Woman Gets Cable Bill With Derogatory Name

[adam]

I'm not saying she should sue, but she could actually get some money out of this. This is not harrassment, that almost always takes repeated actions and certainly more than just a single instance of name calling. Its also not intentional infliction of emotion distress because again, its just name-calling.

But those nitwits were retarded enough to use a billing statement to take their shots at her, and that puts them in violation of the Debt Collection Practices Act. The Act, among other things, expressly makes it a violation to refer to the debtor in a derogatory manner in the course of debt collection, and I'm pretty sure Bitch Dog suffices.

She has no damages that I can see, but the DCPA is a tie-in statute to the Deceptive Trade Practices Act which means that she can collect punitive damages. So it all depends on how pissed off the jury gets about this. They can grant just about as much punitive (penalty) damages as they want. But... insulting the customer in this manner is so far outside the scope of employment that Comcast may be off the hook and the woman will have to sue the two (maybe more?) employees directly responsible.

The DCPA grants attorneys fees if successful, and it seems her right to collect under the act is self-evident, so she basically has nothing to lose by suing. Even if she doesn't get any damages awarded at trial she will still get her attorney's fees and costs of court paid for.

If it were me I'd just take the 2 months free cable.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

Not to say that you SHOULD do / say whatever you want to the support people on the phone, but as a consumer, I'm not PAYING to be professional. As an employee of a company that I'm PAYING money for a service, I DO expect a greater degree of professionalism...

exactly.
when I am calling for customer service, that is exactly what I expect -- SERVICE.
and I expect complete and utter proffesionalism from the person on the other end of the line, regardless of how much of an ass I may be. I have worked in the service industry, in a variety of capacities, so I usually go out of my way NOT to be a dick to these folks.
But when they obviously don't give a shit about helping me, that is, DOING THEIR ******* JOB, I will turn into a major dick. When you work in customer service, your 1 and only job is exactly that, CUSTOMER SERVICE. Your job is to ensure that the customer is assisted in any and every way necessary.
You are being paid to help people and you are being paid to act professionally, because you are being paid to represent you company.
I, on the other hand, am paying your company, and am representing nobody buy myself, nothing but my own interests. Since I am in fact paying you (whether it is directly or indirectly) I do not need to act in a professional manner.
All I expect from these people is that they do their job and lose the ******* attitude. They're NOT doing me a favor, they're (supposedly) doing their job.

[Tool Man]

This is not just a USA thing.
There was an article in the paper here about a guy who got a new credit card with the name 'D**k Head' on it.

Apparently it was a disgruntled employee.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Bad customer service is a universal disease.

If those employees didn't like to take shit over the phone (in customer service that's expected), why on earth did they accept the job in first place?

[Xylob the Destroyer]

thank you.

[BJ_M]

to eat ?

[lordsmurf]

When people are rude to me on the phone, I hang up. Doesn't matter if I am calling them, or if they are calling me.

[jackal70058]

Bad customer service is a universal disease.

If those employees didn't like to take shit over the phone (in customer service that's expected), why on earth did they accept the job in first place?

Genrally, I have to agree with that. But sometime, you may have customer just insist with being difficult. If you not liking someone to be nasty with you, don't be nasty with us.

I've always helped the best way with customers in our store. But, I hear other stores, some people not as tolerating as us. If there has a problem, talk with us like anyone. We'll help you.

[RabidDog]

Actually she was in the wrong... she opened mail that did not belong to her. The bloke who got the dodgy credit card was actually a famous actor in "Buffy ..yer"!

[zzyzzx]

http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1124753302.shtml

Credit Card Letter Sent To "Dear Palestinian Bomber"

File this in the All Bozos Don't War Clown Make-Up Department:

Officials at JP Morgan Chase have apologized and promised to improve their screening policies, after a credit card solicitation letter sent to a 54-year-old naturalized American citizen came addressed to "Palestinian Bomber."

