Existing Customers Treated worse than New Customers!

Exactly my point! Furthermore, Xfinity Support, I simply cannot find the icons you describe above to send a DM to Customer "Loyalty" or Customer Support. There is no Chat icon I can see on the upper right corner of this page. What am I missing? Can you attach a screenshot? It's ridiculous that I have to request that, but I simply don't see what you're claiming exists on this page!

@user_xx16re​  - it didn't let me @ reference  you earlier, but yes, I see that. BTW, there is a lawsuit in the City of San Jose filed by a disgruntled customer for EXACTLY these practices against Comcast/Xfinity. For changing pricing on existing customers without giving them the option to avail themselves of existing offers, or worse-yet driving them up to "full price"/"rack rates" at the end of a "contract", and thus essentially discriminating against existing customers in the worse way imaginable. Although, Xfinity is not alone in this. This practice is rampant in the US, and has certainly gotten a lot worse and more blatant in the last few years, depending on your definition of "few" :-). But more seriously, this is very, very poor customer service (if it can even be called "customer service", which is an oxymoron really).

@user_xx16re​ - not to mention the added cost of processing their cancellation and then again processing their "new account", all of which wastes collossal amounts of time for Xfinity (in addition to the customer's time, which of course Xfinity gives a damn about!), but even from Xfinity's own selfish perspective, I don't see how it can be advantageous to have customers "cancel" and reappear 3 months later? Maybe Xfinity is betting on the fact that customers cannot cancel just for 3 months, and where will they go anyway? Or some such line of thinking ... yes? About as win-lose a thinking as one could imagine, and I thought we live in a country that prided itself on it's win-win, customer-focused philosophy -- or at least that was that case until a "few" years ago (may be 15, with things going steadily downhill from there, almost universally, with some rare exceptions)

@user_xx16re​ - to add to your point, there's another sneaky (and, frankly, both illegal AND unlawful) discrimination that Comcast/Xfinity has done against customers who don't choose to provide Xfinity the ability to directly connect to their bank accounts (for obvious reasons), and it is this (I just sent this paragraph to Customer Service as well):

"Another thing Comcast/Xfinity has sneakily done is "eliminated" the autopay discount for thos using credit cards, by reducing it by $5, and trying to force people to provide their bank account directly to Comcast, which I don't want to do and really should NOT need to do. Comcast/Xfinity cannot discriminate against customers that don't want to give you their direct bank account access, which is it doing by this policy. I only have to provide an autopay option, there should not be (and legally cannot really be) a discrimination against those that don't want to give you their bank account info. There is no requirement upon a Customer to pay with their bank account, because that is NOT what Autopay is. Autopay is defined as payment arriving at Comcast automatically before the due date (or certain # of days prior to the due date, say a week or whatever), and that happens regularly each month or each billing period. That's it!  What if I want to pay using cash and/or a Banker's check each month, by simply mailing (using that good-old trusty thing called US Postal Service - remember they still exist and are a multi-billion dollar enterprise) that cash or Banker's check to Comcast? That is still a perfecty valid way to pay, and I could "autopay" by simply ensuring it arrives prior to my payment date (or whatever date is required) automatically each month by configuring it through my bank to go out automatically each month on a date such that it arrives at Comcast's office by the desired date, BUT WITHOUT giving Comcast direct access to my bank account or any of my bank account details."

Additional Explanation (beyond what I just sent Customer Service via the chat; this explanation is both for interested Customers AND for Comcast/Xfinity's Customer Service and Legal Departments and their Executive Management):

Note that using a credit/debit card is okay, because the very purpose of those cards is that you give them (and not your bank account details) to the party requiring you to pay for a product/service. So, there's no conflict there. One (Comcast/Xfinity) cannot say "Hey, you're providing your credit/debit card details aren't you? So, why can't you provide your bank account details? It's the same thing!" NO it's NOT Comcast! Because the bank account is not meant (if the customer does not want to) to be given to all and sundry, or to all merchants/service providers. A credit/debit card IS meant for precisely that purpose - to facilitate payment.

Alternatively, why does Comcast not provide the customer its account number, so I can set up auto-pay from my bank's side using ACH or similar services. The difference is that when Comcast provides its account details to me/the customer, my bank and I control the transfer OUT of my account and INTO Comcast's account (I still cannot take money from Comcast's  account) and the recipient (in this case Comcast) has no access to my account and no way to directly touch or take money out of my account. When I provide my banking details to Comcast, not only are those details exposed through potentially multiple systems and third-parties that Comcast uses, I am also giving Comcast permission to access and debit money directly from my account, a BIG exposure risk. Why should a customer that does NOT want to take that risk be penalized by taking away a portion of the autopay discount, when there are several ways for that customer to make an autopay payment to Comcast and the customer is willing to use one of those alternatives? Not only is it safer and easier for the customer, it is actually also safer for Comcast - it does not then have to deal with issues of incorrect withdrawals made from customer's accounts and all of the hassles that comes with dealing with those issues and customer calls.

Because it is only $5, it has perhaps not received widespread coverage, but it SHOULD. It is EVEN MORE discriminatory than having customers be booted off for 90 days, because Comcast/Xfinity did that in the MIDDLE of my 12-month contract (at the 6 or 7 month mark), thereby making a mockery of the term/word "contract"!!!!

The reason I signed up for the contract (which, by definition, is a MUTUAL agreement between Comcast and the customer) was that my TERMS and PRICE were locked in.

