Comcast Drops Spurious Fees When Customer Reveals Recording

An anonymous reader writes In yet another example of the quality of Comcast's customer service, a story surfaced today of a Comcast customer who was over-charged for a service that was never provided. At first, the consumer seemed to be on the losing end of a customer service conversation, with Comcast insisting that the charges were fair. But then, the consumer whipped out a recording of a previous conversation that he had with another Comcast representative in which not only was the consumer promised that he wouldn't be charged for services not rendered, but the reason why was explained. Suddenly Comcast conceded, and the fees were dropped. But most telling of all, the Comcast rep implied that she only dropped them because he had taped his previous interaction with Comcast customer service. I wish I had recordings of every conversation that I've ever had with AT&T, the USPS, and the landlord I once had in Philadelphia. Lifehacker posted last year a few tips on the practicality of recording phone calls, using Google Voice, a VoIP service, or a dedicated app. Can anyone update their advice by recommending a good Android app (or iOS, for that matter) designed specifically to record sales and service calls, complete with automated notice?

Comments

Automated notice not necessary here

[sideslash]

In my state, only one party needs to be aware of a recorded conversation, and it's perfectly fine for that to be the person doing the recording.

Re:Automated notice not necessary here

[RenderSeven]

At the expense of being a karma whore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re:Automated notice not necessary here

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It could be better formatted; but our wiki overlords have you covered.

Re: Automated notice not necessary here

[spacefiddle]

IANAL, but look into what happens when you call a place that tells you, "this call may be monitored or recorded for quality blah," which is most of them. If you staying on the line means you consent and they have notice, that likely qualifies as two-party consent.

Re:Automated notice not necessary here

[Anonymous Coward]

and how are you supposed to contact them then?

1. Online chat
2. Email
3. A letter in an envelope

Re: Automated notice not necessary here

[flopsquad]

Off the bat, IAABNQAL (I am almost but not quite a lawyer, took the bar but no results until Oct.) so take this with as many grains of salt as you feel appropriate. This isn't legal advice, etc etc.

The short answer is, this is pretty much unsettled law, but there is good reason to believe that the knowledge and status of the caller (i.e. business vs individual) would matter. The Wiki article cites Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney Inc., 39 Cal. 4th 95 (2006) for the proposition that, at least if one caller is in CA, its stricter two-party law still applies to out-of-state callers trying to (legally, in their own jurisdictions) record phone calls with CA residents. However, that is too broad a generalization.

The defendant in that case was Smith Barney, a national brokerage (corporation) with independently sufficient contacts for CA to exercise personal jurisdiction over it anyway ("SSB 'systematically and continually does business' in California, and SSB does not deny that it maintains numerous offices and does extensive business in this state"). SSB was conversing with clients in CA (two-party), but making and receiving calls in GA (one-party), and the CA Supreme Court found that there were compelling reasons not to let a company doing business in CA escape the CA privacy law, much less a business with offices in CA that could conveniently "outsource" its calls to other states (pretty much gutting the law). On a technical point of law, this was also a ruling reversing the trial court's dismissal of plaintiff's case, merely allowing the case to proceed and not addressing many of SSB's factual arguments (like "hey, this isn't what the legislature meant by 'confidential communication'").

However, look at it from the out-of-state consumer perspective and everything changes. Lets make the easy assumption that you don't have any presence, property, or business dealings in the two-party state of CA. First, from a personal jurisdiction standpoint, if someone from an unknown location (oops it's CA, gotcha!) is calling you in your one-party state, you have not established minimum contacts with California because you did not purposefully avail yourself of CA's laws—you didn't contact CA on purpose!

