Comcast Bills Man For Self-Immolating Cable Box Of Doom

http://www.curiousread.com/2008/12/comcast-bills-man-for-self-immolating.html

If your Comcast

cable box starts a fire in your home — should you be responsible for paying to replace it?

That's what happened to Kirk — and he's refusing to pay up, so Comcast has been harassing him for months. Finally, they stopped letting him use OnDemand, so Kirk canceled.

The story began when the Fire Department was summoned to Kirk's house at 5:30 AM because his cable box had caught fire. He says he never received an apology from Comcast, or any reassurance that the flaming cable box would be investigated. What he did get is a bill for $88 for destroyed equipment.

From The Daily Journal:

What was — and is — of concern to Comcast is the apparent loss of a piece of their equipment, which they billed me for, as though I were responsible for its untimely end! For several months, despite repeated telephone calls explaining why I cannot return their equipment (each of which ends nowhere and during each of which they thank me for choosing Comcast!), the $88 for their lost equipment has remained on my monthly statement along with late fees.

To add insult to injury, I wrote a letter of complaint to the corporate head office in September and, to date, have not received a response to my letter, much less an apology or any kind of guarantee that they will absorb the cost of their faulty equipment.

To be fair, I have paid the full amount of my service each month — less the $88 — which amounts to several hundred dollars, and always on time. In fact, I have been a good customer for almost eight years, and yet Comcast was willing to lose a customer who spends thousands of dollars each year on their services for an $88 piece of equipment that could have killed me in my sleep.

We asked Comcast if they had a comment about the incident, since Mr. Wisemayer didn't seem to be having much luck contacting them. Here's what they told us:

We spoke to Mr. Wisemayer this morning and apologized for his experience with our service. Our team is looking into these events and will work with Mr. Wisemayer to restore his service to his satisfaction.

If you're having trouble successfully communicating with Comcast, you should contact their team of powerful internet ninjas. They can be found at Twitter. [via consumerist]