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Comcast Employees Change Customer Names To 'Dummy' and Other Insults 262

An anonymous reader writes: According to customer bills and screenshots submitted to and reported by blogger Chris Elliot at BoardingArea, Comcast employees have repeatedly changed the names of customers to insults like "dummy," "w***e," "a*****e," and "b***h." Elliott notes although reasons and consequences for this behavior are unknown, "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." Comcast has apologized and is looking at ways to prevent it from happening in the future.
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Comcast Employees Change Customer Names To 'Dummy' and Other Insults

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    What is a w***e ?

    • w***e ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:44PM (#48947629)

      white

    • Re:w***e ? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:47PM (#48947647)

      RTFA you first posting whore.

    • A very large marine mammal.
    • Sometimes the world gets more tolerant, sometimes less tolerant. The word is 'whore' and not even the Parent's Television Council [wikipedia.org] thinks it needs to be censored.

      And I'm sure the names 'dummy' and 'asshole' do apply to some of the customers. [trenchescomic.com] And whore, for that matter, in a literal sense.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        My sympathies are with the Comcast tech support on this one. As bad as Comcast can be, which is at least 300 milli-Hitlers bad, the tail-end of the worst people to call customer support can be worse still. Or just too stupid to be allowed to own a computer.

        • Re:w***e ? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:17PM (#48948207) Homepage Journal

          Sure, some people who call for support are frustratingly inept or just act like assholes. I get that. Sure, a support person may feel a need to vent by the water cooler. Fine and dandy.

          But, these support assholes are changing the customer name in the database such that the bills go out addressing customers as "asshole" or "whore". That is beyond unprofessional. Perhaps their paychecks should be made out to "dumbass", or "fuck head". Fair's fair.

          • Wait, wait, are you saying that 2 wrongs don't make a right?! But what if the other person is a total _____, that changes it... right?

            If you made out their paycheck to "fuck head" they would be happy. That is hostile enough that even if they somehow didn't have a lawsuit, they could quit and still get unemployment. There are few situations where that applies, but writing pejoratives on the paycheck would tend to make it easier to prove a hostile work environment.

            People doing this are usually trying to get f

            • by dryeo ( 100693 )

              Quitting normally means you absolutely don't get unemployment, so there is no motivation for the lazy to quit instead of taking their chances on getting fired.

              It's lazy to not want to be abused? I've had fucking abusive jobs before and I quit because it wasn't worth $3.50 an hour to get abused. Luckily back then there were enough jobs that I could be picky but this idea that people should put up with abuse or they're lazy is bullshit.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Well, this is simple. If I get a bill addressed to "asshole", then it is clearly not to me. (My name is different.) So it goes unpaid. And they will not be able to collect (by collecting agency/authorities) until they fix the name either.

            And when they eventually fix the name, they can't add surcharges for late payment - I never got any bill on time . . .

            • Well, this is simple. If I get a bill addressed to "asshole", then it is clearly not to me. (My name is different.) So it goes unpaid. And they will not be able to collect (by collecting agency/authorities) until they fix the name either.

              And when they eventually fix the name, they can't add surcharges for late payment - I never got any bill on time . . .

              That will be cold comfort when they trash your credit rating.

        • The users have no power over the workers, and the workers have real power over the users. The users receive real harm by many known, documented actions of comcast workers. Therefore, it is clear, without going into the details, that the users have very limited capability to do evil to the workers, and the workers have a disproportionately larger capability to do evil to the users.

          Even if you convinced me that users are more evil by nature than the comcast workers, the comcast workers would still be the ones

      • There are plenty of terms that might not merit censoring in general speech but still would be considered insulting, you insensitive clod!
      • Re:w***e ? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jd2112 ( 1535857 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:20PM (#48947853)

        Sometimes the world gets more tolerant, sometimes less tolerant. The word is 'whore' and not even the Parent's Television Council [wikipedia.org] thinks it needs to be censored.

        It's the most vile insult imaginable. They are comparing their customers to the congressmen that Comcast is bribing, er, lobbying.

      • And I'm sure the names 'dummy' and 'asshole' do apply to some of the customers. [trenchescomic.com] And whore, for that matter, in a literal sense.

        So it was you

    • by grcumb ( 781340 )

      What is a w***e ?

      Wylie, as in Coyote.

      I got Ariadne as well, but b***h....

  • by Dartz-IRL ( 1640117 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:45PM (#48947633)

    Is Comcast a real company, or just an Onion-like parody of one?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Its not a real company, its a monopoly.. so fuck you what are you gonna do about any of it?

      • Monopoly? In most places, they face competition from the phone company.

