on you.

And you know what, these people have already got such a huge monopoly on our cable services in this area that there's not much "if you don't like it you can go elsewhere," because they've, with the total blessing of our idiot state legislature, put everyone else out of business.

Persist. I know this involves a huge amount of holding the phone, wasted time, and grinding it out. But as long as you are not ignoring their bills, as long as you are engaged the dispute process with them, they probably will not be reporting you to collection agencies or ruining your credit. Right now I suggest you wait till you get your next bill, and then sit down with your phone battery fully charged and a comfortable location, and call them again.

 

[commentator]

Well, it will be nice if they can deal with it at the OP's Comcast physical location. They completely played Pontius Pilate here, said it was a billing issue, handed us the telephone. We cancelled at the end of October, and are still receiving bills at that address (now marked "past due" ) despite our every diligent effort to stop them, change the address on the account, change our contact information and pay what we owe to close out the old account. (Not to mention get my money back!) In their records, they agree, the service shows as cancelled on the date we cancelled it.

 

[Zigner]

Well, it will be nice if they can deal with it at the OP's Comcast physical location. They completely played Pontius Pilate here, said it was a billing issue, handed us the telephone. We cancelled at the end of October, and are still receiving bills at that address (now marked "past due" ) despite our every diligent effort to stop them, change the address on the account, change our contact information and pay what we owe to close out the old account. (Not to mention get my money back!) In their records, they agree, the service shows as cancelled on the date we cancelled it.

I haven't found a cable company yet with a good reputation

 

[commentator]

Having been involved with bureaucracies throughout my work history I am not worried, I'll persist and eventually we'll get this situation resolved. It's sad to think of people who do not have this kind of education, experience and understanding of how the system works, they get screwed over by these sorts of things constantly. And they pay so much more than they have to, and get their credit ruined and have a very hard time, just because the company wants more profit.

I guess what enraged me so about my dealings with the Comcast local office is that this was exactly what we in local state offices were instructed to do when the state's unemployment system went totally to telephone and internet. We were told that our days of "babying" the clients and walking them through the processes and explaining things to them were over, that they SHOULD just be able to go on line or on the telephone system and deal with this themselves. And several state agencies (such as Texas DHS) actually tried contracting their services out to companies outside the United States. You don't hear a lot about how that worked, how they had to scrap it quietly, after dumping billions into it.

And in the meantime, people were getting just about the level of service that I and this OP are getting from Comcast.