OAKLAND, CA—Speaking over lunch last Friday, a Northern California man named Conal O'Rourke laid out what admittedly sounds like a crazy story: a year-long billing dispute over his home Comcast service that ultimately resulted in Comcast getting O'Rourke fired from his job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in nearby San Jose earlier this year. 
 
 But O’Rourke arrived to last week’s lunch meeting with Ars with an astonishing amount of documentation: he has pages and pages of Comcast invoices. He has a spreadsheet, photos, notes, business cards, and complaint letters. He and his lawyer, Maureen Pettibone Ryan, happily provided digital copies of these materials to Ars, which we have re-published with his permission here. 
 
 As a result of his firing, O’Rourke has hired a local attorney and is now threatening to file a lawsuit against Comcast if the company does not agree to his demands, which include "a full retraction and apology, his re-employment with his former employer, and $100,312.50" by October 14. 
 
 A rogue $26.25 
 
 O’Rourke first moved to California in early 2012 after 20 years of working for Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) in Connecticut, most recently as part of the corporate controllership division. During his career, O'Rourke developed skills in accounting, financial analysis, and auditing—skills that proved useful in his eventual dispute with Comcast. 
 
 In February 2013, he moved to a new place in San Jose and signed up for TV and Internet service with Comcast, since the only other competitive service, AT&T’s U-Verse, was not available in his building. 
 
 "I was roped into Comcast, and with Comcast, my problems soon began," O'Rourke said. 
 
 His first issues began when, after six weeks of service, he had yet to receive a bill. 
 
 After eventually receiving his first bill in April 2013, O'Rourke noticed a number of problems. For one thing, his name was misspelled (an issue that never got corrected). 
 
 More importantly, O’Rourke noticed that Comcast was charging him for three "additional HD outlets" for an extra fee of $26.25 a month. He also was charged for cable boxes that he says he never activated (he planned on moving two additional TVs later on into his condominium), after allegedly being promised that he wouldn’t be. 
 
 Finally, as part of a promotional deal, O'Rourke says he was promised HBO and other premium channels for nine months, but they disappeared after just three. 
 
 O’Rourke said he called multiple times to try to get these issues resolved. When they weren’t, he finally walked into his nearest Comcast store in San Jose. 
 
 There he met with the assistant store manager, who gave him a business card and provided his personal cellphone number. "He promises me that it will all be addressed and that we're going to look at it," O’Rourke said. 
 
 Then the real problems began. 
 
 $1,820 in equipment he didn't order 
 
 For the next few months, O’Rourke says he was under deadlines at work and could not address issues with Comcast. 
 
 By October 2013, O’Rourke said that his Internet speeds suddenly dropped off, becoming "unworkable." 
 
 "I had contacted them regarding lack of responsiveness and performance issues; sometimes my service wouldn't be usable and I had to hotspot in with AT&T," he said. 
 
 Again he called, and again, Comcast promised to correct his problem—sometimes by sending technicians to his home—but according to O'Rourke, the company never did. 
 
 O’Rourke spent part of November and December 2013 traveling overseas, so he was surprised when he returned home to find several boxes at his doorstep containing "12 pieces of equipment" and a December 2013 monthly bill for over $2,000—including $1,820 in equipment that he insists he did not order. 
 
 According to the December 2013 invoice, O’Rourke was charged for devices including an "AnyRoom Hub" ($420) and a "Pace Host" ($110). On December 30, 2013, carrying these various boxes back, O'Rourke walked into the same San Jose Comcast store to return the gear and get his issues resolved. 
 
 When he took a service ticket at 1:59pm, he discovered that he was Ticket #395 but that the store was only on Ticket #251. Rather than spend his afternoon at the store, O’Rourke came up with a plan. 
 
 "They close at 7:00pm, so I thought, I'm going to go at 6:45pm, then somebody will have a fire underneath them to address the problems," he said. "I had had it up to here." 
 
 A Comcast employee named Matt Doblias ended up helping O’Rourke, took back the equipment, and cleared the charges. But that still didn’t get to the root of the errors that had now persisted for months. (Ars sent an e-mail to Doblias, which bounced.) 
 
 "I provided Matt with the detailed spreadsheet in person, and he asked if I could send it to him, and he would take a look," O’Rourke said. The next day, December 31, he did so, but Doblias "responded that the spreadsheet never came through. I sent it again, then at the end of the day I asked for follow up and never heard back." 
 
 O’Rourke got irritated. 
 
 "On January 11, 2014, I was frustrated because I felt that I had done everything," he said. "I sent [Doblias] an e-mail that I was hopeful would ignite him to do something. What I did was [show Doblias by e-mail that] I sarcastically wrote a letter [to Comcast Senior Vice President Lawrence Salva], recommending Doblias for the Employee of the Month award. I wrote it up but didn't put it in the mail. I wanted to give [Doblias] an opportunity to fix the problem." 
 
 The letter included lines like: 
 
 The reason why I have chosen to nominate the San Jose center is simple. Their blatant disregard for the customer has made resolving my issues next to impossible. This behavior has proven to be quite profitable as I, like most customers, just throw their hands up in exasperation. However, now that I am no longer exasperated I intend on following up on my concerns. 
 
 But O'Rourke heard nothing, and the billing errors persisted—resulting in Comcast allegedly sending a collections agency after him. 
 
