Comcast's Lobbyists Hand Out VIP Cards To Skip the Customer Service Wait

An anonymous reader writes: A lengthy story about how David Gregory lost his job hosting Meet the Press holds an interesting tidbit: Comcast's team of lobbyists regularly hands out VIP cards to influential (and influence-able) people in Washington that lets them bypass normal customer service and fast-track their support problems. "Its government-affairs team carried around 'We'll make it right' cards stamped with 'priority assistance' codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service. A Comcast spokeswoman says this practice isn't exclusive to DC; every Comcast employee receives the cards, which they can distribute to any customer with cable or internet trouble. Nevertheless, efforts like this one have surely helped Comcast boost its standing inside the Beltway and improve its chances of winning regulatory approval for its next big conquest: merging with the second-largest cable provider in the country, Time Warner Cable." (The David Gregory article is worth a look on it's own, too; it shows how Comcast's purchase of NBC has led to interference in NBC's attempts at real journalism.)

Comments

Ob XKCD

[plover]

I hope the secret code is 'shibboleet'.

Re:To hide the bad service regular people get?

[Trailer Trash]

So they know their service is crappy. But instead of improving it, which would require actual work, they hide it from the people who make decisions. Every person that accepts one of these cards and does not put it online for public use is corrupt. But I guess being corrupt is normal in the US.

I spent 10-15 hair-pulling minutes yesterday with my 71 year old stepfather (whom I otherwise love dearly) as I, well, let me start from the beginning.

He called and said "We've broken flash on both Macs and can't watch youtube videos now. I've installed it twice on your mom's Mac but it didn't help."

So, I explained that 1) they didn't break anything, flash quits working automatically when it's outdated and waits for you to update it and 2) he didn't "install" it, he merely downloaded it and these two actions are not the same thing.

He apparently couldn't figure out where to download it from and I didn't want him to wander to some web site that would purport to give him flash while giving him something else so I sent him the official link from Adobe. So he went to that link.

I did, too, just so I would know what he would see. I asked if it popped up the box about downloading flash and he assured me that it didn't. He started getting frustrated around this point. (Note that it actually had downloaded and he hadn't paid attention to what he clicked). It was here that he claimed that his only option was to pay $9.99/month for "something called PS and LR - I have no idea what that is" (it's "Photoshop and Light Room" for those wondering).

I'll spare you some pain and just say that he finally found the download, which is in some popup thing on the dock at the bottom. He couldn't figure out how to open it and claimed that when he clicked it it wouldn't do anything. I tried to get him to drag it to the desktop but it finally just opened. I doubt he clicked on it the first 10 times he claimed that he did.

Now, at this point he is looking at the installer for the easiest piece of software in the world to install. He cannot proceed as there is no option to proceed. I ask him to tell me what he sees and (it's different than mine - no idea why - maybe because I have Yosemite) he says something about some license and there's a quit button. Oh, wait, there's an install button but it's black and I can't use it. So he clicks "quit" and says "well, it went away and isn't doing anything".

I asked him what he did and he said "I clicked the quit button, I couldn't do anything else and that doesn't seem to be doing anything".

I convince him to open it back up. I tell him there has to be something else to click. Then he says "there's a bunch of stuff!". I ask him if the browser is open and he replies "well, I don't know but there's a bunch of stuff." I suspect that he's clicked on the license stuff and it's showing it in a browser and he then begins reading the section headings for the license. I tell him "you're in the browser, you need to close it" but he's frustrated and pissed at this point so he begins talking louder over me as he continues to read section headings and then starts to tell me the url. I tell him again "you're in the browser and need to close it" and he finally listens and closes it.

At this point my blood pressure is "high over dangerous". He's back at the window where he can only quit. I ask him "isn't there a box to check to say you've agreed to their license?" and he finally says "oh, yeah" and clicks it and then "I can click install now". I actually expect it to not work but he clicks it and it works.

I cannot get my 10 minutes back.

Imagine that over and over and over and over again for 8 hours.

It doesn't make sense for Comcast to put experienced tech support people on the front lines because dealing with crap like that doesn't require a lot of knowledge. Comcast has a pretty good monitoring system and they know when their stuff isn't working 99% of the time. Most of their calls are probably