California Bill AB 2867 Proposed To Allow You To Cancel Comcast With 'Click Of The Mouse' (techcrunch.com) 120
An anonymous reader writes: Los Angeles Assemblyman Mike Gatto has introduced a bill that would allow Californians to cancel their internet or cable services online with 'one click.' The bill reads, ''AB 2867 allows Californians to conveniently unsubscribe from a service with a simple click of the mouse,' said Assemblyman Gatto. 'It just makes sense, that if you are able to sign-up for a service online, you should also be able to cancel it the same way.' Rapid advancements in technology grant consumers a wide variety of cable, internet and phone service products from which they may choose, and while companies make it simple to buy or upgrade services, a cancellation request is usually a prolonged ordeal where customers are sometimes pressured into extending their contracts. AB 2867 provides a convenient and consumer-friendly option for Californians to remove unwanted services without a long phone call.'
Bill AB 2867 would in theory spare you from an 18-minute call with a Comcast representative in regard to cancelling your service.
Los Angeles Assemblyman Mike Gatto (Score:2)
If you're in CA, write your assembly... (Score:2)
wants a donation from Comcast, et.al.
No, he wants support from everyone in his district who hates comcast customer service.
The bill has been referred to committee and will die there unless enough people from california who are constitutents of those committee members write in in support. So if you're in CA, see if your legislators sit on the committee responsible for utility regulation and write to them.
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Mike Gatto for President (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, *every* business by law should be required to be cancellable by one-click or similar. There are a number of them that want to spend an hour on the phone listening to the pretty music, hoping to wait you out.
Two factor authentication (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, *every* business by law should be required to be cancellable by one-click or similar. There are a number of them that want to spend an hour on the phone listening to the pretty music, hoping to wait you out.
One-click with two-factor authentication, maybe.
You don't want someone who gets the password for a business to be able to cancel the ISP service of a heavy-traffic ecommerce site with one click.
Re:Two factor authentication (Score:4, Insightful)
That won't actually be a problem, I think. The bill only requires provision to cancel the account online if you can sign up online. Business accounts of any importance usually don't get done that way. We had a sales rep come in and give us a presentation before we signed any contracts.
It's a good bill, well written, and I dearly hop that the chimpanzees in Sacramento shove it down Comcasts' throat until they choke on it.
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The bill only requires provision to cancel the account online if you can sign up online.
Why can't businesses sign up online? The fact that you chose to have a personal presentation doesn't mean everybody else has to do it that way, and that none of them could use the online signup system.
Since YOU could have signed up online, this bill applies to you. You CAN, but you chose not to.
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What? You can easily host a business with 10,000 users on AWS which supports a small business with dozens of employees.
That said, at some point if you sign up for AWS with a credit card via their site and get to that size, you will start to get calls from physical humans about a proper account manager, sales etc. - but you can ignore all that and just continue being a "digital" customer.
Re:Two factor authentication (Score:4, Insightful)
The "one click" thing is all spin; the bill actually just requires ISPs to allow cancellation through their website. Presumably the process would involve the same identity verification as phone cancellation (though more securely, since it's more difficult to socially engineer a website than a phone rep).
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Seriously, *every* business by law should be required to be cancellable by one-click or similar.
I'd suggest that they should be required to be cancellable via any method they can be signed up for. If a business doesn't want to have a web presence, they shouldn't have to have one, but if they do have one, then it should be as easy to use it to get in as it is to get out.
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I would like for any cancellation of my working internet service to require callback and verbal confirmation before it gets cancelled.
The concern is someone gains access to my online account and cancels without my permission, or someone who has legit access accidentally initiates a cancel, thinking they are doing something different.
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That same concern applies to phone cancellation - social engineering a phone call where a human has access to everything discretion to bypass some authentication (even if they shouldn't) has been proven over and over again to be fairly easy. Even going to a store where they 'check ID' is pretty much a joke. A rep glances at your ID to verify the name spelling. The worst $20 fake ID you could possibly buy would easily pass this check...heck, you could probably use a color printer and glue onto a piece of
Re:Mike Gatto for President (Score:5, Informative)
This seems like a common-sense law, and it comes in direct response to abuse by these companies. I'm generally not in favor of legislation of this sort until it's been established that there's a clear problem, but this sort of thing has gotten out of hand. For companies that complain about over-regulation, maybe if you didn't treat your customers like shit, we wouldn't have to expressly forbid that sort of behavior through explicit legislation or regulation.
