Bell customer Leticia Chartier (Photo: Judith Plamondon, QMI Agency)

A Bell Canada customer complaining about a spike in her television and broadband bill from $72 to $105 was called a “slut” and a “bitch” in an email after she didn’t give the representative high marks for the online customer support chat experience.

Leticia Chartier’s new customer promotion apparently expired and her efforts to secure an explanation of her new rate was met by a shrug by Bell’s customer service. The online agent curtly told her to contact a different department. But before terminating the chat, Bell’s representative, identified as Mohamed Boutallaka, suddenly remembered the customer would be invited to score his performance in a survey after the chat window closed.

Chartier told QMI Agency he begged her not to give him a bad grade for his performance.

Chartier responded favorably to his request, or so she thought, scoring his performance “pretty good,” but explaining her rating wasn’t a criticism of the agent’s performance, just his lack of empowerment to help her resolve the issue.

Not good enough.

A few minutes after submitting the survey, the representative dispatched a scathing e-mail to her personal e-mail address on file with Bell.

“You’re a bitch Leticia and a real slut,” read the e-mail, which Chartier provided to QMI Agency.

Chartier immediately contacted Bell to complain about the email, but she says nobody at the company is taking the matter seriously.

“The supervisor who I spoke to on the phone apologized, but she never called me back to follow-up,” Chartier said.

After some research on Facebook, Chartier was reassured to discover Boutallaka works out of Bell’s call center… in Morocco.

“At least I know he won’t come to my place.”

A Bell Canada spokesman stopped short of promising the agent in question would be disciplined or fired. He only promised an internal investigation would begin over the incident.

Moffett

Nearly 20 years after the 1996 Telecom Act deregulated much of the cable industry, the renewed threat of increased consumer protection and oversight by the Federal Communications Commission and the dwindling chance regulators will approve the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable has increased pessimism about guaranteed high cable industry profits on Wall Street.

Craig Moffett, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson has departed from his usual optimism about the prospects of cable industry stocks and downgraded Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications this morning to “neutral,” suggesting the Title II reclassification of broadband could eventually lead to FCC mandated price cuts on broadband after the agency finalizes Net Neutrality regulations.

The cable industry had maintained high hopes for the Republican majority in Congress to trample Net Neutrality and allow the cable industry to continue boosting rates and introducing other pricing schemes including usage-based billing, but Moffett has grown increasingly convinced Republicans cannot override President Obama’s veto power if Congress attempts to change or end FCC oversight over the broadband business.

The cable industry has grown increasingly panicked over a new spirit of activism inside the FCC, particularly after FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler began asserting their “worst-case scenarios” for broadband speed and Net Neutrality. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association has warned Net Neutrality and Title II would stifle innovation. But Moffett fears it will more likely stifle profits.

“It would be naïve to suggest that the implication of Title II, particularly when viewed in the context of the FCC’s repeated findings that the broadband market is non-competitive, doesn’t introduce a real risk of price regulation,” Moffett wrote. “Not tomorrow, of course, so yes, near term numbers won’t change. But terminal growth rate assumptions need to be lowered. Multiples will have to come down.”

Moffett, who had been optimistic about the likely approval of the merger deal between Comcast and Time Warner Cable is much less so today.

His earlier 70-30 odds in favor of the merger are now down to 60-40. The headwind of negative press and the reclassification of broadband to a minimum speed of 25Mbps poses considerable risk the deal will be ruled anti-competitive.

Moffett claims the cable industry was also banking on jacking up prices for Internet access, already a very profitable service, to cover reduced profits from cable television. But now the FCC will be watching.

“In the past, changes to broadband pricing would have been the natural remedy,” Moffett said. “That avenue may be no longer open.”

AT&T Speed Increases to the Press Release are back, and an AT&T installer in Cleveland tells us you probably don’t qualify to get them just yet.

This week, AT&T has announced something less than gigabit broadband (High Speed Internet 75 – up to 75Mbps) for seven of its service areas:

• Augusta, Ga.
• Charleston, S.C.
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Columbus, Ohio
• Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
• Miami, Fla.
• St. Louis, Mo.