        • A monopoly can have competition, what makes it a monopoly is that it's big enough to either not care about the competition or big enough to effectively control the market. And in most places Comcast doesn't care about the customers because they are effectively the only choice for television and/or internet. So there are a couple of satellite providers but Comcast ignores them; maybe AT&T has a lower speed internet and half finished television service, but that can be ignored, and in a few places maybe

    • Is Comcast a real company, or just an Onion-like parody of one?

      Are you asking because of the quality of their Customer Service or actual service?

    • they are playing you all for suckers and trying to shoot you off the couch. accede to the force, cut the cord, and stream.

    • Given some of the stories I've seen from Comcast employees, it's an extremely demoralizing place to work. Not too surprising they'd do things like this.
    • Comcast hates their customers. News at 11.
    • Uh, Comcast did announce - in the linked announcement in the summary - that the person in question would no longer be working for them. What else do you expect them to do, aside from apologizing?
    • Comcast is the cable TV provider of most systems from Maine to New Jersey, and is attempting to merge with Time Warner Cable.

  • Region? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jythie ( 914043 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:46PM (#48947637)
    I wonder if anyone has looked into which region this might be happening in.

    Comcast has undergone some significant growing pains since, while in theory they are one big company, in reality they have a maze of poorly connected systems left over from the hundreds of smaller ISPs and cable providers they bought up over the last decade or two. Some of these systems have better controls (and auditing) on them than others, and each absorbed company has its own corporate culture and oversight.
    • I wish someone said that every time when Sony is in the spotlight and the SonyBMG rootkit scandal comes up.
    • "they have a maze of poorly connected systems left over from the hundreds of smaller ISPs and cable providers they bought up over the last decade or two."

      They may be eaten by a grue. If we're lucky.

    • I wonder if anyone has looked into which region this might be happening in. Comcast has undergone some significant growing pains since, while in theory they are one big company, in reality they have a maze of poorly connected systems left over from the hundreds of smaller ISPs and cable providers they bought up over the last decade or two. Some of these systems have better controls (and auditing) on them than others, and each absorbed company has its own corporate culture and oversight.

      According to the link to Comcast's apology, this happened in Spokane, WA. Does that tie in w/ your theory?

  • by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:46PM (#48947643)

    ... I'd give them pet names. Like "Mr Muggles" or "smeegle"... just calling people ahole... come on. That's what kids say their name is in RPGs when they don't care... which is always.

    A more interesting subject... when you're playing a single player RPG do you ever care what your name is? I mean... half the time I put in nonsense names but it is never meaningful. I might as well be entering in "asshole"...

    • Quite apropos. Dealing with Comcast CS is very much like playing an RPG with a wicked DM. If only one could muster a vorpal blade to dispatch them altogether.

    • A more interesting subject... when you're playing a single player RPG do you ever care what your name is?

      Yes. If I'm playing a game which doesn't suck, I try give my character a good name.

      If I'm playing a game which sucks, I still name my characters rude things. Got to get your chuckles somewhere. Lunar was made better by seeing "biatch, be strong"

    • Some games actually use your character's name as a random seed for the rest of the game.
  • by messymerry ( 2172422 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:48PM (#48947655)
    I would like to suggest that the lower level employees are merely aping the culture of management. We have a global epidemic of bad corporate manners and of course, occasionally evidence of these bad manners will leak out. All of this can be chronicled back to when they bifurcated the client base into "customers" and "consumers". Customers get helped, consumers get slapped around, called names, and abused. Just sayin'''
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, 2015 @02:50PM (#48947671)

    dummy
    whore
    asshole
    bitch

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      One of the few times an AC can spend its whole post cursing and not be labeled a troll.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:01PM (#48947725)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Verizon is not building out FIOS. They're running as fast as possible away from anything hard connections to sites that aren't cell towers.

    • There is no competition because the local governments in most of the areas Comcast services has given them a government-approved monopoly. The market has nothing to do with this because the government has deliberately eliminated market forces.
    • Except - Comcast has signed exclusivity deals with those towns and won't let you build or make it prohibitively expensive to build there.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:05PM (#48947759)
    This would get you fired once caught. At least at the Beaverton, OR call center I worked at.

    Now why would a bottom tier employee do something like this? Probably because management treats you like crap, corporate wants numbers and management is there to make sure you are on the phone with as little time between calls as possible (you are timed on everything...). They want you to take as many calls as you can by making them quick. They want you to suck up to customers too. On the other hand, they don't want you to give customers a god damn dime.

