The US telco Comcast has a novel way of dealing with unhappy customers who complain -- It rings up their place of work and gets them fired.

According to Consumerist the unnamed customer was a little miffed at being overcharged by the company for 11 months and not doing anything about it. The customer contaced the office of Comcast’s Controller to complain about billing practices. However Comcast’s response was to contact the customer’s boss, which did a lot of business with Comcast and claimed the customer used employer’s name during complaint.

He did not but his company fired him anyway because it did not want to upset Comcast. In civilised countries, the company would be taken to the cleaners in a wrongful dismissal suit and Comcast and the employer would be dragged through the tabloids. But this was the Land of the Free where Comcast is a monopoly in most areas and has connections with the main regulator.

Comcast’s Senior Deputy General Counsel admits that the company did contact Conal’s employer but says that the customer “is not in a position to complain that the firm came to learn” about his dispute with Comcast. Comcast will not release e-mails or audio recordings to counter customer’s claim that he did not use the name of his employer.

Makes the customer service department of your local phone company look like saints.