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Hello, Dummy! Comcast calls its customers more shocking names
whore_julia
By Christopher Elliott | January 30, 2015 | 38 Comments
Caution: This post contains language that may not be appropriate for a
family audience.
The most shocking thing about a revelation that a Comcast employee
changed a customer's name to "a**hole" was how shocked everyone was.
Readers reacted with indignation at my report that the company with
the worst customer service scores in America would have employees who
hated their customers enough to put it in writing.
All the while, the cable TV giant has implied this was a single action
of a disgruntled employee they would soon terminate.
But that may not be entirely accurate.
Comcast is no stranger to the insult by invoice. In 2005, it called
one woman a "b*tch dog" on her bill. And over the last few days, I've
been contacted by several Comcast customers who claim the same thing
has happened to them. One customer says a Comcast employee changed his
name to the phonetic spelling of a profanity that is unprintable in a
family newspaper. Another says Comcast changed her name to "whore" and
another says her name became "dummy."
Comcast says it's investigating these incidents. In a blog post, it
also promised it would be investing in technology to prevent future
name-changing incidents. It has already terminated the entire
subcontracting company responsible for the "a**hole" incident.
Tom Karinshak, Comcast's senior vice president of customer service,
told me the company is taking steps to prevent unauthorized name
changes from taking place in the future.
"We're retraining our teams on the importance of making name changes
properly," he said. "We're looking for automated solutions to prevent
this from happening in the future."
Comcast says it will follow up with each customer, offer an apology
and "do whatever it takes to make things right," says Karinshak.
Until then, let's let the customers decide whether these following
examples are an anomaly - or a reflection of what some Comcast
employees really think about their customers. Let me repeat my warning
about the salty language.
You're a "whore"
Julie Swano says her December Comcast bill was addressed to "Whore"
Julia Swano. She sent it to me.
"What's most interesting is that Comcast said the `whore' was added on
Dec. 6," she says. "I have no record of any recent contact with
Comcast until Dec. 16. So whoever chose to re-name me picked my
account out of a hat. That says there are probably millions of us out
there who Comcast employees have renamed. We need to find all of
them."
The word "whore" remained on her account until Jan. 6, when she told
someone in the Comcast billing department about it.
"What amazed me then was that I had talked with at least 20 people at
Comcast between Dec. 16 and January 6 who could see that my name was
`whore' and they did nothing about it."
Carolina is a "dummy"
Carolina Heredia also got in touch with me after Comcast changed her
name to a playground insult.
"They changed my name to `dummy' in my online account, so that the
greeting was `Hello, dummy,'" she says. "I had to call several times
but they said they didn't see it until I went in person to Comcast and
they removed it."
Comcast didn't offer her any apologies or explanation for why her name
would have been changed to "dummy." dummy
F*ck you, Bez
Garbis Bezdjian's son, Sako, emailed me on Wednesday to ask for help
with his father's Comcast bill.
"After my dad contacted Comcast to remove the TV and phone services -
they only kept the internet service - the name on their bill
mysteriously changed to `Fakoe Bez,'" he says. "The bill used to have
my mother's full name on it, so it really makes no sense why the name
changed so drastically."
His mother's name is Maida Bezdjian.
"I have nothing to do with my parents' bills nor is my name on any of
their bills," he says. "This is not a mix-up associated with my name."
bezWhat's happening? Bezdjian believes his family is being punished
for downgrading its Comcast service.
"This `Fakoe' name is nowhere near either of their monikers and seems
to be an insult in the form of the F-word aimed towards my parents,"
he says.
I first contacted Comcast yesterday about getting the name
corrected. As of this afternoon, it still hadn't fixed it.
What's going on?
Are these the actions of a single Comcast employee or multiple
employees with an axe to grind? Have these name changes been happening
all along without any media attention, with customers quietly
suffering? It's difficult to say based on just four cases that I know
of and without a full investigation by Comcast.
We do know they didn't happen by accident. Todd Loiselle, a former
subcontractor for Comcast who worked with technical support, describes
the company's internal systems as tricky to navigate and "just
hellish."
"There are no confirmations or prompts asking you if you want to do
something or not," he says of the systems involving customer
names. "But it does take some serious navigation to get to the portion
of the biller, or the software they used to make changes on accounts,
where you change account names and information. So the rep who changed
the customer's name to `a**hole' couldn't have done it by accident."
But one thing is clear: At least one person, and maybe more than one
person, really doesn't like Comcast's customers.
Enough to put it in writing. Repeatedly.
In an odd way, this is a little bit like a whistleblower who leaks
secret documents proving what everyone suspects - that the government
is spying on us, that cigarettes are deadly or that a company is
fixing prices. That person is just verifying what people already
thought they know.
Maybe that's what's so shocking.
Is Comcast doing enough to stop these unauthorized name changes?
