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California Bill AB 2867 Proposed To Allow You To Cancel Comcast With 'Click Of The Mouse' (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Los Angeles Assemblyman Mike Gatto has introduced a bill that would allow Californians to cancel their internet or cable services online with 'one click.' The bill reads, ''AB 2867 allows Californians to conveniently unsubscribe from a service with a simple click of the mouse,' said Assemblyman Gatto. 'It just makes sense, that if you are able to sign-up for a service online, you should also be able to cancel it the same way.' Rapid advancements in technology grant consumers a wide variety of cable, internet and phone service products from which they may choose, and while companies make it simple to buy or upgrade services, a cancellation request is usually a prolonged ordeal where customers are sometimes pressured into extending their contracts. AB 2867 provides a convenient and consumer-friendly option for Californians to remove unwanted services without a long phone call.'
Bill AB 2867 would in theory spare you from an 18-minute call with a Comcast representative in regard to cancelling your service.
wants a donation from Comcast, et.al.
Seriously, *every* business by law should be required to be cancellable by one-click or similar. There are a number of them that want to spend an hour on the phone listening to the pretty music, hoping to wait you out.
Tells you how odious such "retention practices" are when the ability to quit a business relationship with a corporation without undue burden has to be legislated.
Would this apply equally to:
-- gym memberships?
-- credit cards?
-- cell phone plans?
-- America Online?
Basically, anything where the business model is to rely on your inertia and hassle of cancelling the service, and the high pressure sales tactics to stay when you finally call them up? I constantly find it amazing that there are businesses that survive on this principle...
Last time I had to cancel, I told them it was because I was moving to Singapore. I even got congratulated for having such a cool life, and was wished the best of luck!
Imagine "one click" acccess to
Linux distros without systemD
Firefox without pocket
WIndows 10 without telemetry.
One click access to all of this without the long hacks you need to resort to now.
Seriously, *every* business by law should be required to be cancellable by one-click or similar. There are a number of them that want to spend an hour on the phone listening to the pretty music, hoping to wait you out.
One-click with two-factor authentication, maybe.
You don't want someone who gets the password for a business to be able to cancel the ISP service of a heavy-traffic ecommerce site with one click.
1. Never, NEVER authorize automatic payments from any service provider, ever.
2. Notify the billing department by mail that you're cancelling service. include your full name. billing address, daytime phone number, and account number. request a final bill if applicable
3. if serious about things, send the notification by certified mail.
ignore anything not marked as a final bill. you dont need to call these assclowns and listen to some poor english as a second language wage slave beg you from flashcards not to cancel. and as always, if you should ever run over a Comcast manager in your car make sure to shift into reverse and roll over them again for good measure.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Those CA politicians are damn liars when they lie and claim it only took 18 minutes. That is a bold-face lie. Those CA politicians are bought by Comcast. They take so much money from them. They hate us and want to ruin our lives with Comcast monopolies. That is how those people be. They hate us so much.
I praise Mr. Gatto for the initiative, but I cannot help feel some pity for Americans since it's necessary to have laws that make capitalism work.
In the past, the system was enough to make consumers achieve better value for their money. Now there's a lot of hassle (like that promoted by monopolies) to make sure clients do not get the most value for what they pay -- and instead lock them in so they can be continuously milked as a private herd.
I'd like to find one guy of those who say there's no such things as free lunch and the famous "you get what you pay for". I'm just in doubt if I want to prove he's idiot, since he'll probably be too idiot to understand the facts.
I do agree that cancelling a service should be as easy as signing up for one. The one thing that irritates me is that companies like Comcast are horrible when dealing with a canceling of service. I think most of us have listen to those that record these wonderful Comcast service reps. Who obviously are coached into a lengthy sometime combative tone to keep you. You should not be subjected to anything less than a quick response to your request. The way Comcast treats it's customers is appalling. Hence the need for such legislation Comcast, get a clue.
How long does it take you to write "dear comcast, I hereby cancel my service under contract $NUMBER, regards, ex-customer", and post it? Yes, that stamp is probably a little more than the call, but it saves you from the lip that the "customer retention engineer" is required to give you. Or hey, fax it, maybe using your handy-dandy faxmodem. Comes with free delivery receipt too. So why call?
That never works. When I tried to cancel TiVo by phone, their CSR claimed he was only authorized to suspend accounts, not cancel.
