Senior Accidentally Overpays Comcast, Can't Get Money Back > Typical

Why does it always take the glare of the media spotlight for Comcast to do the right thing?

Granted, most companies now a days want to just give a credit, which is stupid in itself

Well, not to defend Comcast, but there are two issues at play here:

1) A lower level employee may be able to issue a refund for a few hundred bucks, but when you're talking about four digits the accounting folks will need to get involved. Nobody in a customer service call center is going to have the authority to issue a check for thousands of dollars.

2) The refusal to give a credit in this instance most likely came from a low level employee who was too stupid/scared to apply basic common sense. He has a flowchart, this situation is not on the flowchart, so he's going to do the safest thing, i.e., nothing.

Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.

Anyone with a single brain cell knew this would go to the press and force Comcast's hand.

And never attribute to stupidity that which can be attributed to greed...

Then you've never worked in a call center. Customers call in all the time that are upset, pissed, belligerent, threatening, etc. Sometimes the customer's demeanor is justified, other times it's not. Either way, as a customer support rep, you are not always empowered to help the customer, or may not have received the proper training to help the customer. The same goes for the people who are part of the chain of escalation at call centers.
Certainly the customer did not receive the level of customer service that he obviously should have, however that does not directly indicate that the lower level person is the one who failed. Without recordings of the call(s) he made we simply have no way of knowing.

No, the customer did not receive the level of customer service that he obviously should have and rarely do they ever get that type of service.

You are creating a straw man here. It is obvious that the customer did not receive the proper resolution through traditional channels, which is not acceptable. If you have worked in a call center then you know that this may or may not be the fault of the rep(s) that took the call. Too often the reps that take the calls are simply not empowered to help customers in the way that the customers deserve. All that person can do is escalate, and at that point it is out of his or her hands.

No, there is no strawman.

Then you don't understand the strawman. You argued the first level rep that took the call is an idiot. I argued that there is no reason to say with certainty that the first-level rep is to blame. Then you started arguing a bunch of other things, but you stopped arguing it was the first level reps fault. That's how a strawman works. You stop arguing your original point and pick a new one.

Keep defending the indefensible.