ICYMI: The Comcast Customer Service Call From The Deep Depths Of Hell

If your teeth look like meth nubs because you almost ground them down to the gums and all the skin on your knuckles is gone from punching concrete walls, then you probably spent around 8 minutes of your day listening to this verbal game of Say Uncle between a dude trying to cancel his account and a Comcast service rep who was not going to let go. Anybody who has ever canceled or downgraded service with Time Warner or Comcast listened to this and thought to themselves, “Eh, been there and that’s why I’ve got a Klonopin addiction now.” But this customer service rep goes all the way hard and as he’s trying to hold onto that customer with the tips of his nails, I pictured his supervisor standing over him while holding a gun to a puppy’s face and giving him a look that says, “If you let that customer cancel, the puppy gets it.” I pictured the supervisor’s supervisor doing the same thing and so on and so on. Basically, a lot of puppies lives were in danger during this call.

On Sunday, writer Veronica Belmont tweeted a link to an 8-minute-long clip of her husband Ryan Block wrestling with a Comcast customer service rep while trying to cancel their service. Ryan wrote on SoundCloud that at first, his wife was talking to the customer retention rep, but after 10 minutes of going absolutely nowhere, she handed the phone over to him and he started recording the conversation. Before Ryan took the phone, he greased up his face with Crisco, put on all of his rings and told Veronica to hold his purse, because he knew it was going to be a fight to the death. Ryan kept repeating that he’d like to cancel, but the rep wasn’t going to let his ass break up with Comcast and after a while, I was expecting the rep to go full Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction by screaming, “I won’t allow you treat me like some slut you can just bang a couple of times and throw in the garbage!!!” Ryan writes:

So! Last week my wife called to disconnect our service with Comcast after we switched to another provider (Astound). We were transferred to cancellations (aka “customer retention”).

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 given a myriad of reasons and explanations as to why we are canceling (which is why I simply stopped answering the reps repeated question — it was clear the only sufficient answer was “Okay, please don’t disconnect our service after all.”).

Please forgive the echoing and ratcheting sound, I was screwing together some speaker wires in an empty living room!

The thing is, Ryan never asks to speak to someone else. I would’ve been screaming for a supervisor, a manager, the president of Comcast, Olivia Pope, Obama, etc… etc… And if that didn’t work, I’d pull out a serious weapon of mass destruction. I’d play the rep a Nickelback song. After two seconds into that song, he’d cancel my account and reimburse me for the entire year.

Here’s the full recording if you haven’t already slapped at your ears while listening to it:

Damn. It’s like trying to break up with Taylor Swift. “Just give me the damn break-up cancellation number, Taylor! Please!”

Comcast, of course, has already apologized:

“We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and are contacting him to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives.”

Comcast claims they’re investigating the call. Translation: They’re going to promote the rep to President of Customer Service.