We don't care, we don't have to ……… we're Comcast
It could be incompetence, but we are talking about Comcast, so it's safer to assume that this was driven by a malicious profit motive, because that is how they roll:
People with low incomes can get free Internet service through Comcast and a government program, but signing up is sometimes harder than it should be because of confusion within Comcast's customer service department.
Massachusetts resident Tonia Williams qualified for the US government's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides $30 monthly discounts, and for Comcast's Internet Essentials Plus, a $30 monthly service for low-income people that is essentially free when combined with the ACP discount. But when she tried to use the ACP discount with Comcast's low-income service, Comcast incorrectly told her she wasn't eligible because she was already a Comcast customer.
Williams, a certified nursing assistant who was not working when she spoke to Ars, was eventually able to get free home Internet service for her family. But she faced several hassles and said she would have given up if it hadn't been for David Isenberg, a Falmouth resident who's been helping low-income people in his town navigate the process. Isenberg knew Williams because she was previously a home health aide taking care of Isenberg's wife's uncle.
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The confusion is related to a Comcast rule that makes customers ineligible for Internet Essentials low-income service if they have been a Comcast subscriber in the previous 90 days. That rule and another one related to unpaid bills are not supposed to apply to people who also qualify for the federal ACP program.
Comcast can call it an error all they want, but it appears that their customer service representatives are forcing customers to jump through unreasonable hoops to get their lowest cost tier.
I am inclined to believe that this is not poor training, but rather a mandate to up-sell.
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