This, my friends, is my berserk button. Head on over to Consumerist, if you will, to read this post on some guy who canceled his Cox account over a Playstation 3 promotion that he wasn’t supposed to get anyway.
This is a glorious example of what NOT to do. And to be fair, both parties are to blame here. Cox really dropped the ball on the promotion, but this guy is a whiny brat and bad consumer.
I’m not opposed to Christopher calling up and asking to get the promotion, because you never know unless you ask. However, once it became obvious that the promotion was supposed to be only for people who had and kept their promotional flyer (which Christopher never got) and that the CSR couldn’t give it to him, he should have stopped. This is like me going into the Walgreens, seeing the woman in front of me do one of those awesome string deals where they actually earn money and then demanding to get the same discount even though I hadn’t collected the appropriate coupons. It doesn’t work that way and harassing an employee over a policy they can’t break is obnoxious and counter-productive.
This is my favorite part:
I proceeded with the cancellation of my phone and broadband services. She offered the 10% off my bill, and kept upping the offer, but I made it crystal clear that it was because of the PS3. I’ve been a good customer for the last 11 years.
If the service rep was really offering him a bigger discount (let’s say 20%), then he would have had more than enough money to buy himself a PS3 AND he would have a continuing discount, which probably would have saved him even more money in the end. Having a temper tantrum rarely helps you make logical decisions.
In any case, Cox was in the wrong both for @#$%ing up the mailing of their flyers AND for making occasional exceptions. However, t hat doesn’t make it reasonable for a customers to call up and demand things they’re not really entitled to.
So, what do you think? Was Christopher being reasonable?
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