Comcast Sends Me to Collections, I Examine Their Choice of Collections Agent

As my reader’s might remember from this story (quickly becoming the most read story ever on Corndog Country), I had a small issue with Comcast.  A quick recap for those of you too lazy to click the link:

I stopped my Comcast service in February and returned my equipment with about $10 owed to me by Comcast, prorated charges for the period I had paid for but not used.  While returning the equipment, I explained to the Comcast agent that I wanted to revoke my authorization for Comcast to autobill me, as I no longer owed them anything.  She agreed and said I wouldn’t be charged.  A month later, I get charged $100.56.  After explaining the situation to a Comcast rep on the phone and confirming that I now had over $110 in credit on my account, the rep actually suggested that I report the withdrawal from my bank as fraud since it “would take at least 2-3 months for Comcast to send me a check”.  On that advice, I got the bank to overturn the charge.  Happy ending, right?

Not quite.

A couple weeks after that post, I got a check from Comcast for $110, which I won’t cash because I’m only owed $10.  At this point I’m mildly annoyed at the Comcast rep who suggested I reverse the charge, but I decide the $10 is not worth the effort of cashing the check and sending back the majority of it or calling Comcast again, so I decide to leave the check uncashed and forget the whole situation.

However, last week (about two months after Comcast had their charge reversed) I get a bill in the mail for $100.56.  Whatever, I just take the uncashed check and bill to the Comcast center and say “fix this, I don’t care about the $10 difference,” a task which the Comcast agent at the store completes without any issue.  Now I’m OK, right?

Not quite.  Today, I get in the mail a letter from a collection agency trying to recover the $100.56 “debt” that Comcast thinks I owe.  Though I would love to get into it with a collection agency over this “debt,” I’ll probably just have to call their office to explain that this has been paid, and was never owed in the first place.

Anyway, here’s the information on the collection agency to which Comcast sent my non-existent debt.  Seems like a nice outfit from their website.

The CMI Group
4200 International Parkway
Carrollton, TX 75007

Looks like their headquarters is sandwiched between a kidney specialist and the headquarters of Woot.com, which I find mildly interesting.  Right now Woot is selling a 7″ Android tablet for $80 plus $5 shipping, though I’m 99% sure that it’s garbage.

Wow, CMI even has biographies for each of their executives right on their website (here), which seems like something you might leave off if you were a collection agency, especially when your CEO has his own website that looks even less professional than this one.  Oh, Thomas A. Stockton, I didn’t realize your middle name was actually “A- horrible web designer.” Zing, burned.  I’m kidding Tom, we’re cool, even if you do live in Frisco, TX, home of the Texas League’s RoughRiders, arch-nemesis of the Tulsa Drillers.

Often forgotten in the history books, the RoughRiders famously rode in fancy gray suits.

I actually contemplated going down the list of executives at this collection agency and making fun of each of them, but they honestly seem like one of the most boring groups of people I’ve ever read the biographies for.  They’re all very serious about collections, they even have their own “philosophy” about collecting debts, here’s my favorite part: “The CMI Group employs a “firm but fair” approach in dealing with consumers.”  Apparently they’re firm on not actually caring whether the debts they try to collect exist in the first place, but that’s most likely Comcast’s fault.  Oh man, they even have a pledge for all their collectors! I added some commentary in italics, feel free to utilize it in your next employee pamphlet if you like, CMI.

The Collector Pledge

• I believe every person has worth as an individual.  Even the lowest grade proteins sell for at least 13 cents a pound.

• I believe every person should be treated with dignity and respect. Why are we pledging to believe how things should be?  Shouldn’t you pledge to actually do something? If you just have to pledge to believe in something, I’d make my employees pledge to believe in world peace, Santa Claus, or whatever spiritual leader I heard about on Oprah that day.

• I will make it my responsibility to help consumers find ways to pay their just debts. But if they get caught using those ‘ways’ I shall deny my involvement when asked by the police.

• I will be professional and ethical. But not both at the same time, I’m not superman.

• I commit to honoring this pledge. Isn’t this line completely unnecessary?  Who makes a pledge where part of the pledge is committing to the pledge?  Can we add another bullet where we commit to our commitment to the pledge, and then another where we commit to commit to our commitment to the pledge?  That would really hammer in the pledge I think.   

Wait, what’s that, CMI has even more corporate nonsense to make fun of?  A corporate philosophy expressed in an unwieldy acronym where the letters don’t even line up with the beginning of each phrase?  Behold, the F.I.V.E.S. philisophy:

Really?  If you’re not going to make the letters fall ad the beginning of each statement (By the way, Fun Integrity Value Excellence Service would have been perfectly acceptable), at least come up with something a little more catchy than “FIVES.”

Seriously, Dwight is running circles around you, CMI.

OK, that’s all.  To be fair, CMI is probably going to be as annoyed at Comcast as I am, since I can’t imagine being sent out to collect dumb, non-existent debts is very profitable.

Lastly, AT&T has yet to honor their promotional rate that I signed up for, and I have been over-billed by over $60 since February.  Don’t think I didn’t notice your hijinks, U-Verse.