“Introductory prices for the new 75Mbps high-speed speed option start as low as $39.95 a month when bundled with our award-winning U-verse TV and/or U-verse Voice services, and only $74.95 per month as a standalone service,” the company said on its consumer blog.

Laying aside the press release, an AT&T lineman in Cleveland tells Stop the Cap! most people should not expect to immediately qualify for the new 75Mbps speeds.

“Most will not be ready for the new 75Mbps tier except those in apartments or condominiums already served by fiber or other enhanced connections,” the technician tells us. “This is a way to quickly boost speeds on existing high-speed capable connections that already qualified for better speeds. AT&T will eventually broaden coverage, but only as we upgrade our network as a normal course of business.”

Stop the Cap! has found some customers in new housing developments and trailer parks where 75Mbps was introduced late last year have been able to sign up for 75Mbps service, but they are not getting the promised speeds.

“They emphasize it is ‘up to’ 75Mbps, but we barely reach 50Mbps here,” said El Paso resident Sam Kessler, who signed up for 75Mbps service in January. “It is better than what we used to get, but if they ever raise our bundled promotional price, we’ll go back to cable I guess.”

Speeds up to 75Mbps were introduced in December in parts of El Paso, Texas; Monterey, Calif.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Toledo, Ohio. AT&T also has plans to expand High Speed Internet 75 availability to additional U-verse markets.

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.

“An Ode To Comcast”
(By Joel Walden)

Oh, Comcast, how you keep my life
From being dull and stable.
I called you several weeks ago
For some internet and cable.

Quicker than molasses
On a brisk December day,
You sent your guy, Armando,
To, eventually, come my way.

Heroically, he strode on in,
Strapped on his carpet booties.
And off he marched, attending
To his internetly duties.

But sadly, he revealed, my dreams
would not unfold as planned.
“Your cable’s all chopped up, you see,
It’s right here in my hand!”

“We’ll send another guy right away.
And in two weeks or more,
Between the hours of noon and eight
He’ll run cable to your door!”

And so the days crawled on.
All my musings went un-tweeted.
My posts went on un-posted.
My cell phone data, near depleted.

At last, the day arrives!
I rise with hopefulness and glee.
For at some unknown time today,
I’ll have internet and TV!

Shoved aside are all my meager plans,
My appointments and my tasks.
My life reduced to waiting
For that mystery hour to pass.

The hours drip and dribble by,
My fingers crossed for luck.
My eyeballs bug, and twitch, and scan,
For some dude in a Comcast truck.

The final hour strikes… then ends!
My diced up cable lay unfixed!
Dried up are all my humble dreams
Of watching YouTube and Netflix!

Enraged, I call, complain, and whine,
As manly as I’m able.
But no pleas, demands, nor whimpering
Would avail me any cable.

I didn’t understand
the service agent’s explanation.
Her foreign accent, while exotic,
Only brought on more frustration.

Something about the cable line
Was too close to a bog,
Or the installer’s shovel was all digital
And all my dirt was analog.

Whatever was the cause,
I sat in impotent defeat.
Doomed to spend forever
Bereft of “likes” or “tweets”.

Perhaps I’d wander through the wild,
Wrap my feet in beaver pelts,
Unable to Google poison ivy,
I’d live with painful bottom welts.

But then, a notion dawned on me
That sent my spirits soaring!
Maybe Comcast treated me this way
To keep my life from being boring!

Maybe all their flops and failures
Were of a grand design
To take away predictability
And free up all my time!

Such incompetence brings whimsy!
Must our lives be so concrete?
Perhaps they’ll string up proper cables?
Or perhaps piñatas filled with meat!

So let us not dwell endlessly
On how much Comcast sucks…
Their neglect and lazy service,
And their non-arriving trucks.

Their apathy’s intentional,
So don’t get mad or nervous.
Just go on and grab those ankles,
It’s all part of that Comcast service!