    The customers that have this stuff written about them? Odds are that they're a problem customer that calls frequently. You get those. People who demand moon from you. Sometimes they believe that you have the power to set company policy when in fact we have the least power in the entire organization (our bathroom break times/frequency were monitored). People that believe you have a personal stake in making their connection suck and actually fixing it is the last thing you want to do. It's quite the opposite, we want to fix the problem with a smile on both ends and have a pleasant conversation then move on to the next nice person. Being screamed at actually makes our job loathsome. People who refuse to help you in any way when trying to troubleshoot an issue. People who call you a liar when it's obviously a problem on their side. People who think you're in India and berate you for being a stupid foreigner and treat you with zero respect. Doctors and lawyers are the worst in that arena, even if they know you're American they feel that they know more than you do about your job and you're some shiftless loser lackey barely able to answer a phone. The doctors like this even demand you call them "Dr. SoAndSo" because that is their title. The power trippers like to scream at you and tell you that you're losing them hundreds of dollars per hour, but they refuse to upgrade to $99/mo. business class service where we could have sent a technician out 24/7. Nope, saving hudreds of dollars per hour isn't worth tens of dollars per month more on a billing statement.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Absolutely right! At VCC, we took pride in getting things done, even when management decided that technical support included sales. If I wanted to be a sales rep, I'd have been on the other side of the building working on commission. But I wanted to "fix broken stuff", but management figured that everyone including the janitor should be selling.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Doctors are the worst in that arena, even if they know you're American they feel that they know more than you do about your job and you're some shiftless loser lackey barely able to answer a phone. The doctors like this even demand you call them "Dr. SoAndSo" because that is their title. The power trippers like to scream at you

      Posting as anon, for my safety... but as a hospital IT employee, I can totally attest to this. Doctors are the most demanding and entitled people I've ever met. Most nurses on the other hand are quite civil and reasonable. Only occasionally will I have contact with a "bitch" nurse.

    • by jockm ( 233372 )

      Here is the thing, you are probably right that some of these abuses may be caused in reaction to difficult customers, but who knows if that is the only reason? In my own experience people who pull crap like that may start out needing a reason, but may well escalate to doing it to anyone they please. I recall once I subscribed to a magazine and filled out nothing more than name and address; only to see my name changed to Jockitch because it amused some random person.

      But here is my larger point: who cares?

      • But here is my larger point: who cares? Yes people can be difficult, they may be jerks, or worse; but this kind of crap is never justified.

        You don't have to endorse "going postal" to consider that it may be a symptom of workplace problems in the industry. Likewise you don't have to endorse this sort of thing to care about addressing the causes of it, mainly the poor policies of comcast making their support employees miserable.

    • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @06:02PM (#48948613) Homepage Journal

      At least one of the customers that got called asshole did nothing more than insist on cancelling a premium option on their cable service. Her 'offense' was actually wanting the option cancelled.

      As for the rest, for better or worse, these people are the only people reachable and so their job is to listen to the complaints. I do try to avoid screaming, but when I tell you there is no signal on the line at all anywhere on my street, I do not want to hear "reboot your computer" or I can't ping your modem, please be home between Monday and Thursday of next week so I can send someone who doesn't have any equipment to fix the actual problem (yes, paraphrased). Of course you can't ping my modem, your network is down. Apparently they haven't been provided any training at all and can't even look up other customers in my neighborhood so they can try pinging their modems.

      Yes, it's the management's fault that they don't even have that very basic knowledge and necessary tools, but since they can't or won't put a manager on the phone (probably a matter of policy), all I can do is ask them to take dictation into a note on the account.

      "Human Shield" has never been a pleasant job title, but it's the one that fits their role in the company more often than not.

    • by sribe ( 304414 )

      ...you're some shiftless loser lackey barely able to answer a phone.

      Yep.

    • by bmo ( 77928 )

      " It's quite the opposite, we want to fix the problem with a smile on both ends and have a pleasant conversation then move on to the next nice person."

      You haven't been the target of Comcast's "customer retention" have you?

      I scheduled an install, and further discussion in the day with my SO made me cancel it. She had dealt with Comcast in the past and hates them with a passion. As a result, I had to cancel the installation. Rather than just cancel the installation, they fobbed me off on Customer Retention

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:07PM (#48947771)

    seriously, this is a news story, use the fucking words they fucking wrote you fucking fucks. worse yet, they were used in quotes meaning it's literally a misquote.

  • by ZipK ( 1051658 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:16PM (#48947829)

    Comcast has apologized and is looking at ways to prevent it from happening in the future.

