OAKLAND, CA—Speaking over lunch last Friday, a Northern California man named Conal O'Rourke laid out what admittedly sounds like a crazy story: a year-long billing dispute over his home Comcast service that ultimately resulted in Comcast getting O'Rourke fired from his job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in nearby San Jose earlier this year.

But O’Rourke arrived to last week’s lunch meeting with Ars with an astonishing amount of documentation: he has pages and pages of Comcast invoices. He has a spreadsheet, photos, notes, business cards, and complaint letters. He and his lawyer, Maureen Pettibone Ryan, happily provided digital copies of these materials to Ars, which we have re-published with his permission here.

As a result of his firing, O’Rourke has hired a local attorney and is now threatening to file a lawsuit against Comcast if the company does not agree to his demands, which include "a full retraction and apology, his re-employment with his former employer, and $100,312.50" by October 14.

A rogue $26.25

O’Rourke first moved to California in early 2012 after 20 years of working for Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) in Connecticut, most recently as part of the corporate controllership division. During his career, O'Rourke developed skills in accounting, financial analysis, and auditing—skills that proved useful in his eventual dispute with Comcast.

In February 2013, he moved to a new place in San Jose and signed up for TV and Internet service with Comcast, since the only other competitive service, AT&T’s U-Verse, was not available in his building.

"I was roped into Comcast, and with Comcast, my problems soon began," O'Rourke said.

His first issues began when, after six weeks of service, he had yet to receive a bill.

After eventually receiving his first bill in April 2013, O'Rourke noticed a number of problems. For one thing, his name was misspelled (an issue that never got corrected).

More importantly, O’Rourke noticed that Comcast was charging him for three "additional HD outlets" for an extra fee of $26.25 a month. He also was charged for cable boxes that he says he never activated (he planned on moving two additional TVs later on into his condominium), after allegedly being promised that he wouldn’t be.

Finally, as part of a promotional deal, O'Rourke says he was promised HBO and other premium channels for nine months, but they disappeared after just three.

O’Rourke said he called multiple times to try to get these issues resolved. When they weren’t, he finally walked into his nearest Comcast store in San Jose.

There he met with the assistant store manager, who gave him a business card and provided his personal cellphone number. "He promises me that it will all be addressed and that we're going to look at it," O’Rourke said.

Then the real problems began.

$1,820 in equipment he didn't order

For the next few months, O’Rourke says he was under deadlines at work and could not address issues with Comcast.

By October 2013, O’Rourke said that his Internet speeds suddenly dropped off, becoming "unworkable."

"I had contacted them regarding lack of responsiveness and performance issues; sometimes my service wouldn't be usable and I had to hotspot in with AT&T," he said.

Again he called, and again, Comcast promised to correct his problem—sometimes by sending technicians to his home—but according to O'Rourke, the company never did.

O’Rourke spent part of November and December 2013 traveling overseas, so he was surprised when he returned home to find several boxes at his doorstep containing "12 pieces of equipment" and a December 2013 monthly bill for over $2,000—including $1,820 in equipment that he insists he did not order.

According to the December 2013 invoice, O’Rourke was charged for devices including an "AnyRoom Hub" ($420) and a "Pace Host" ($110). On December 30, 2013, carrying these various boxes back, O'Rourke walked into the same San Jose Comcast store to return the gear and get his issues resolved.

When he took a service ticket at 1:59pm, he discovered that he was Ticket #395 but that the store was only on Ticket #251. Rather than spend his afternoon at the store, O’Rourke came up with a plan.

"They close at 7:00pm, so I thought, I'm going to go at 6:45pm, then somebody will have a fire underneath them to address the problems," he said. "I had had it up to here."

A Comcast employee named Matt Doblias ended up helping O’Rourke, took back the equipment, and cleared the charges. But that still didn’t get to the root of the errors that had now persisted for months. (Ars sent an e-mail to Doblias, which bounced.)

"I provided Matt with the detailed spreadsheet in person, and he asked if I could send it to him, and he would take a look," O’Rourke said. The next day, December 31, he did so, but Doblias "responded that the spreadsheet never came through. I sent it again, then at the end of the day I asked for follow up and never heard back."

O’Rourke got irritated.

"On January 11, 2014, I was frustrated because I felt that I had done everything," he said. "I sent [Doblias] an e-mail that I was hopeful would ignite him to do something. What I did was [show Doblias by e-mail that] I sarcastically wrote a letter [to Comcast Senior Vice President Lawrence Salva], recommending Doblias for the Employee of the Month award. I wrote it up but didn't put it in the mail. I wanted to give [Doblias] an opportunity to fix the problem."

The letter included lines like:

The reason why I have chosen to nominate the San Jose center is simple. Their blatant disregard for the customer has made resolving my issues next to impossible. This behavior has proven to be quite profitable as I, like most customers, just throw their hands up in exasperation. However, now that I am no longer exasperated I intend on following up on my concerns.

But O'Rourke heard nothing, and the billing errors persisted—resulting in Comcast allegedly sending a collections agency after him.

"On February 5, 2014, [Comcast] said my account was two months past due and at that point pushing $300," he said. "I don't order pay-per-view, and I explained [to the collections agency] that that can't be right, and they were insistent, and I walked them through it."

She said, ‘What color is your house?!? Tell me the color of your house!’ She went on a tirade and said, ‘Just answer the question!’

By this point, O’Rourke had yet to receive an errorless bill, he said, despite having been a customer for nearly a year. The following day, he decided to contact Lawrence Salva , Comcast’s Philadelphia-based controller, who oversees the division of the company that deals with accounting. He spoke at length with Salva’s executive assistant, describing his litany of problems. After the call concluded, the assistant said that she would have another Comcast employee contact O’Rourke directly.

"An hour later I got a second call from an individual who doesn't identify herself [except as Evelyn] but says that she's with Comcast," he said. O’Rourke asked her if she knew why she was calling, to which she responded that it had something to do with missed appointments.

"I laughed, because they missed so many appointments I don't even know which one she's talking about," he said.

When he tried to explain the situation, O'Rourke said that Evelyn began to berate him.

"She said, ‘What color is your house?!? Tell me the color of your house!’" O’Rourke remembered. "She went on a tirade and said, ‘Just answer the question!’" (O'Rourke lives in a condo complex.)

"I told her that I was angry and said, ‘You need to do your homework before you pick up the phone,’" he told Ars. "I told her I was going to call back to Salva's office. That's what I did. And I expressed my concern and said, 'You have sloppy accounting, you don't take anything seriously, and I should go to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.' That's the regulator that makes sure that accounting is done properly. I think that some of my terminology would have indicated that I wasn't a layman. I worked for 20 years in corporate comptrollership. These errors become material after a while."

Unbeknownst to O’Rourke, however, his call set off alarm bells within Comcast.

Listing image by Alyson Hurt