What if you know they're calling from CA? You're hardly directing any activity at CA by answering the phone. What if you're the one making the call and it's an 800 number to a destination unknown? This happens all the time, on the same day I'll make three calls to customer service and get centers in Illinois, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. Well, you still haven't directed your action at CA if the call winds up there. In all these cases, it would be nigh-impossible for a CA business to make a case against you, because you (almost certainly) didn't establish minimum contacts with California such that the CA courts could exercise its long-arm jurisdiction against you. Even if you had a contract with this company with a CA forum selection clause, it would be a huge stretch; you consented to CA jurisdiction to settle disputes over that contract, you didn't say "I submit to the laws and jurisdiction of California for everything ever."

What if you're a consumer in a one-party state, knowingly calling a number in a two-party state, to discuss business you have with that company? Well, I would wager you're still in the clear, and in fact I record a significant number of customer service calls as I sit in my one-party state, regardless of where the representative is located or what the telephone number is. I do this in order to protect against the abuses in TFA, "forgetful" supervisors, etc., and I do not worry about the wiretapping laws of some distant state. Why? Well, even though they might be able

Re: Automated notice not necessary here

[flopsquad]

I would add, from Kearney:

[B]ecause this case does not involve the isolated recording of a personal telephone call by an out-of-state individual in a nonbusiness setting, or the recording of a phone call by an out-of-state business that has a reasonable, individualized basis for believing that a particular caller is engaged in criminal or wrongful conduct, we have no occasion to determine how the comparative impairment analysis would apply in those or other comparable settings.

I have to record calls for a living...

[jddj]

I do stakeholder and user interviews, and may not be able to predict what telephony equipment I'll find at a site.

I realize you're asking for a smartphone or VOIP app, but what I've come to rely on is the JK Audio QuickTap: http://www.jkaudio.com/quickta... - it can record both sides from virtually ANY corded-handset phone. Sounds great, it's a passive device, so no batteries, no AC, it's little and comes with the adapters you need for a pocket recorder (like the Olympus recorder I use, but works with a PC/Mac input as well...).

This works nearly anyplace, and sounds great. Whatever you do, DO NOT try the Radio Shack device for cheap cheap that claims to do the same thing. The Radio Shack device has a little switch on it. Position 1 is "Suck", and Position 2 is "Suck Differently". You buy this thing and you've hosed yourself.

Full disc: I don't sell these, have no ownership, employment or other stake with JK Audio: they just make tools that work when I desperately need 'em to, and I love 'em.

Re:Legal pemission? THEY GIVE IT!

[Bite The Pillow]

Are you sure of the legal basis of this? Or is it just logic?

Because in my state, the wording means their recording is legal but mine is not. So that makes me think people should not rely on logic for legal matters.

Recording Apps

[SailorSpork]

Here is an article from Lifehacker on how to record incoming calls on your smart phone. It looks hard unless you use Google Voice, and GV only records incoming calls (fear of grey areas around wiretapping laws it seems). Free Android apps seem to record all sound coming in the mic and end up being lower quality recordings.

Re:What about Oregon and Washington?

[aclarke]

I wouldn't even say you need to go that far. "This call may be recorded..." sounds like permission to me. Thanks! I think I WILL record it.

To answer the original poster, I recently switched our home phone to VOIP using voip.ms. I use the iOS app Groundwire to make and receive calls using my mobile phone as one of my methods for using my old land line number. Groundwire has easy one-button recording, with optional beeping to remind the other party that the call is being recorded.

Re:What about Oregon and Washington?

[qbast]

At this point EU is probably closer to original intent of United States than modern USA.

Re:yeah yeah

[Just Some Guy]

I get a choice between Comcast (who works decently enough, as much as I detest their policies) at 50Mbps, or AT&T U-verse at 3Mbps (that's all they could get the modem to train up at). One is more bandwidth than I actually need, but the other isn't enough to handle my telecommuting needs.

Comcast is literally the only ISP available to me with greater than 3Mbps of bandwidth. Given that even the FCC thinks maybe broadband starts at 10Mbps, and that I work in tech and legitimately need decent transfer speeds to do my job, I'm stuck.