Image from the Philadelphia Daily News

Comcast customers in Philadelphia, home to Comcast’s world headquarters, get no better treatment from the cable company than anyone else. But customers in the city of Brotherly Love now at least have a small edge on the rest of America.

A Philadelphia Daily News columnist just so happens to have the direct phone number of Comcast CEO’s 92-year old mom and is willing to use it.

“I grew up in a neighborhood where even the really bad kids could be brought back in line when someone tattled on them to their moms,” wrote columnist Ronnie Polaneczky. “That’s why I picked up the phone and called the 92-year-old mother of Comcast Corporation’s chairman and CEO Brian Roberts. We all know that Roberts’ company has been very, very bad. Comcast is in the news every other day with another irate customer’s tale of horrible treatment from the behemoth cable provider.”

Polaneczky decided to use the nuclear option after reading an email sent by Diana and Jason Airoldi, recent Philly transplants from Washington, D.C. The Airoldi’s had an appointment with Comcast to install service Dec. 23. It was now Feb. 1 and after multiple broken promises they were still waiting.

“In almost the same amount of time it took Noah to float the Ark, the country’s biggest cable company and home Internet-service provider hasn’t been able to turn on the Internet and cable in the Airoldis humble South Street apartment,” the columnist noted.

But they were by no means alone. There were also sad stories from:

• Sandy and Charles Arnold, who have tried since Dec. 14 to get Comcast cable and Internet at their Ocean City home;
• Bridie Gallagher, a senior citizen who has tried for months to get the overcharge on her bill fixed;
• And Christine Yelovich, whose odyssey into the Comcast’s multiple circles of service hell should only be told with a horror-movie soundtrack playing behind it.

Answer: Call Mama

Suzanne Roberts, the 92-year old mother of Brian, accomplished more for the Airoldi family in one day than the entire Comcast juggernaut could manage in more than a month. By day’s end, the Comcast trucks descended on the neighborhood and the family was finally connected.

Unfortunately, Comcast does not offer 1-800-SUZANNE for beleaguered customers, who have developed a seething dislike for the cable company. One horror story after another, accompanied by news of PR disasters that routinely spread across the country faster than measles all testify to Comcast’s bottom of the barrel customer ranking as among the most hated companies in America.

Even PR damage control marketing experts now consider Comcast hopeless.

“The stories that come out about them are just unbelievable in terms of the torture – not just bad service, but torture – they inflict on customers,” said Chris Malone, managing partner of Fidelum Partners in Newtown Square, a specialist in fixing the reputations of companies that shoot themselves in the proverbial foot. “I feel quite confident that if their services were offered more broadly, their ranking would be much lower.”

Malone told Polaneczky the reason more Americans hate Comcast than BP — the company that threatened the Gulf of Mexico’s entire ecosystem after recklessly allowing more than 200 million gallons of oil to spill and stain the beaches from Louisiana to Florida — is the cable company’s relentless greed.

‘At the root of Comcast’s problem,’ Malone says, is that ‘the company is focused on maximizing financial benefits at the expense of its customers and employees,’ who know that “the company does not have their best interests in mind.”

Even Comcast’s new customer service czar, Charlie Herrin — head of “customer experience,” hired to “ensure that we are delighting our customers at each touch point,” has waved the white flag, seemingly admitting the company is an unmitigated mess.

Despite annual commitments from Comcast management starting in 2007 that Comcast was “redoubling” its efforts at improving customer service, the pesky fact that twice nothing is still nothing left Herrin sheepishly lowering expectations:

“In fact,” Herrin said, “it may take a few years before we can honestly say that a great customer experience is something we’re known for.”

A few years?

Polaneczky

These facts should be penetrating the offices of every state and federal regulator contemplating the public interest benefits of approving a merger deal between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Sweeping aside the Comcast-ghostwritten letters non-profit, civil rights, and political groups have sent to regulators (while running to the bank to cash Comcast’s checks), the columnist for the Daily News is scratching his head pondering why anyone would even think of letting the bad become bigger to get even worse.

