Comcast Changes Customer’s First Name To “A**hole,” Is Really Sorry

Someone at Comcast thought it would funny to change the customer’s name, but the cable company says it will fire whomever is responsible for this. (Image via Elliott.org)

We know from years of talking to people on the frontlines of customer service and billing that they don’t always have the nicest things to say about customers; you probably wouldn’t either if your day consisted of being yelled at for issues beyond your control. But most people don’t let their distaste for customers boil over to the point where they actually rename a customer “A**hole Brown.”

Granted, Brown is the last name of the customer in this story from consumer advocate Chris Elliott, but her first name is most definitely not related to an anus or any other excrement-connect body part.

And yet, there it is at the top of her Comcast bill, “A**hole Brown,” minus the asterisks of course.

The customer could only surmise that the name change had something to do with her request to bring down her monthly expenses by removing the pay-TV portion of her Comcast package, even though it cost her a $60 fee to cancel. As usually happens in such calls, her cancellation request was escalated to a retention specialist.

(Hopefully not this retention specialist.)

“I was never rude,” she tells Elliott. “It could have been that person was upset because I didn’t take the offer.”

She says she tried to get some sort of explanation and to have her name changed back, but neither the local nor regional Comcast offices were any help.

Elliott was able to get someone from Comcast HQ on the phone and they took the matter a bit more urgently.

“We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change,” a company rep tells Elliott. “We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again.”

She’s since heard from a Comcast senior director of government affairs, who offered to waive that earlier $60 fee and promised that the employee responsible for the name change would be terminated.

A subsequent call from a general manager in her region assured the customer that her name has been corrected.

However, the customer is not satisfied with mere apologies after the fact.

“This is unacceptable,” she tells Elliott. “I am requesting everything back I paid Comcast for doing this to me.”