How to Close an Account...Who would read this?

I waited weeks to post my experience with Xfinity and here's why.

I closed my Xfinity account because I no longer needed the internet at my house.

Whether I had any problems with Xfinity had no bearing on this decision. I wanted out for my own reasons and it was certainly nothing Xfinity did.

Finding out how to do this online was difficult to say the least. Hidden under several pages, I finally found the page to end my service. (Probably about 15-20 minutes of searching) Many other companies know that customers are extremely unhappy when they hide and make difficult ending their service. To this end, several of them now make it easier to cancel their service...but apparently, not Xfinity.

After I clearly cancelled my account (and happily, took a screenshot of the confirmation) Xfinity ignored my cancellation and charged me for the next month's service.

So I called them, and was as polite as I could be, and asked them to look at their records and see their error.

They saw their error and the man told me that even though I cancelled my service, it was up to me to also cancel my monthly automatic payments.

Now, if this last thing seems odd to you, it did to me as well. What company expects you to both cancel your service AND separately cancel your automatic payments? How would I know to do this? It seems they would have kept charging me for a service I cancelled, forever. But no matter, he said clearly that Xfinity owed me for the overcharge and that I would get the money back. I hang up satisfied, until...

I got an email asking me how I would like to get my money. Huh? What anyone would expect is that the charge would be credited back their credit card, but no. They had to add one more thorn before extracting myself from the thorn bush that is Xfinity. Here were my options:

• I could give them my bank account info and have the money deposited there. Needless to say, there was no way I was giving a company that I was leaving my bank account information.

• I could get a physical card with the amount due to me. I opted for this, and as of this writing, it took 4 weeks to finally get the money that they took from me, let's say, by accident.

So, here's the thing. Broadband internet through a cable line is a monopoly. That is to say, that there is usually only one choice of providers if you want the fastest and cheapest internet in your area. There is no competition you can go to. In my area it's Xfinity. If I later decide to get broadband internet again in the future, there is only one choice in my town, Xfinity. The fact that they are willing to leverage that monopoly status to abuse their customers like this is unconscionable.

Bottom line, be careful! My advice is to open a separate checking account for your Xfinity payments. Give them the debit card number to charge you for their service and when you want to cancel your service, close that account!

I was not unhappy with Xfinity, they always provided great service and were reasonably priced. We never experienced an outage in 4 years. I liked my Xfinity service! But, O, how quickly they took off the mask and showed me that when I was no longer a paying customer—I was an enemy.

Never again, Xfinity.