My own experience with this "make it a pain to cancel a service" tactic was from an EA MMO from quite a few years ago: "Earth and Beyond" I think it was called. It was a pretty horrible MMO, got boring extremely fast, and there was very little content in the game. After a couple months, I tried to cancel, and realized I couldn't even do that online. I had to call an EA rep who's job it was to try to talk me out of cancelling. I had to do a lot of talking and repeatedly request a cancellation. While it was certainly not as bad as that infamous Comcast customer service call we've all heard, it was still extremely irritating, and I vowed I would NEVER sign up for an EA MMO ever again.
What the hell are these companies thinking? Do they not realize the annoyance or even anger they generate with these idiotic tactics? If someone is cancelling your service, it's likely they're already not too happy with you, so you're now going to try to harass you into staying?
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This seems like a common-sense law, and it comes in direct response to abuse by these companies. I'm generally not in favor of legislation of this sort until it's been established that there's a clear problem, but this sort of thing has gotten out of hand. For companies that complain about over-regulation, maybe if you didn't treat your customers like shit, we wouldn't have to expressly forbid that sort of behavior through explicit legislation or regulation.
Well said. In principle I'm very much against this kind of government interference in business, but in instances like this the businesses in question really left us with no other alternatives.
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You're already canceling so, to them, what do they have to lose by pissing you off? That's what I presume is their thought process. Never mind that you might have been willing to order from them again or anything. Never mind that they may have now made you angry enough to tell others. No, they want today's revenue - bugger the long-term.
Re:Mike Gatto for President (Score:4, Informative)
1) "First let me ask you some questions..." sigh.. okay...
2) "Why are you cancelling?"
3) "Can I have your new address so I can see if we provide service in your area?" No, you can't. I don't want your service
4)
5) "Wait, you're moving? I need to transfer you to are moving department" WHAT?
6)
I try again later, same story, this time I talk to someone more reasonable and tells me because the cancellation is due to a move they can't handle it. I finally get to the right person who understands. He was actually empathetic after I told him how many phone calls I've had to make just to get them to cut the cord.
Long story short, they have many separate cancellation departments and they are deliberately confusing. It's hard to imagine it isn't a malicious decision by the C-Men of TWC.
I hope this type of law catches on nationwide, it'll be awesome to give these sorts of companies a digital middle finger. I'll even click the button with both, just so they feel the love.
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"2) "Why are you cancelling?" ... few more questions...
3) "Can I have your new address so I can see if we provide service in your area?" No, you can't. I don't want your service
4)
5) "Wait, you're moving? I need to transfer you to are moving department" WHAT?"
Easy, answer 2 with "None of your fucking business"
I see no reason at all to be nice to these assholes who won't take no for an answer.
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Exactly.
"I'd like to cancel my service"
1) Sure, i'm happy to help you with that (great, let's do that immediately)
2) Can you tell me why you'd like to cancel? (no, please cancel my service now. I'm not interested in any offers or providing any information)
3) but what about xyz? (Cancel my service now)
Repeat a few times but if you feed the beast any info they will keep asking more questions until they can transfer you (and thus preserve their retention statistic) to somewhere else that you'll hold for anot
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Seriously, *every* business by law should be required to be cancellable by one-click or similar.
I don't agree. There should be enough competition so that voting with our wallets worked instead of having to create new laws.
Actually I do agree I just think it's funny that it took over ten years for a bill like this to even be suggested.
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I was going to post the exact same comment.
Kudos sir.
They'll just stop online signups. (Score:2)
This one is obvious: Comcast would simply stop online signups! Then they'd be exempt from the law.
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There is a disadvantage though - what if there's someone creating a malware that goes out and cancels every subscription for Comcast?
It would be a challenge to clean up that one, so a "one click" solution isn't really good, there should be a confirmation too.
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what if there's someone creating a malware that goes out and cancels every subscription for Comcast?
Bring it on!
a sign (Score:5, Insightful)
Tells you how odious such "retention practices" are when the ability to quit a business relationship with a corporation without undue burden has to be legislated.
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Exactly. If you can order online, you should be able to cancel online. Sad to see legislation requires this instead of friendly businesses that value their service.
Though it does bring up security concerns - hopefully information like the existing credit card details are required to cancel and not just a guessable account number.
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Re: a sign (Score:1)
As opposed to a Republican run state where they just want to regulate your personal life while leaving monopoly businesses totally free to screw you over.
