Comcast Changes Customer's Name to Something That Starts With an 'A'... and it isn't 'Ashley'

Comcast: the gift that keeps on giving to tech bloggers and stockholders, but unfortunately, not its customers. The latest entry in the Comcast Blunder File comes from The Consumerist, and it is exceptionally bad.

A Comcast customer — one who recently asked to have TV removed from her package — found that her name was later changed on her account. Was it a mistake? Eh, probably not. Because the name in place of her own was not Amelia, or Angela, or Allie.

It was “Asshole.”

The customer in question can only assume that the name change came in retaliation to her request, and her unwillingness to accept a deal from a Comcast retention specialist.

Consumer advocate Chris Elliott got to work on behalf of the woman, and managed to get the attention of Comcast’s VP of Communications for the Washington region, Steve Kipp.

“We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change,” a company rep tells Elliott. “We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again.”

According to Elliott’s own website, the customer, whose last name is Brown, contacted him later to tell him that Comcast issued a refund for her entire past two years of service. And it’s safe to say that whoever changed the name on her account — really, who thought they’d get away with that? — will find themselves unemployed in short order.

It’s tough to stop a rogue employee like this, and I think Comcast really went above and beyond in compensating the customer for the situation. But the fact remains: these things keep happening. Comcast needs a customer service culture change, or we’ll keep hearing stories like these.

That’s great for websites like this one. But it’s bad for consumers, and bad for the industry.