SAN RAFAEL, CA - AUGUST 03: A sign stands in front of a Comcast customer service center on August 3, 2011 in San Rafael, California. Comcast reported a 16 percent increase in second quarter earnings with profits of $1.02 billion, or 37 cents a share, compared to $884 million, or 31 cents a share, one year ago. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — A Bay Area startup is offering a service that allows Comcast customers to cancel their service – and avoid a telephone runaround – by hiring them to cancel for the customer instead.

Oakland-based founders Earl St Sauver and Eli Pollak rolled out the service last Friday. It’s the first product they’ve launched under their Airpaper brand.

For $5, the company helps Comcast customers cancel their service in under 5 minutes instead of subjecting themselves to a long interview with a retention specialist trying to keep them as customers.

“It’s a process that could really be made simple and easy for a customer to use but instead is very painful,” Pollack said.

The duo, who had met working at Climate.com, said they’ve had so much traffic and interest in the first few days of launching that their website was temporarily down from too many users.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Pollack said.

To use the service, Comcast customers would need to provide their name, address, phone number and Comcast account number through an online form. Once Airpaper receives the information, it’s auto-populated in a form that is sent directly to a Comcast customer care center. Airpaper tracks the form to assure Comcast has received the request, which under their terms and services agreement, must then follow through with the cancellation request.

“We can make a painful bureaucratic process easy by showing people that it doesn’t have to be this wat,” St Sauver said, adding the sky’s the limit when it comes to expanding to other services, such as getting a San Francisco parking permit, securing a visa to China or obtaining business tax registration in San Francisco.

Airpaper says on its website it uses the personal information only for the service-related process and does not sell the information to third parties.