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It should be extended to cover not just signing up for service, but also signing up for advertising. Europe has strong regulation requiring that you *can* opt out of having your data stored, but some companies (cough) AirFrance (cough) have figured out that they can make it so that you're required to send physical post to them to delete your data from their spam database.
how many other things too? (Score:5, Insightful)
-- gym memberships?
-- credit cards?
-- cell phone plans?
-- America Online?
Basically, anything where the business model is to rely on your inertia and hassle of cancelling the service, and the high pressure sales tactics to stay when you finally call them up? I constantly find it amazing that there are businesses that survive on this principle...
Re: how many other things too? (Score:1)
Not to mention
- Credit monitoring service
- Auto insurance
Both of these let you sign up online, neither of mine will let you cancel that way.
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http://leginfo.legislature.ca.... [ca.gov]
It pretty much already has (Score:3)
Move to Uzbkeistan (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Move to Uzbkeistan (Score:4, Informative)
The last time I canceled cable, I walked into the local office and gave them the box. They didn't argue.
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"get a receipt" no kidding.
I cancelled Comcast, and drove 20 mins across town to turn in the box at a staffed Comast customer service center, and got a receipt.
Comcast then denied I'd turned the box in. The "customer service" folks on the phone insisted that the only possible way to solve the problem was to drive across town and go see the staff service center in person. NO other way.
I eventually found the email for the "secret" customer service folks, I scanned the receipt and sent it to them. Problem s
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Finally talked to someone that could do something about it
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Certified mail, they won't have any excuse.
If only software could be regulated this way (Score:2, Funny)
Imagine "one click" acccess to
Linux distros without systemD
Firefox without pocket
WIndows 10 without telemetry.
One click access to all of this without the long hacks you need to resort to now.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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If you have automatic payments set up then call your bank and tell them to cancel the automatic payments. Don't depend on the service provider to do it.
Re:theres an easer way of course. (Score:5, Funny)
It's far easier to just call them say cancel then when the retention folks get on the line tell them you are moving. When they ask where, tell them the state prison, that you are serving a 20 year sentence for assaulting the local phone company rep that wouldn't cancel your account after you asked politely.
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Californians ruined it. Then they moved West and took a shot at Vegas. After milking Vegas for everything that it was worth they decided to move north and now they're in the process of ruining Portland (and Seattle, but Seattle has Seattllites in it already, so no big loss)
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Re: It took me nine months to cancel Comcast! (Score:1)
Hah! It took me 12 years to cancel Comcast and I never even had it in the first place. I will never not use them again.
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I faxed them the letter, and received no response from them. I decided not to pay my previous bill until I had verification that they would cancel my policy. Two months later, having not received any confirmation of my cancellation, I finally received a
Cancel by phone? (Score:1)
That never works. When I tried to cancel TiVo by phone, their CSR claimed he was only authorized to suspend accounts, not cancel.
Rather than waste my time and theirs, I sent them a certified letter, and they cancelled my service promptly. Just search around for an address for customer service, or failing that, the legal department.
The last time I cancelled Comcast, I had to return the box, which is another definitive way of terminating business with them, in fact I'm pretty sure a click-to-cancel provisio
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Then you should've asked to be sent to retentions, who are authorized.
And sometimes, retentions is a good thing - especially for service related things like TiVo. It's been known if the hardware is older that retentions may offer a $99 lifetime service plan, so even if you don't ever plan on using it ever again, it increases the resale value from nothing to around $150 for the older units.
'Assemblyman', eh... (Score:3)
Does he favour Intel or AT&T syntax?
another bullshit bill (Score:1)
Any penalities for when Comast refuses to follow? (Score:1)
That mouse can be found? (Score:2)
“That’s the Customer Retention department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the GUI, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on a laptop in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused office with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of
Cancel and go where? (Score:2)
I'd click cancel on Comcast and instead go to... um... AT&T dial up service? I have no broadband choice!!!
Say what? (Score:2)
A friend's experience (Score:2)
Cancel Service in person. (Score:2)
I just walked into the comcast customer service store, handed them the equipment and service was canceled in about 2 minutes. Total time was about 10 minutes in the store. What is so hard about that?
use a hammer (Score:2)
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You should be able to cancel in the same way... (Score:3)
That's just a great principle for most things. I think it would be great if getting divorced was just as easy as getting a marriage license.
Posting phone call in youtube channel? Mass call? (Score:1)