[ale] external monitor & automated refund request for Comcast or other services

[Jerry Yu]

1) to get a TICKET# from live chat on Comcast site (automate this part and
to be triggered by outage alert from the monitors, or even manually by cheap
labor from other galaxies )
2) if email or billing portal is allowed to pass this TICKET# in to request
refund, things would be easier.

if POTS line is the only channel to request refund, can we glue some AI +
speech-2-text + text-2-speech + pre-scripted request with outage report
works?

The framework could be generalized to any ISP or service.  I mentioned
Comcast only because its recent outage trigged these thoughts.

On Jan 11, 2008 9:41 AM, David Tomaschik <ozone at webgroup.org> wrote:

> I would seriously doubt such a framework/service exists.  If Comcast
> were to discover it, I imagine they would simply disallow refunds made
> via that process.  I haven't looked, but it's probably a violation of
> the ToS.  Not to mention that the only way I know of to request a refund
> is to call them and talk to a person.
>
> Can you clarify what you mean by "automating the refund process for all
> subscribers"?
>
> David
>
>
>
> Jerry Yu wrote:
> > They don't care at present, because they get to keep your money either
> > way. They may start to care, if subscribers request refund /en masse/,
> > with the help of an automated framework/service.
> >
> > Just to clarify, my question were
> >
> >     * whether such a 'by the subscriber and for the subscriber'
> >       framework/service already exists.
> >     * If not, assume Comcast "API" or "UI" for refund won't ever
> >       change, how can one go about automating the refund process for
> >       all subscribers
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jan 11, 2008 9:06 AM, David Tomaschik <ozone at webgroup.org
> > <mailto:ozone at webgroup.org>> wrote:
> >
> >     I guess the question is: why on earth would Comcast want to make it
> >     EASIER for customers to get refunds?  They'd want to do anything
> they
> >     can to KEEP the money.
> >
> >     David
> >
> >
> >     Jerry Yu wrote:
> >     > My comcast connection went down twice this week.  (frustration!).
> >     >
> >     >     * They doesn't seem to have end-to-end service monitors, since
> I
> >     >       was on the phone and told no outage in my service area,
> >     >     * Worse, for acknowledged outages, Comcast doesn't automate
> >     >       refunding customers in the affected service area.
> >     >
> >     > To "encourage" them to improve the up time, I think it'd be nice
> to
> >     > automate the outage->refund process.  I reckon that, if  enough
> >     people
> >     > (I'd be happy with >=30%) send in their refund request through an
> >     > automated framework/service each every time an outage happens,
> that
> >     > ought get their attention.
> >     >
> >     > Is there such thing exist already? If not, how one be implemented,
> >     > assume Comcast's "API" for refund doesn't change. This meant to be
> a
> >     > technical question, not invitation for 'yeah, mine was down too'
> >     echo.
> >     >
> >
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