The form letter for a Visa Platinum card arrived earlier this month at the home of Sami Habbas, a grocery store manager from Corona, Calif. The words "Palestinian Bomber" appear above his address and the salutation reads, "Dear Palestinian Bomber." The document included the signature of Carter Franke, chief marketing officer for Chase Card Services.

Habbas is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Palestinian heritage. He told ABC News he is "extremely upset" at receiving the letter, pointing out that he has lived in the United States for 51 years and also served in the U.S. Army, receiving an honorable discharge in 1969.

"It's upsetting, derogatory, and slanderous," Habbas told ABC News. "I have no idea how this sort of thing happened."

Well, it sounds like whomever sent the letter to him knew a enough about his ethnicity to aim the letter at him. If they had sent it to a rabbi it wouldn't have had the same impact.

Habbas was even more shocked when, on several occasions, he said he called an 800-number for JP Morgan Chase and spoke to operators in an effort to complain. Each time, he says the operators called up his information on a computer but apparently didn't catch on. According to Habbas, "The operators always said, 'Yes, Mr. Palestinian Bomber, how can we help you?' "

<Probably because they were in India>

After receiving the letter and his experiences with the operators, Habbas contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington D.C., a Muslim civil liberties group. CAIR denounced the Chase letter as "racist" and asked JP Morgan Chase to launch an investigation, conduct sensitivity training, and issue a formal apology to Habbas.

In a statement, Chase vice president Kelly Presta blamed the incident on information in a list purchased from a third-party vendor. The company said it was taking steps to improve the screening procedures and offered "sincere apologies" to anyone offended by the letter.

"Although no Chase employee was involved in creating this information, we are embarrassed by this incident and regret that our automatic screening procedures did not catch this erroneous information," said Presta, executive vice president of Chase Card Services.

It sounds like someone had a list and looked at names and tinkered with them. If Chase really wants to find out what happened, they'll be able to narrow the list of suspects.

None of this makes sense anyway.

If they really marketed to Palestinian bombers how could they get their money back?

[BJ_M]

Actually she was in the wrong... she opened mail that did not belong to her. The bloke who got the dodgy credit card was actually a famous actor in "Buffy ..yer"!

once mail or a package comes to your house -- unsolicited ...

you can open it ... i could be wrong , but i know it is true for any package ..

[Doramius]

I think in the US, it's illegal for someone to open a direct addressed envelope if it is not for someonein your personal household.

So if it says it's for Mrs. Jones with your address and your Mr. Smith, you'd be illegally tampering with mail unless she was living in the same house or apartment. Even that gets dodgy when you have shared living, as in dormitories and apartments of roomates.

That may not be exactly how the US law states it, but you see a bunch of court cases in the newspapers about stuff like this all the time, and it usually gets settled similar to how I stated it above.

As for the Lady, I probably would have just sneezed and passed gas in the envelope and sealed it. Some customers are real dicks looking for an excuse to complain and try and get money or something else for free when it was really them who were the a**holes all along. That b**ch needed a pimp smacking, and a boot to the camel for acting like that.

[BJ_M]

probably would have just sneezed and passed gas in the envelope and sealed it.

you do realize what that would be considered nowdays -- ?

let us know how the food is in cuba ok ?

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Bad customer service is a universal disease.

If those employees didn't like to take shit over the phone (in customer service that's expected), why on earth did they accept the job in first place?

Genrally, I have to agree with that. But sometime, you may have customer just insist with being difficult. If you not liking someone to be nasty with you, don't be nasty with us.

I've always helped the best way with customers in our store. But, I hear other stores, some people not as tolerating as us. If there has a problem, talk with us like anyone. We'll help you.

The main difference between a customer service employee and a customer, is that the CSE is being paid to listen to the Customer, and the customer is paying to be heard.

