Comcast reeled in a number of customers with their “Triple Play” package that offers phone, cable and Internet services for two reasons – it’s convenient and they offered anyone that signs up for the package a $250 Visa gift card if they pay their bill on time for 90 days. In the year plus the offer has been on the table, a number of qualified customers have been left keeping up their end of the bargain only to find Comcast refuses to keep up theirs.

Comcast scams are nothing new. Just type “Comcast scam” into Google and there are more returns than you can shake a stick at. Hell, go to Comcast’s own forums and look up Comcast scam or Comcast gift card and see over 50 threads, primarily closed, filled with customers complaining that Comcast scammed them out of their gift card. Seriously, start here and just wander around in there awhile – people have waited over a YEAR for Comcast to live up to their end of the bargain.

Here’s how Comcast screws you:

1) You sign up for the service and pay your bill on time, in full, for 90 days.

2) You ask for your rebate because they won’t pretend to know anything about it otherwise.

3) They tell you it is being processed, just hang in there.

4) You ask where your card is again.

5) Comcast has some flunky tell you that it can take 30-60 days for the rebate center in San Diego to process the order – just keep hanging in there!

6) 60 days pass and you ask where your gift card is again.

7) Comcast flunky tells you to contact the rebate center in San Diego because Comcast has nothing to do with issuing Comcast rebates.

8) Rebate center tells you that they have no record of you, contact Comcast and ask them what is up.

9) You contact Comcast again

10) Now a Comcast “Manager” tells you the rebate center is full of it, they turned your information over already, but they will “go the extra mile for you” because you’re “Such a valued customer” and see what they can do.

11) Two weeks pass, you ask again – Where is my gift card?

12) Different Comcast manager handles this as it is a “Serious issue” they are ‘Very concerned about” and “Want to make you happy” so they promise you will have your gift card in the mail in 60 days or less going so far as to say if it is not there on “X date” call me.

13. “X date” arrives and there is still no card.

14. Comcast manager is called directly on the line they supplied, but gee….after around five minutes on hold it seems someone “figured out” the party on that line is on vacation and will be back in a “few weeks.”

15, Comcast flunky answering Phones offers to pass you off to customer service flunky.

16. You finally get pissed and pester every Comcast employee on Twitter with requests to get your gift card and write long ass blogs bitching about Comcast.

Because ComcastLarry and his cohorts were so overwhelmed with the volume of complaints that Comcast pulled a bait and switch, they brought in ComcastElisa to handle nothing but the complaints about the never delivered Comcast gift cards. She started on the forums on 9/20/11, made a second post on 9/29/11 and then was promptly never seen again on the forums. None the less, everyone is still directed to email her about their missing gift card, even though Elisa Stagliano is now directing everyone to email some generic, crappy Comcast addy that shoots back form replies.

For well over a year – at the barest minimum – Comcast has been promising customers everything from $100 rebate cards, to $250 Visa gift cards to gift card/rebate/iPod packages and they have scammed customers left and right on it. Comcast is a big company so it is a fair assumption that they have a busy customer service staff – but to NEED reps that do nothing basically but pass the buck around about Comcast’s failure to honor their agreements? That is one hell of an epic accomplishment! You’d think it would be easier to pay the people with a legitimate claim than employees to act as a barrier to paying the claims.

Comcast passes the buck to the rebate center saying it is their fault claims go unpaid. I DON’T CARE! All I know is that our bill was paid on time in full and is to this day. I did not sign a contract with the rebate center – I signed a contract with Comcast. Comcast accepts my money, provides adequate technical services, but they do not live up to this one obligation which makes them the corporate equivalent of a hooker that takes the money and then walks away without providing a service.

Comcast needs to stop the scamming and do the decent thing! The $250 they promised would be nice to have for Christmas. I’d love to have that to give the kids an extra nice Christmas, but Comcast doesn’t care. Their answer to failing to live up to their promises in October, November and December is to wait until late January or early February because the “holidays are a busy time for them and their employees” and it will take time to process claims. Had I not seen people waiting for cards from the summer of 2008 still to this very day – I might have let them play this game one more time.

If you have time, have been scammed by Comcast, know someone that fell to the Comcast bait and switch, or has otherwise been screwed by Comcast, please feel free to either copy/paste this into an email to send to any of the Comcast employees listed at the bottom of this page or to link to this anywhere you feel it will get the attention of Comcast employees or people that have been scammed, screwed and treated like crap by wave after wave of lies from Comcast.

On Twitter:

Bill Gerth aka “ComcastBill” @comcastcares

Michael Cardone @ComcastMichael

Steve Teow @ComcastSteve

D. Roberts @JustDete

Comcast Voices @comcastvoices

Comcast Melissa @ComcastMelissa

Via Email: – In case anyone wants to run a little email carpet bomb campaign

Elisa_Stagliano@cable.comcast.com

we_can_help@cable.comcast.com

*Most email addresses included earlier were removed after getting a return message for “Access denied” which seems unusual and not at all like the normal failure/bounce message.

Other Places:

Comcast CEO Brian L. Robert’s blog http://blog.comcast.com/author/brian-l-roberts/

BBB: http://www.bbb.org/

State Attorney Generals Contact Info: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php

Status Updates: 10/10/11 12:30 EST Comcast Archie Jackson called, supposedly from the Atlanta Office Executive Division, and has said that when he returns to work Tuesday, he will call after dealing with the appropriate office. Lets see how this works out…been through this song and dance before.

12/13/12 – Archie Jackson returns from work and calls us to let us know that our problem has been ticketed for a fix by CEO Dread Pirate Roberts. Apparently every single department in the entire Comcast Universe needs to co-ordinate with each other prior to getting their mother’s consent and the written permission of Major League Baseball along with perhaps Santa to issue a frickin’ gift card. Archie Jackson says he will call back the following day.

12/14/12 – It’s 8:25 and Comcast Archie Jackson still has not called us back to tell us what the status of our situation is. Apparently everyone at Comcast is full of shit. He is due off work at 10pm according to what he previously told us – I think I’ll take the lead and call him.

12/15/11 Around 9:20 pm. we get a call from Archie Jackson’s line, but it hangs up in less than thew time it takes to ring once. it was like barely a second. if it didn’t display on the TV it would have been unnoticed. Nice to call, but after 9pm on a school night? Is this guy High?

12/16/11 – We try Calling Concast Archie Jackson,. but just gety the recorded message. We ask for a call back and get nothing. I’m starting to believe this guy is full of crap.

We tweeted out around 50 or Comcast employees, a couple dozen investigative journalists, a few TV anchors and Fraud Watch lines and finally got someone from the Philly office that doesn’t seem to be a total idiot. Actually he seems pretty on the ball – but we’ve been to this dance before. Archie, finally called after all of this activity, not just tweeting and FB’ing, but hittiing everything including a letter to their CEO, The Dread pirate Roberts, again. Here is how we know Archie is full of shit:

The call that came in at 9:18 from Archie’s extension he claims went to one of our cellphones – but that cell has no message of an incoming call from him or anyone for over a week. There is however a record of his quick call and quicker hang up on our landline that is provided by Comcast. So basically – the dude is full of crap. Still… the challenge goes on.