I read the Agreeement, they could change the rates of taxes, and fees etc. BUT NOT the offered discounts and the resultant rate (as per the specifications of their own contract! And, I have a copy of it.). YET Comcast, illegally and unlawfully (illegal is something that the statutes, the laws on the books - in this case US Contract Law - prevents one from doing, while unlawful is something that is simply wrong no matter whether there is a statute about it or not).

Even IF there was no contract law on the books, it is elementary/axiomatic that "contract" means a meeting of the minds, an agreement between two parties, and WITHOUT there being any clause that things can change mid-term (EVEN THEN that clause would have to have the agreement of both parties to change anything; if one party (Comcast) can change anything mid-term, then it is NOT a Contract, it is a dictatorship!).

I mean think about it, I, the customer, sign a 12-month "contract" with Comcast, which says I will get Xfinity's XYZ service for $60/month for 12 months, plus taxes (which they said could change, ok, I grant that) BUT the base amount was to be fixed. And then, a few month's down the line Comcast comes along and says "Hey customer, our service now costs $100/mo starting next month, and you gotta pay it!" And, if I, the customer, didn't need to agree, then that wouldn't really be any "contract" now would it? See how obvious it is!  It would be nonsense, drivel! A travesty! A huge wrong against the customer. It would be TRESPASS by way of EXTORTION and TRESPASS by way of THEFT (and probably several other forms of trespass, and it would continue indefinitely, even AFTER the contract ended, UNTIL it was remedied).

But this is exaclty what Comcast did to me (and millions of other unsuspecting customers) by saying "hey, we initially told you we'll give you $10 as discount if you autopay, but you know what, we changed our mind, and we will only give you $10 if you hand over your bank details to us, otherwise, we'll only give you $5 as discount (or as a favor for auto-paying), and BTW, it doesn't matter if you agree with this change or not, we're gonna do it anyway!" Well, that wouldn't be a "contract" now would it? There's no continued meeting of the minds of the two parties there, is there? That would be arm-twisting plain and simple, with the contract becoming a sham. Well, that's exactly what has happened!

There is simply NO LEGAL basis for Comcast to do what it did, for possibly millions of customers, none of which probably realized it, of even if they did, it was just so much work to object/complain (or even if they did complain, who knows where those complaints went).

So, Comcast did something patently illegal, but has gotten away with it. This is something that has gone, as far as I can tell, completely under the radar.

And, NO, sending some "announcement" in an insert with a bill is NOT a license to change the contract in the middle of its term. So, yes, this should ALSO get wider coverage, maybe I need to start a separate thread on this. But since it ties to the bad treatment of existing customers, and since this $5 nickeling and diming (actually it is way MORE than that - it is a way to coerce/force customers to give up their banking data to Comcast, and despite claims of these corporations that they want to "protect"/"secure" the customer, actually exposes the customer's bank account details to more and more places, placing it more and more at risk.)

Therefore, the scheme of paying "automatically" that I described above, which is both a PERFECTLY legal and a PERFECTLY lawful way to pay automatically, is just as valid as the option of giving Comcast direct access to, and details of, my bank account, but achieves the automatic payment goal without needing to give Comcast/Xfinity those bank account details, which are my private information that I do not need to (and am in no way, shape or form obligated to) share with absolutely anyone other than my banker or their staff.

Therefore, giving an additional "discount" to those that are willing to disclose their bank account details is like bribing them, in addition, of course, to discriminating against those customers that are not willing to make that compromise (and are not obligated to), but are willing to autopay - via a credit card, or my Banker's check idea or other means (maybe by having things delivered by carrier pigeons - it doesn't matter). That is, such bribing and/or coercion (of one set of customers) and discrimination (against another set) would be illegal, EVEN IF, Comcast did it after the "expiry" of each customer's current contract. Just so long as there were customers that were willing to satisfy the "autopay" condition, and had a way to do so (as I just described clearly above) without handing over their private bank account details to Comcast. You see that is NOT a pre-requisite to "autopay", and is not in the definition of "autopay".

And PARTICULARLY discriminating and breaking the contract with those customers whose rates were increased (like i) in the MIDDLE of a settled contract! That's a doozy in terms of redefining what "contract" means in Comcast-land. Hope this will help a lot of other customers see the sneaky sham that it is, and will help Comcast/Xfinity's Legal Department see the potential avalanche of legal wrangling potentially coming down the hill that they may have unleashed with this.

And, motivate them to provide remedy to millions of customers who were wronged and will continue to be wronged, by reversing this $5 coercive tactic and the corresponding requirement to essentially forcibly hand over their banking details to Comcast/Xfinity, and the small boost of revenue that is provides (actually, it does not really, because it creates customer churn, unhappy customers and a whole boatload of issues, not to mention the potential legal wrangling). So, perhaps their own self-preservation will motivate Comcast/Xfinity and Comcast Legal to provide remedy and correct their wrongs, since a "win-win" philosophy clearly does not seem to be their mantra! :-)

Brian L Roberts, Lynn R. Charytan, Jason S. Armstrong, Lisa Bonnell, Francis M. Buono, and Thomas J. Reid -- are you listening?? (https://corporate.comcast.com/company/leadership)

Hello @user_qfprfw, thank you for taking the time to reach out on social media. I'd be happy to check into your concerns for you. 

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