Ussualy, I would say most of the time, the customer that calls is angry about something that went wrong and wants to be heard and obviously a solution for whatever his problem is.
Some customers can handle the anger pretty well and even though they are upset, they don't pick on the CSE. But there are some that do it, and it's up to the CSE to handle the situation in a proper way.
If you start to act like a wise-ass, the end of the road for you will be the unemployment line.
I have an account at Washington Mutual Bank, and one time I had to call to the CS line because an unauthorized charge was made to my checking account, I was really angry because the REALLY STUPID CSE didn't get the point that I was in Ecuador and therefore, I was unable to go to the "local branch" where I opened my account. I asked to spoke to a supervisor and this chick answered the phone, repeating exactly the same crap the CSE gave me, but adding the phrase: "this is the bank policy, if you have a problem with that you can always open an account with another bank"....
SHIT!, I trusted my money to this SOB's and they can't even help me with an unauthorized charge?, why didn't they tell me that the service was not offered to people that lived out of the country?, I was very clear about that before I opened my account.
Almost two months passed and I had to go to the states and went to the "local Branch" in Miami where I opened the account. I told the whole story to the manager and after hearing me, he went berserk!, he apologized at least ten times, called a lot of people on the phone telling them my story, and asked if I could wait 15 minutes. I had nothing better to do that day and I waited.
To make this long story short, he played me the recording of the conversation I had with that idiot, he tracked her down and already had all her data on a piece of paper, and told me that she was going to be out of the job because they are spending lots of money in advertising to get new costumers and can't afford to have a supervisor with an attitude like that, scaring costumers away.
So the company actually cared about me (at least they made me think that, and I was happy enough )

[BJ_M]

I think in the US, it's illegal for someone to open a direct addressed envelope if it is not for someonein your personal household.

So if it says it's for Mrs. Jones with your address and your Mr. Smith, you'd be illegally tampering with mail unless she was living in the same house or apartment. Even that gets dodgy when you have shared living, as in dormitories and apartments of roomates.

That may not be exactly how the US law states it, but you see a bunch of court cases in the newspapers about stuff like this all the time, and it usually gets settled similar to how I stated it above.

As for the Lady, I probably would have just sneezed and passed gas in the envelope and sealed it. Some customers are real dicks looking for an excuse to complain and try and get money or something else for free when it was really them who were the a**holes all along. That b**ch needed a pimp smacking, and a boot to the camel for acting like that.

yea you are right -- i looked up the law in canada and in the usa it is pretty much the same thing ..

Every person commits an offence who, except where expressly authorized by or under this Act, the Customs Act or the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, knowingly opens, keeps, secretes, delays or detains, or permits to be opened, kept, secreted, delayed or detained, any mail bag or mail or any receptacle or device authorized by the Corporation for the posting of mail.


Every person commits an offence who unlawfully and knowingly abandons, misdirects, obstructs, delays or detains the progress of any mail or mail conveyance.

but if fedex drops off a box at your door - this act doesnt cover it ...

[lordsmurf]

but adding the phrase: "this is the bank policy, if you have a problem with that you can always open an account with another bank"....

I don't see anything wrong with this. In fact, a lot of companies use this at what they consider a breaking point where they refuse to help a customer any further.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

but adding the phrase: "this is the bank policy, if you have a problem with that you can always open an account with another bank"....

I don't see anything wrong with this. In fact, a lot of companies use this at what they consider a breaking point where they refuse to help a customer any further.

The point is, that I shouldn't have been denied service based on the fact that I was in another country.

So, I trust my money to this institution, a fraudulent charge appears, and I can't file a claim because I am unable to show in person at my local branch?, and when I demand an explanation she tells me that it's bank policy to handle this issues in person.... but surprise, when I show in person and tell the story, the real manager tells me that I should have been able to solve this through the phone.
And another thing, there are two things to consider: 1.- What she said and 2.- The way she said it. It wasn't a friendly and helpful tone, it was more like "**** off I'm busy and if you don't like it go open an account in another bank". I saw it that way and the manager too when he heard the tape of the conversation.

[lordsmurf]

The point is, that I shouldn't have been denied service based on the fact that I was in another country.

I disagree.
Most fraud is committed from overseas locations.

Although your situation was about stopping a false charge.
So I'd have to side with you, just for different reasons.