    How about if Comcast offers better customer service, so their customers don't get so angry? Given how bad their customer service is today, "better" is really low-hanging fruit.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:21PM (#48947857)

    Anyone who explodes here in rage probably never worked in support. You get your share of assholes. Actually, you get more than your share of assholes. Because you are in the mind of some people the source and reason of everything that ever befouled them. If you treat the customer support badly, don't expect good service. Your 5 bucks a month are not paying his paycheck, your call is not his reason to exist and you are essentially of no particular interest to said customer service rep. He's there to HELP you. With a problem that may or may not be caused by you, but one that absolutely certainly was not caused by him or her.

    I can only guess what happened here. My guess is that Comcast suits forced support to be nice to even the most obnoxious waste of oxygen calling, and this is their only outlet. If you ask me, a very, very tame reaction. I've seen people actually resort to physical violence.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:37PM (#48947947) Journal

      Anyone who explodes here in rage probably never worked in support. You get your share of assholes. Actually, you get more than your share of assholes.

      Do you know there are systems that listen to customers on hold, and if they seem angry, puts them to the front of the queue?

      People in support encourage that behavior, reward it, by doing things for people when they get angry. They reward anger, even when not talking to anyone! As a result, people pretend to be angry. I know a guy, who, I've never seen get angry ever.......but when he called support once, I saw him pretend to be angry. Because that gets results.

      • I highly doubt that any supporter ever wanted such a system in place. If they implemented such a system, irate people would go to the back of the queue, infinitely. For the next, say, 5-6 years.

        It's management that rewards such behaviour. Not support.

    • I've seen people actually resort to physical violence.

      In remote support? Exactly how does that work?

    • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:46PM (#48948033) Homepage Journal

      Because you are in the mind of some people the source and reason of everything that ever befouled them. If you treat the customer support badly, don't expect good service.

      "Hi, I'm the lowest-level support guy, I've got this menu I have to go down before I give up and connect you to someone who understands your problem."

      "Let's start. Unplug the modem, wait 60 seconds, and plug it back in. Does that solve your problem?"

      (Several steps later)

      "Okay, now unplug the ethernet cable from the modem and computer, switch it end-for-end, and plug it back in again. Does that solve your problem?(*)"

      This is what I have to go through before I can talk to someone about their system bouncing an E-mail I sent.

      Your 5 bucks a month are not paying his paycheck, your call is not his reason to exist and you are essentially of no particular interest to said customer service rep. He's there to HELP you. With a problem that may or may not be caused by you, but one that absolutely certainly was not caused by him or her.

      It's a psychology thing. When you need to give someone instructions or ask for help or whatever, you have to communicate the situation and what you want done.

      I've never had a problem with level 2 support, they understand the problem, ask some pertinent questions ("but you can otherwise access the internet OK, yes?") and fix the problem.

      If the level 1 person continually misunderstands what you are describing, misdiagnoses the problem, or stubbornly avoids dealing with your problem getting angry is a natural consequence. They are wasting your time, and doing it on purpose.

      It's OK to get angry at stupid, stubborn people.

      (*) Not making this up. An actual Comcast level-1 support request.

      • If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

        But aside of that, these crib sheet supporters exist for a reason. Their existence does not only serve the purpose to waste your time, because that could be accomplished even cheaper than the support monkeys are. By keeping you in the holding loop.

        No, the reason is that these utterly and absolutely moronic questions they ask that make you wonder whether they think your IQ measures in the single digits actually solve most tech support problems. Yes, people ARE that stupid.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If you treat the customer support badly, don't expect good service.

      Absolutely. Be a nice person and you'll usually get better results. HOWEVER, it can be very difficult to remain calm when you run into an incompetent support person and most of us have at one time or another. You know the person reading from a script, who doesn't listen to what you are telling them, who is under orders to not really be helpful, incentivized to get you off the phone as fast as possible and doesn't speak the language very well after you have been transferred between 5 different departments

  • The fix is almost certainly going to be as problematic as no doubt they'll make it harder to change the name like requiring admin rights or having some sort of language filter. The former is more likely and naturally the result will be 'and Comcast has been screwing up the spelling of my name for six months, 3 supervisors promised to fix it, and yet here we are!'
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:34PM (#48947933)
    this happens at every call center. They're high stress jobs with low pay. This kind of thing happens. I knew a project where the entire case was 75% ID-10T tickets. You don't usually even get the chance to fire the people. They're doing this stuff because their lives are a mess, they can't reliable get to work on time, and they know they've only got a little time left before they get fired for their next tardy.

    A better question is why the hell would anyone care? There is no way in hell this has any bearing on Comcast's merger plans.
  • I have been quite puzzled regarding some of the insulting names I've been seeing on my junk mail.