“If Comcast is badly serving so many customers now, why should it be allowed the opportunity to badly serve millions more?,” she asked. “After my column ran, I got a call from Jeff Alexander, the regional spokesman for Comcast’s local operations. He apologized for what had happened to the Airoldis and invited me to visit some of Comcast’s shiny new retail stores, where customers can pay bills, return cable boxes and such. ‘Sure,’ I said, to be agreeable. But honestly, who cares?”

The most useful thing Polaneczky got from Alexander was his direct e-mail address with an invitation to forward complaints to his personal attention to resolve. So why not use it?

“Email me ([email protected]) about your Comcast problems,” Polaneczky wrote. “Detail the ways the company has been torturing you, and I will pass your stories along to Alexander, who seems like a very nice man. I can’t guarantee results. Lord knows your complaints have been cheerfully heard then ignored before. But I can promise that if Alexander doesn’t resolve your problems, I’m calling Mama Roberts again. I have her number on speed-dial.”

Perhaps Mama should come out of retirement and take on the job Perrin seems be ready to quit. It probably wouldn’t take “years” to see improvements if the CEO’s mom carried a big stick around Comcast’s Philadelphia headquarters. She should start in her son’s executive suite.

Effective with the FCC’s redefinition of broadband as a connection capable of sustaining speeds of at least 25Mbps, Stop the Cap! is changing the terms we use in our reports to match:

• Connections meeting or exceeding the FCC minimum will continue to be called “broadband,”
• All broadband services at speeds generally under 25Mbps will from today be called, “slowband,”
• Satellite Internet service will continue to be colloquially referred to as “fraudband” because it is generally incapable of delivering sustained, consistent speeds that meet even the FCC’s old 4/1Mbps broadband standard. Satellite Internet providers receive appalling customer satisfaction scores and rack up complaints about tiny usage allowances and speed throttles. A new generation of satellites eventually promises improved service and we will take another look when these services are actually up and running.

That paragon of virtue Comcast is back in the news again with yet another customer service horror story.

After Americans once again rated Comcast one of the most-hated corporation in America, employees are launching the equivalent of a “right back at you” retaliation campaign aimed at departing and downgrading customers with name-calling we cannot print on Stop the Cap!

It all started with Lisa Brown, a volunteer for a missions organization in Spokane, Wash., who told Elliot.org Comcast retaliated against her husband for daring to downsize his Comcast cable package. Brown said her husband’s name Ricardo was changed to “A**hole” on their bill. She tried in vain to get the unauthorized name change corrected, but nobody made things right in the local cable office or in Comcast’s executive customer relations department.

When a reporter called Comcast to confirm the profane name change, alarm bells rang as Comcast realized it had the latest PR Disaster of the Month on its hands.

Steve Kipp, Comcast’s vice president of communications in the Washington State region was shocked, shocked to discover customer service abuse was going on inside Comcast offices. He must not have worked there back in 2005 when the cable company called one woman a “b*tch dog” on her bill.

“We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change,” Kipp told Elliot.org. “We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again.”

Comcast eventually refunded back 24 months of cable service to the Brown family.

Notice Comcast charges a $9.50 “administrative late fee” on all accounts that are past due more than 10-14 days after the billing due date. Customers who do not clear their earlier balance to zero may be subject to this fee indefinitely with each billing statement.

Zero tolerance lasted about five minutes before more complaints began pouring in from other Comcast customers who have also been on the receiving end of Comcast’s wrath:

• One customer said a Comcast employee changed his name to the phonetic spelling of the “f word,” unprintable on this website;
• Julie Swano reported her December 2014 Comcast bill was addressed to “Whore” Julia Swano;
• Carolina Heredia: “They changed my name to ‘dummy’ on my online account, so that the greeting was ‘Hello, dummy,’” she said.

