Comcast Cashed an Elderly Woman's Rent Check, Offered Her Credit Instead
Frances Wilson, a 79-year-old woman living in Albuquerque, N.M., on a fixed social security income, accidentally mailed her rent check to Comcast along with her monthly cable bill. It should've been an easy mistake to correct, given that the check wasn't made out to Comcast, but the two-time Worst Company in America has a knack for complicating things.
Wilson told local news station KRQE that when she realized her mistake and called Comcast, she learned that they couldn't send her $235 check back to her: They had already cashed it. The company also refused to refund the money. They did offer to credit it to her account, but that wasn't particularly helpful in terms of paying her rent.
A Comcast spokesperson told KRQE that the system is automated, so there's no one to blame for the wrongful deposit. She also said errors like this are usually corrected as soon as a customer brings them to the company'a attention, and the company will "talk to" the employee who refused to refund Wilson's rent money.
Wilson will end up with a full reimbursement, plus $235 cash and a $235 credit to her account. Her cable bill is only $20 a month, so she won't have to pay Comcast again for some time. (Unless her promotion ends and her bill goes up, but that's a problem for another day.)
It's amazing how quickly Comcast can fix a previously unsolvable problem once customers get the media involved. The threat of bad publicity has worked time and again, and it's one of the few tools remaining to level the playing field between customers and corporations.
