Customer Service Rep Mistake?

In April, an Xfinity customer service representative offered me a free iWatch promotion that did not exist. I bought the iWatch and now Xfinity corporate management has refused to grant the discount that that their agent promised. The details:

On 4/2/2024, I live chatted with an Xfinity customer service representative regarding a third-party modem problem that stopped my email and significantly slowed internet speed. After an order was placed for an Xfinity modem rental, the agent offered me a "free iWatch as token of apology". After 45 minutes of live chatting to discuss the details of the promotion, I finally agreed to place the order. The agent had assured me that it would be free: the $27.92 monthly mobile charge for the watch for 24 months would be offset by a $30 monthly discount on my internet services billing for 24 months. For example, he typed specifically: "You will also get $30 discount by adding this watch line on your internet bill so this will be FREE for you." I asked why the discount wasn’t shown on the iWatch order that he sent me and he told me that it the discount would be handled by Xfinity Internet Services so it isn’t shown on the Xfinity Mobile documents, but “please be rest assured” that the $30 discount will be applied each month. Reviewing the transcript, he made this statement six times.

In a few days, I received the watch and the monthly mobile bill began including the new charges. But I never got any discount on my internet bill. Over the next four months, I live chatted and spoke with at least 15 Xfinity representatives. Some of the supervisors created tickets and I was promised callbacks and "fixes" several times that never happened. During one call in July, I was told that they decided to apply the discount "manually" each month. On my July internet bill, there was no discount, but there was a new $390 "Disputed Charges" line item, and a $765 Disputed Charges line item appeared on the August bill. There was also a credit balance on these bills.  It increased to –$401.10 in August.

I didn't make any payments in July and August because I thought the credit balance was being applied “manually”. Then I got a past due notice email. I called Xfinity to find out what to do and representatives told me that there was a negative balance so ignore the emails. I got a second notice and called again. On July 30, I was told specifically: “… you do not have to make any payments”. There was a negative balance. I have that transcript too. On August 30, I came home that evening to find that Xfinity had stopped my internet service. I called the 1-800 customer service number and explained the situation. They told me that I must pay the past due amount now to get service. I explained that there was a credit balance, that I was told I didn’t have to pay, and the call was again escalated to a supervisor. He restored service during the call and told me that I would get another call or an email within 24 hours from a higher level with further info. No one ever called or emailed me and, in 48 hours, internet service was turned off again. I discovered it after getting home after business hours and, at that point, I just paid the requested past due amount on line in order to get service restored right away.

The following day, I called Xfinity again and spoke with another representative. He transferred me to a supervisor. The supervisor took a half hour to thoroughly review the records and told me "in her 20 years she never saw anything like this" and the situation "was above her pay grade". There were 7 tickets in the file. She suggested that I call the Philadelphia corporate office and gave me a 215 number to call. Since it was 4:50 PM by then, I called Philadelphia the next morning and, after being transferred a few times, the representative escalated the dispute again and I got a new “ESL” ticket number. The following morning, I got a call from Xfinity Corporate. It was a manager in "Executive Customer Relations". He told me that the iWatch promotion never existed, there was no “code entered in the system” for this order, and that they did not have the April 2 live chat transcript on file. I was looking at the two-hour-long, word-for-word transcript on my monitor and I offered to email it to him. In previous conversations, I had spoken with Xfinity people who told me that they were reading it. He told me that, since the transcript wasn’t currently on file there, sending him my copy would not change anything. He told me that if I emailed him what I had, he'd just send it to Xfinity's Coaching people for "training" purposes. He did offer to give me credit for one month's internet service, which is slightly less than $125, including taxes and fees. He told me there was no one else at Xfinity that would speak with me about this. So, a credit of $125 was being offered to compensate for an expense of $670.08, plus fees ($27.92/mo. x 24 months). And, the April 2 discount offer was $30/month for 24 months, or $720. I didn't accept the $125 offer. At this point, I'm not sure what my next step will be.

The bottom line is the corporate "Executive Customer Relations" manager refused to honor the Xfinity agent's repeated April 2 promise to "please be rest assured" that I would receive a $30/month discount for 24 months to offset the $27.92 per month charged to my mobile bill for 24 months (I read that promise a total of six times in the transcript).

How could I think this was anything but a scam? The representative must have lied intentionally because he did not, and could not, enter a discount code and he entered the watch order anyway. There must be a fair solution somehow. I’ve been an Xfinity customer for over 10 years and was never late with payment - before now. Literally thousands paid to Xfinity over the years.