Notice Comcast customers who want a paper bill pay $5 more each month than those who accept eBills. Comcast customers complain “EcoBill” offers illusory savings, because for many the $5 “credit” was applied to bills that were also $5 higher than before. (Click image to read complaints)

Comcast’s Tom Karinshak, senior vice president of customer service, treated the incidents as some type of computer glitch or honest mistake.

“We’re retraining our teams on the importance of making name changes properly,” Karinshak said. “We’re looking for automated solutions to prevent this from happening in the future.”

“What amazed me then was that I had talked with at least 20 people at Comcast between Dec. 16 and Jan. 6 who could see that my name was ‘whore’ and they did nothing about it,” Swano said.

But once the matter went viral and could influence regulators contemplating Comcast’s buyout of Time Warner Cable, Comcast got serious enough to write about the incident on its blog.

“We have apologized to our customer for this unacceptable situation and addressed it directly with the employee who will no longer be working on behalf of Comcast,” wrote Charlie Herrin, senior vice president of customer experience.

Swano does not believe it is an isolated incident.

“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,” she said. “That says there are probably millions of us out there who Comcast employees have renamed. We need to find all of them.”

The American Customer Satisfaction Index pegged Time Warner Cable as the nation’s most unloved company in 2014, with its Internet service rated 236th out of 236 companies in customer satisfaction, and its TV service rated 235th. Comcast Corp.’s Xfinity Internet service placed 234th out of 236 and its TV service landed at 232 in the list released in May.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Another Comcast customer-service gaffe 2-1-15.flv[/flv]

CNN talks with the customer Comcast called an “a**hole” on their bill after the family dared to downgrade their cable service. (1:53)

Buy a vocal supporter for your merger deal.

The Los Angeles Times published a piece this week noting that the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger does have its supporters:

To be sure, dozens of groups also support the proposed Comcast merger, including the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Orange County Business Council, the L.A. County Economic Development Council and the National Urban League. Television networks including Ovation, Hallmark Channel and Starz also support the deal.

But the article never informs readers the groups in support of the transaction all have direct financial ties to Comcast, Time Warner Cable, or both cable companies. It would only be news if these groups opposed the merger.

Stop the Cap! has found almost no support for the merger deal among independent organizations that are not on the payroll of either merger partner. The myriad of civil rights organizations, trade associations, and non-profit groups penning letters to regulators supporting the deal are nearly all recipients of contributions from Comcast or Time Warner.

Comcast is notorious for capitalizing on their charitable corporate giving by mailing advocacy packages to donor recipients that urge support for the company’s public policy and corporate agendas. Comcast even includes sample letters a group can use to create their own letter of support, which explains why so many are nearly identical.

Although Comcast never threatens to cut off groups that don’t follow through, the company does know who sent letters and who did not, as they all become part of the public record.

In less than 30 minutes, Stop the Cap! was able to trace direct economic ties between Comcast and/or Time Warner Cable and the groups the LA Times story mentions. Readers deserve to know this information and it should have been included in the story.

Let us review:

The LA Chamber of Commerce: Time Warner Cable is a “Diamond Club Member,” which the Chamber claims represents the “largest member investors.”

The Orange County Business Council includes a Time Warner Cable executive on its Board of Directors and is a major “investor” in the group.

Not only is Time Warner Cable on the executive committee of the LA Economic Development Council, it also serves on the group’s board of governors. Comcast is also a member.

The National Urban League advocates in favor of almost everything Comcast wants, no doubt because the organization that sold out to big corporate donors long ago is also on Comcast’s payroll. The group has received at least $12 million in in-kind contributions from Comcast, as well as receiving checks for more than 70 local chapter projects. Comcast’s executive vice president David Cohen has sat on the Urban League’s board of trustees since 2008. In addition, the Comcast Foundation, headed by Cohen, gave the National Urban League and some of its more than 100 affiliates almost $2 million from 2012 to 2013, according to an analysis of IRS tax filings by the Center for Public Integrity.