Yes
No
http://elliott.org/blog/hello-dummy-comcast-calls-customers-shocking-names/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
whore_julia
By Christopher Elliott | January 30, 2015 | 38 Comments
Caution: This post contains language that may not be appropriate for a
family audience.
The most shocking thing about a revelation that a Comcast employee
changed a customer's name to "a**hole" was how shocked everyone was.
Readers reacted with indignation at my report that the company with
the worst customer service scores in America would have employees who
hated their customers enough to put it in writing.
All the while, the cable TV giant has implied this was a single action
of a disgruntled employee they would soon terminate.
But that may not be entirely accurate.
Comcast is no stranger to the insult by invoice. In 2005, it called
one woman a "b*tch dog" on her bill. And over the last few days, I've
been contacted by several Comcast customers who claim the same thing
has happened to them. One customer says a Comcast employee changed his
name to the phonetic spelling of a profanity that is unprintable in a
family newspaper. Another says Comcast changed her name to "whore" and
another says her name became "dummy."
Comcast says it's investigating these incidents. In a blog post, it
also promised it would be investing in technology to prevent future
name-changing incidents. It has already terminated the entire
subcontracting company responsible for the "a**hole" incident.
Tom Karinshak, Comcast's senior vice president of customer service,
told me the company is taking steps to prevent unauthorized name
changes from taking place in the future.
"We're retraining our teams on the importance of making name changes
properly," he said. "We're looking for automated solutions to prevent
this from happening in the future."
Comcast says it will follow up with each customer, offer an apology
and "do whatever it takes to make things right," says Karinshak.
Until then, let's let the customers decide whether these following
examples are an anomaly - or a reflection of what some Comcast
employees really think about their customers. Let me repeat my warning
about the salty language.
You're a "whore"
Julie Swano says her December Comcast bill was addressed to "Whore"
Julia Swano. She sent it to me.
"What's most interesting is that Comcast said the `whore' was added on
Dec. 6," she says. "I have no record of any recent contact with
Comcast until Dec. 16. So whoever chose to re-name me picked my
account out of a hat. That says there are probably millions of us out
there who Comcast employees have renamed. We need to find all of
them."
The word "whore" remained on her account until Jan. 6, when she told
someone in the Comcast billing department about it.
"What amazed me then was that I had talked with at least 20 people at
Comcast between Dec. 16 and January 6 who could see that my name was
`whore' and they did nothing about it."
Carolina is a "dummy"
Carolina Heredia also got in touch with me after Comcast changed her
name to a playground insult.
"They changed my name to `dummy' in my online account, so that the
greeting was `Hello, dummy,'" she says. "I had to call several times
but they said they didn't see it until I went in person to Comcast and
they removed it."
Comcast didn't offer her any apologies or explanation for why her name
would have been changed to "dummy." dummy
F*ck you, Bez
Garbis Bezdjian's son, Sako, emailed me on Wednesday to ask for help
with his father's Comcast bill.
"After my dad contacted Comcast to remove the TV and phone services -
they only kept the internet service - the name on their bill
mysteriously changed to `Fakoe Bez,'" he says. "The bill used to have
my mother's full name on it, so it really makes no sense why the name
changed so drastically."
His mother's name is Maida Bezdjian.
"I have nothing to do with my parents' bills nor is my name on any of
their bills," he says. "This is not a mix-up associated with my name."
bezWhat's happening? Bezdjian believes his family is being punished
for downgrading its Comcast service.
"This `Fakoe' name is nowhere near either of their monikers and seems
to be an insult in the form of the F-word aimed towards my parents,"
he says.
I first contacted Comcast yesterday about getting the name
corrected. As of this afternoon, it still hadn't fixed it.
What's going on?
Are these the actions of a single Comcast employee or multiple
employees with an axe to grind? Have these name changes been happening
all along without any media attention, with customers quietly
suffering? It's difficult to say based on just four cases that I know
of and without a full investigation by Comcast.
We do know they didn't happen by accident. Todd Loiselle, a former
subcontractor for Comcast who worked with technical support, describes
the company's internal systems as tricky to navigate and "just
hellish."
"There are no confirmations or prompts asking you if you want to do
something or not," he says of the systems involving customer
names. "But it does take some serious navigation to get to the portion
of the biller, or the software they used to make changes on accounts,
where you change account names and information. So the rep who changed
the customer's name to `a**hole' couldn't have done it by accident."
But one thing is clear: At least one person, and maybe more than one
person, really doesn't like Comcast's customers.
Enough to put it in writing. Repeatedly.
In an odd way, this is a little bit like a whistleblower who leaks
secret documents proving what everyone suspects - that the government
is spying on us, that cigarettes are deadly or that a company is
fixing prices. That person is just verifying what people already
thought they know.
Maybe that's what's so shocking.
Is Comcast doing enough to stop these unauthorized name changes?
Yes
No
http://elliott.org/blog/hello-dummy-comcast-calls-customers-shocking-names/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress