When a company makes a promise, it should keep it
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It was the incentive -- a $200 gift card -- that prompted Bob DuScheid of Baldwin Borough to continue with Comcast as his Internet, television and phone service provider.
Mr. DuScheid, 69, a retired AT&T communications technician, called Comcast in February and asked a customer service representative if he could renegotiate his agreement to save some money.
She said yes and, after some discussion, lowered his monthly bill from $215 to $175, an annual savings of $480. She then said the company would send him a $200 gift card if he agreed to a two-year contract. Mr. DuScheid accepted the offer.
But the gift card never arrived.
After waiting more than three months, he called Comcast. A supervisor said the company had made a mistake in offering the gift card. She said he wouldn't be receiving one. She said he should have received a postcard saying the offer had been withdrawn.
Mr. DuScheid hadn't.
And he wasn't happy with Comcast's now-you-have-it, now-you-don't offer.
"That 'sorry, we screwed up' is not an acceptable response," he said. "I have a copy of the agreement, which I signed in good faith, and returned the original to them. Am I simply out of luck?"
No.
I relayed Mr. DuScheid's e-mail to Comcast spokesman Bob Grove. He forwarded it to the appropriate department.
Mr. DuScheid said a customer service representative contacted him last week, apologized for the withdrawn offer and said she would give him a $200 credit on his Comcast bill because she didn't have the authority to issue a gift card.
"I accepted her offer," he said.
It pays -- literally, in this case -- to keep a copy of any and all such offers from companies. "Let-us-do-it-all-for-you" communication packages cost consumers thousands of dollars by locking them into multi-year contracts. And if you want out early, you have to pay a penalty.
Because postcards can get caught up in bulk mail items such as advertising circulars -- which recipients may discard without paging through them -- Comcast could have used something other than a postcard to notify Mr. DuScheid that it had withdrawn its gift card offer.
First Published July 22, 2010 12:00 am
