Comcast agents mistakenly reject some poor people who qualify for free Internet | Hacker News Reader

Comcast agents mistakenly reject some poor people who qualify for free Internet

arstechnica.com

54 pointsBender16 comments

Isnt this extremely normal for these types of services?

I was rejected for my state's version of medicaid 4 times because no rep would take the time to go through my application (I made over the income limit, but lived in Flint, MI during the water crisis, making me eligible for a higher limit). I just stopped trying after 4 months.

It is, but it shouldn't be.

The lesson is that government doesn't care about you. The same goes to big organizations. Comcast doesn't care about selling internet at no profit to poor people.

I don't understand why this is downvoted. Perhaps you struck the WrongThink nerve.

No organization is going to invest seriously in doing an awesome job at something that is a pure financial loss. Just follow the incentives. One would have to be completely insane to expect otherwise. When you are just a number to the organization you are dealing with the effect is magnified.

> The lesson is that government doesn't care about you.

I'm sure you can cite examples of governmental bad behavior that are as neglectful or worst, but this behavior was by Comcast, not the government. In fact, in this case, the very existence of the Internet Essentials program in the first place was because of a government-imposed condition before approving a merger (although Comcast now continues it despite the specific provision having lapsed).

> Isnt this extremely normal for these types of services?

Yes—but that doesn't mean it should be accepted. It's common at least in part because people don't worry too much about the consequences of disadvantaging the poor and others with comparatively less voice in society. So, when it happens, if possible we should amplify the news of it to make the people in decision-making positions hopefully think twice before allowing such behavior.

Are you disabled in any way? There's a MI provision for Medicaid that lets disabled people work and make up to...I think it's like 75k+ a year before they scrutinize my income. I just mention it because if you're in MI and still need health care it might be an option.

My experience is that you're rejected for programs at least once before they accept you and it's not not purposeful, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I was told most people are rejected a couple of times. I just got tired of daily phone calls + messages and no answerd, and eventual rejection after not returning my calls. This was even after explaining to some reps, plus putting in a management complaint. I put a lot of hours into working on that one.

I'm not disabled, but I'll probably make more than the limit this year. My income is super unstable year-to-year. But I'm most likely losing my biggest contract sometime 2023 so might qualify again. We'll see.

It's a complete roulette based on the case worker assigned in my experience. I feel you; I also have very variable income and it's shocking how few programs can handle that. I also question how much of this is purposeful due to things like my having to write and mail in a paper check when I do pay for my Medicaid. It's 2022 and you only take money order or checks that physically arrive in the mail?! And my encounters with the MI UI system were just ridiculous.

Hope things work out for you. They need to get that sorted out, particularly for people who lived in Flint and were victimized by governmental incompetence and should be checked regularly for lead damage. (I was lucky and moved out of Flint in 2011. :| )

Oh dear, yeah, the UI has been dystopian. The cryptic errors, the lack of feedback to let you know if things completed, links to partner websites with absolutely broken pieces of critical information (I couldn't get a prescription list, went to their partner website, and not only did the link not work, but the feedback form also had errors so I couldn't even get help/report it)

If this is how critical pieces of software, the ones that sustain life (albeit in an indirect, societal way), will continue to be written, we'll be fucked.

And yeah... Flint was a disaster. It seems like every city around here has its own little ecological disaster. Ann Arbor with the PFAS/PFOS, St Clair River with the no swim warnings, etc...

It's a horror show, and most of the third-party/partner sites look like they were designed and implemented by third-rate barely tech literate hacks. (Which I can say in confidence as I am a third-rate hack and should never be responsible for any tech that important.) Even their basic organization, public access, etc. is borked: I had to find out about my Medicaid eligibility by stumbling upon a BEM PDF which MDHHS had posted, then using their directory taxonomy to access all the other BEM PDFs (which are accessible but not linked anywhere; I'm not entirely certain if they're meant to be public or not...) and reading through them. That's an insane thing to ask of an average American.

> It seems like every city around here has its own little ecological disaster. Ann Arbor with the PFAS/PFOS, St Clair River with the no swim warnings, etc...

It's very f'ed up. Like, it's telling that back when I moved to Lansing, I lived near the Capitol because 'hey, they're probably not going to poison/give cancer to/etc. the politicians'. That's medieval peasant era reasoning: "If I live in the castle with the lord, he'll protect the castle since it's his house."

We're so fucked.

I briefly worked for a subcontractor that did sales for Comcast and this is entirely unsurprising. It was a terrible operation, the software was so buggy that it was actually difficult to do anything correctly, including being able to quote prices accurately. I once had two calls from houses on the same block and had to give the people two very different prices because that’s what popped up on my screen.

It was an awful job.

As I'm sure you're aware the people calling in having to deal with comcast were miserable too. The fact that these universally despised companies continue to not only operate but consolidate further is a canary in the coal mine. ISPs should have been made proper utilities and had their profits regulated as such years ago.

Had a good friend that started a small business and used comcast for their phone and internet service. She explained the deal to me (as explained by the salesperson) when she signed as being a one year contract. One year later she attempts to move to another provider only to realize the contract renewed automatically 60 days before the end (a detail not mentioned by the salesperson and hidden amongst 30 pages of legal jargon on a website which was linked to in the contract … the contract referred to the website!).

It's not just them. I used to work for att selling phones, internet, and cable. I had basically 0 ability to tell you what your bill every month would be, just a estimate plus or minus 5-15$ or so.

I feel like we need another Teddy Roosevelt to break up companies like Comcast.

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