I have to admit I did not think I would start off the new year with a Comcast rant, but when a Verizon rep dropped by to inform me that FiOS was being offered in my area and wanted to schedule an install, I wanted to at least check out my options. Part of the cutover involves Verizon covering any early termination fees (ETF) up to $500, so I went to Comcast so see if I had one.

The only problem? Comcast does not appear to have a cancellation page anywhere in their system. They only allow transferring service to a new address or choosing a different tier. Comcast is making cancelling difficult. The FTC has existing law prohibiting this behavior. Amazon flouted that law and was cited. Also, the FTC voted 3-1 in March 2023 to strengthen cancellation rights. Comcast is in violation at minimum of the spirit of the regulations if not their letter. Into the black hole of customer service designed to frustrate customers we go!

First, you get to navigate an automated tree. This isn't the standard customer chat maze where a bot listens to the first couple of responses before handing off to a support person. You have to dig until you find a problem a bot cannot solve or Comcast doesn't want solved. All other paths keep you in the automated walled garden.

Eventually, I reach a human who repeatedly takes long delays to not answer the simple question I've asked: do I have an ETF and where can i view that information? They also repeatedly ask for time and reply to their own request asking if I'm still there. After multiple rounds of this and listening to the Xfinity Mobile upsell, I get my ETF amount. The trick appears to be implying that the absence of evidence of a fee is evidence of the absence of a fee.

I never did get the cancellation page I asked for. The support representative tried to send me to https://customer.xfinity.com/#/setting/account#account-contact-information which is a broken link as far as I can tell and not one reachable from the current account page. Then they implied right before terminating the chat that I might have internet problems as it's "working from their end".