Did Comcast's Infamous Customer Service Call Open The Company Up To Legal Troubles For Lying About Speeds?

from the questions-to-ponder... dept

So, last week, that customer service call between Ryan Block and a Comcast "retention specialist" who refused to take "cancel the damn service" for an answer went viral. Comcast has since apologized, said it was investigating, and insisted that the call was "not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives." I doubt many people actually believe that -- but it may be even more serious than most people realize.

That's because, throughout the call, the nameless representative keeps insisting that Comcast's broadband is the fastest. And that's not true. Which raises some potentially serious questions about Comcast directly misleading customers.

“You’re not interested in the fastest Internet in the country?” the rep asked goadingly. “Why not?”

Were it true, it would be a convincing bit of rhetoric. The problem is, Comcast is not the fastest Internet service provider in the United States -- at least, not according to the most recent survey from Speedtest.net and PC Magazine. Published in September 2013, the survey ranks Comcast the third fastest broadband provider, behind Midcontinent Communications at No. 2 and Verizon FiOS at No. 1. “Verizon FiOS continues to set the pace for Internet speed in the United States,” the magazine wrote.

IBTimes asked a Comcast PR person, who insisted that the company does not claim to be the fastest internet in the country, nor does it train its reps to make that claim. But it's undeniable that the guy said exactly that many, many times during the call, and it sure sounded like it was coming from a script that he'd read pretty damn often. The report also notes that the guy repeatedly called Comcast the "number 1 rated" provider, but that's equally questionable. IBTimes did call up pretending to be a potential customer and couldn't get any other reps to repeat the "fastest internet in the country" line -- suggesting that it might not be on a script -- but it is worth noting that they were talking to a different type of rep. Block was being handled by special "customer retention" specialists -- so it might be more interesting to see if those guys have that line in their script. Though, at this point, I'd imagine Comcast has pretty carefully scrubbed those scripts.

Filed Under: customer service, fastest internet, ryan block, truth in advertising
Companies: comcast