  • "... Comcast has apologized and is looking at ways to prevent it from happening in the future..."?

    How about instead of fixing the technical problem that allowed an employee to change the customer's name, they address the fundamental deeper issue that their business treats customers like the enemy, incentivizes employees to harass customers, and looks for ways to screw them at every turn?

    That would be "a way to prevent it in the future", but what are the odds of that being fixed instead? Hmm..
    • "... Comcast has apologized and is looking at ways to prevent it from happening in the future..."?.

      An upper manager at Comcast contacted a lower manager in Public and Press Relations, who promptly ordered an assistant to hastily look through pre-fab corporate apology phrases and hash together an official but very brief written response that 1) acknowledges that mistakes were made without admitting to actual knowledge of who made what mistake, if any, 2) appears to take responsibility for whatever went wrong without actually accepting any responsibility for anything, and 3) indicates that some form of app

  • by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:44PM (#48948005) Homepage Journal
    Last time I called them to update my expiring credit card number, I didn't even have to talk to a human being. It was all handled by a computer that was easy to understand, quick and didn't try to upsell me on any Comcast bullshit in the process. I gotta say I like Comcast a lot more when I don't have to talk to anyone there.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:13PM (#48948191)

    I had my own run-in with Comcast support recently.

    We're a customer of theirs. And something is screwed up in their phone tree such that I *always* get disconnected when calling any of their #s, right before getting transferred to a live human. Even if a rep was transferring me, as soon as my call was associated to my account, my call would get dropped when being transferred. Our business depends on internet, so this is more than just an annoyance.

    I constantly pleaded for help via Twitter and email for ~2mo before I convinced someone to contact me. The support person I talked to was probably the worst support I've ever had. She acknowledged that it was a "known issue", but that there was no timeline for a solution and no way to provide me with status updates.

    More surprisingly, she informed me me that some online chat option was sufficient for getting Concast assistance when I needed it. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to use online chat if our business internet connection goes down. I told her that wasn't an adequate solution. She told me that it was. I told her I wanted to speak to her manager. She refused ("I can't put anyone else on the call"). All the while, I heard her "gaming" the support notes system ("Okay, let me just record this.. I informed the customer of the chat option, and the customer opted not to use it").

    Think about this. We're a somewhat large customer, and their team isn't the least concerned that I have no method to contact them at all.

    We'd switch to another provider if one was available. And I'd at least dismiss it as a fluke if it wasn't so fitting with all the other stories out there.

    There's a real problem at Comcast.

    • We'd switch to another provider if one was available

      There is your problem. They have you by the short curlys and they know it. Doesn't make it right but customers without options tend to get abused.

      What I would do after a conversation like that is take it to your Public Utilities Commission if possible. That usually gets their attention. Another option is to call and ask for their legal department (after consulting your own) after very completely documenting what has gone on. That also tends to focus their attention. You also have the option of filing

  • by Asgard ( 60200 ) * <jhmartin-s-5f7bbb@toger.us> on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:43PM (#48948295) Homepage

    It seems improbable that a 'Enterprise' Customer Relationship Management system that Comcast must be using wouldn't have a detailed history on account changes, such as who submitted a name change. There should be no mystery as to who is changed the names.

    Unless someone has hacked in to the underlying database and is bypassing the business logic, in which case Comcast has a serious problem on their hands.

    • by alcmena ( 312085 )
      I don't know... I almost had the power cut at my house because some idiot called up and 1) asked to turn on power at my address and then 2) called back a few days later saying, "oops, I gave the wrong address, please turn power on at my correct address instead." So clearly, the power company went back, looked at the long-running multi-year record that I had with them, figured out the mistake, and silently fixed things; right? No... They marked the account as canceled and promptly mailed a letter saying
  • by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:45PM (#48948307) Homepage

    Tech goons are tech goons, and you better believe it, if you're any of these colorful adjectives, they're going to toss it around to each other for a chuckle.

    What do you expect? Employees always make fun of ***** customers. It's just a fact of life. I know Comcast in general sucks at customer support, but face it folks. I'd be willing bet most tech support call centers, regardless of the product they're supporting pass around stories with lots of colorful adjectives about you.

    Sticking it in your internal support database is a little crass and over the top perhaps, but.. not surprised. When you're the worst customer support in American, all bets are off, go the extra mile to alienate the people paying you.

  • "one thing is clear: At least one person, and maybe more than one person, really doesn't like Comcast's customers"

    More like one person doesn't like Comcast's managers and is passing it on to the customers.
  • Well, at least names didn't get changed to things like "CowboyNeal" or "CmdrTaco" !

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