Rather than waste my time and theirs, I sent them a certified letter, and they cancelled my service promptly. Just search around for an address for customer service, or failing that, the legal department.
The last time I cancelled Comcast, I had to return the box, which is another definitive way of terminating business with them, in fact I'm pretty sure a click-to-cancel provision is pointless if you have any equipment.
wants a donation from Comcast, et.al.
No, he wants support from everyone in his district who hates comcast customer service.
The bill has been referred to committee and will die there unless enough people from california who are constitutents of those committee members write in in support. So if you're in CA, see if your legislators sit on the committee responsible for utility regulation and write to them.
Does he favour Intel or AT&T syntax?
to cancel comcast you let your new broadband supplier do it
This one is obvious: Comcast would simply stop online signups! Then they'd be exempt from the law.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I could not find the actual bill, but I wonder if there are any penalties - they might be so small that it makes business sense for Comcast to ignore the law and just pay the fines?
“One click? I eventually had to go down to the basement to find support.”
“That’s the Customer Retention department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the GUI, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on a laptop in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused office with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the NSA.”
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The last time someone like this had a Great idea.. we got the DMCA. .. that's spelled with a "D" not a "Y"
Its always irritated me that you can sign up for any number of services completely online, but cancelling them is a Homeric epic through the gates of Tartarus.
Credit Cards are really, really tightly regulated in how they approach you cancelling. Gym memberships got that way after Bally Fitness got the *bleep* sued out of them by the NY Attorney General (sad we rely so heavily on NYAG's trying to kickstart their political careers to fix consumer law, but I digress). AOL had class action suits up the wazoo that they lost and had to cut the crap out (although if another company picks up the torch a recent law passed by our Republican Congress means they can just force Arbitrage so they nipped that in the bud, oh well. And yes I'm blaming the Republicans. DINOs have some of the blame too but this is still what we get for kickin guys like Grayson out.).
I don't recall having much trouble cancelling a cell phone plan simply because they're constantly raising rates and doing away with the best plans, so they're usually happy to see someone go and get off one of the unlimited or cheap high bandwidth data plans.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Will this infringe on Amazons one-click-to-buy patent? Same principle, just reversed effect...
I can think of a few other companies I'd like to "cancel" out of existence as well.
I'd click cancel on Comcast and instead go to... um... AT&T dial up service? I have no broadband choice!!!
"Rapid advancements in technology grant consumers a wide variety of cable, internet and phone service products from which they may choose" I don't know what planet this guy lives on but but here in the US of A we sure as hell don't have a "wide variety" by any stretch of the imagination. If he considers one cable provider and poorly maintained xDSL lines at the distance limit from the CO "wide variety" then maybe.
That's the way to do it. Don't even think about telling them the truth. You need a reason they can't possibly argue with, and the obvious choice is "moving out of the country".
I had a friend who's parent died and they needed to cancel service. After explaining the situations to the rep, who was very sympathetic, the rep said "No problem canceling, please put your dad on the line so I can verify he wants to cancel." It took multiple calls to finally cancel. Personally, I'd have stopped paying after the first call, filled a Better Business Bureau complaint, and let them sort it out. Or, see if the local TV station is interested in a "Cable company refuses to cancel dead father's account because he can't talk to them..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
punch the monkey and win!!!
I just walked into the comcast customer service store, handed them the equipment and service was canceled in about 2 minutes. Total time was about 10 minutes in the store. What is so hard about that?
like the old lady who went on a rampage due to terrible customer service.
mfwright@batnet.com
I never cancel anything over the phone. The least I will do is send an email. If needed, I walk into a brick and mortar store where they will have to hand over proof of my request.
I want to have proof in the once case where they say it was not done. And I am even giving them the advantage of the doubt that I did not explain it clearly.
Having proof will be so much easier. Even if they do not receive my proof, they will be much more likely to correct any error and refund if needed.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
From the Summary: "It just makes sense, that if you are able to sign-up for a service online, you should also be able to cancel it the same way."
That's just a great principle for most things. I think it would be great if getting divorced was just as easy as getting a marriage license.
Will they change behavior if every customer informs Comcast/ATT "Your call may be recorded and posted on youtube channel" ? And follows up with recording and posting? Will they change behavior if social media clogs their new order phone numbers? (not the cancel order phone numbers)