As for Ovation, Hallmark Channel and Starz — they are all cable networks dependent on carriage agreements with the nation’s first (Comcast) and second-largest (Time Warner Cable) cable operators for their economic survival.

Phillip “I Want My Money Back” Dampier

For months, Time Warner Cable has deployed its legal team to prevent public interest groups from gaining access to the company’s exhibit of rural broadband buildout plans it had for New York, sent confidentially to the Public Service Commission as part of its proposal to merge with Comcast.

“This information would be difficult and costly for a competitor to compile, such that disclosure would significantly harm Time Warner Cable’s competitive advantage,” Time Warner Cable’s lawyers complained to regulators handling the case. “To allow competitors to have access to this information before Time Warner Cable has had a chance to market customers for which it speculatively built the line would not only negate any competitive advantage, it would allow its competitors to reap the benefits of Time Warner Cable’s investment, causing substantial competitive and financial injury to Time Warner Cable.”

“The compilation of information on all the Time Warner Cable New York deployments, distances, and passings into one document would be of enormous value to a competitor,” the lawyers added. “This information could not be developed independently by competitors, and any estimates developed through publicly available data or data from third-party sources, if possible at all, would be expensive and burdensome to assemble, and less accurate than the data provided in Exhibit 46. […] Therefore, disclosure of the compilation of information on the New York Rural Builds would cause substantial competitive injury to Time Warner Cable, and should be granted exception from disclosure.”

One might expect the mighty Exhibit 46 to contain all of Time Warner’s deepest secrets — secrets that if made public would hand the “competition” the keys to the cable kingdom.

Despite the haughty demands that such information was not to be shared with the public, Stop the Cap! secured our copy of the “top-secret” Exhibit 46 (and here is a copy for you as well).

After reviewing it, it quickly became clear the only thing Time Warner Cable intended to keep secret is how little expansion (and money) the company is devoting to rural New York. The nine-page spreadsheet shows Time Warner spent $5.3 million of New York’s money to expand service to, at most, 5,320 homes or businesses that had no access to cable before. The largest beneficiary of this expansion was the rural (and more affluent than its neighbors) town of Grafton, in Rensselaer County, where 1,152 homes now have access to Time Warner Cable if they want it. An additional 875 homes in Carlisle, Schoharie County now have access as well. Despite dire warnings from Time Warner, “competitors” are hardly rushing to the scene to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the cable company, which is the only provider of broadband service for many of these residents.

As for the rest of upstate New York, Exhibit 46 offers about as much relevance to “competitors” as it does to the rural residents still being bypassed by the cable company. Most of the entries show Time Warner’s expansion projects reached fewer than 10 homes in any particular area. In a large number of those instances, the expansion ended up serving just one additional home or business.

Some examples:

• Town of Clarence, Erie County – 4 homes or businesses
• Town of Henrietta, Monroe County – 1
• Town of East Bloomfield, Ontario County – 22
• Town of Paris, Oneida County – 1
• Town of Manheim, Herkimer County – 1
• Town of Kirkwood, Broome County – 7
• Town of Tupper Lake, Franklin – 116
• Town of Gouverneur, St. Lawrence County – 29
• Town of Brookfield, Madison County – 139
• Town of Jefferson, Schoharie County – 3
• Town of Big Flats, Chemung County – (either 2 or 4 – the entry is duplicated)
• Town of Pompey, Onondaga County – 1

Of the 5,320 homes or businesses now provided access to Time Warner service, 4,104 were subsidized up to 75 percent by the State of New York. Just 1,216 locations were apparently reached exclusively at Time Warner Cable’s own expense.

New Yorkers paid most of the bill because Time Warner Cable couldn’t find $5.3 million in their company coffers to bring broadband to rural residents. But Time Warner Cable could find $80 million to cover the golden parachute compensation package available to just one employee – CEO Robert Marcus, if the company is successfully sold to Comcast for around $45 billion.

Priorities.

No wonder Time Warner Cable’s attorneys fought so hard to keep the “expansion” effort a secret.