 "On February 5, 2014, [Comcast] said my account was two months past due and at that point pushing $300," he said. "I don't order pay-per-view, and I explained [to the collections agency] that that can't be right, and they were insistent, and I walked them through it." 
 
 She said, �?What color is your house?!? Tell me the color of your house!’ She went on a tirade and said, �?Just answer the question!’ 
 
 By this point, O’Rourke had yet to receive an errorless bill, he said, despite having been a customer for nearly a year. The following day, he decided to contact Lawrence Salva , Comcast’s Philadelphia-based controller, who oversees the division of the company that deals with accounting. He spoke at length with Salva’s executive assistant, describing his litany of problems. After the call concluded, the assistant said that she would have another Comcast employee contact O’Rourke directly. 
 
 "An hour later I got a second call from an individual who doesn't identify herself [except as Evelyn] but says that she's with Comcast," he said. O’Rourke asked her if she knew why she was calling, to which she responded that it had something to do with missed appointments. 
 
 "I laughed, because they missed so many appointments I don't even know which one she's talking about," he said. 
 
 When he tried to explain the situation, O'Rourke said that Evelyn began to berate him. 
 
 "She said, �?What color is your house?!? Tell me the color of your house!’" O’Rourke remembered. "She went on a tirade and said, �?Just answer the question!’" (O'Rourke lives in a condo complex.) 
 
 "I told her that I was angry and said, �?You need to do your homework before you pick up the phone,’" he told Ars. "I told her I was going to call back to Salva's office. That's what I did. And I expressed my concern and said, 'You have sloppy accounting, you don't take anything seriously, and I should go to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.' That's the regulator that makes sure that accounting is done properly. I think that some of my terminology would have indicated that I wasn't a layman. I worked for 20 years in corporate comptrollership. These errors become material after a while." 
 
 Unbeknownst to O’Rourke, however, his call set off alarm bells within Comcast. 
 
 Listing image by Alyson Hurt ||||| OAKLAND, CA—Speaking over lunch last Friday, a Northern California man named Conal O'Rourke laid out what admittedly sounds like a crazy story: a year-long billing dispute over his home Comcast service that ultimately resulted in Comcast getting O'Rourke fired from his job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in nearby San Jose earlier this year. 
 
 But O’Rourke arrived to last week’s lunch meeting with Ars with an astonishing amount of documentation: he has pages and pages of Comcast invoices. He has a spreadsheet, photos, notes, business cards, and complaint letters. He and his lawyer, Maureen Pettibone Ryan, happily provided digital copies of these materials to Ars, which we have re-published with his permission here. 
 
 As a result of his firing, O’Rourke has hired a local attorney and is now threatening to file a lawsuit against Comcast if the company does not agree to his demands, which include "a full retraction and apology, his re-employment with his former employer, and $100,312.50" by October 14. 
 
 A rogue $26.25 
 
 O’Rourke first moved to California in early 2012 after 20 years of working for Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) in Connecticut, most recently as part of the corporate controllership division. During his career, O'Rourke developed skills in accounting, financial analysis, and auditing—skills that proved useful in his eventual dispute with Comcast. 
 
 In February 2013, he moved to a new place in San Jose and signed up for TV and Internet service with Comcast, since the only other competitive service, AT&T’s U-Verse, was not available in his building. 
 
 "I was roped into Comcast, and with Comcast, my problems soon began," O'Rourke said. 
 
 His first issues began when, after six weeks of service, he had yet to receive a bill. 
 
 After eventually receiving his first bill in April 2013, O'Rourke noticed a number of problems. For one thing, his name was misspelled (an issue that never got corrected). 
 
 More importantly, O’Rourke noticed that Comcast was charging him for three "additional HD outlets" for an extra fee of $26.25 a month. He also was charged for cable boxes that he says he never activated (he planned on moving two additional TVs later on into his condominium), after allegedly being promised that he wouldn’t be. 
 
 Finally, as part of a promotional deal, O'Rourke says he was promised HBO and other premium channels for nine months, but they disappeared after just three. 
 
 O’Rourke said he called multiple times to try to get these issues resolved. When they weren’t, he finally walked into his nearest Comcast store in San Jose. 
 
 There he met with the assistant store manager, who gave him a business card and provided his personal cellphone number. "He promises me that it will all be addressed and that we're going to look at it," O’Rourke said. 
 
 Then the real problems began. 
 
 $1,820 in equipment he didn't order 
 
 For the next few months, O’Rourke says he was under deadlines at work and could not address issues with Comcast. 
 
 By October 2013, O’Rourke said that his Internet speeds suddenly dropped off, becoming "unworkable." 
 
 "I had contacted them regarding lack of responsiveness and performance issues; sometimes my service wouldn't be usable and I had to hotspot in with AT&T," he said. 
 
 Again he called, and again, Comcast promised to correct his problem—sometimes by sending technicians to his home—but according to O'Rourke, the company never did. 
 
 O’Rourke spent part of November and December 2013 traveling overseas, so he was surprised when he returned home to find several boxes at his doorstep containing "12 pieces of equipment" and a December 2013 monthly bill for over $2,000—including $1,820 in equipment that he insists he did not order. 
 
 According to the December 2013 invoice, O’Rourke was charged for devices including an "AnyRoom Hub" ($420) and a "Pace Host" ($110). On December 30, 2013, carrying these various boxes back, O'Rourke walked into the same San Jose Comcast store to return the gear and get his issues resolved. 
 
 When he took a service ticket at 1:59pm, he discovered that he was Ticket #395 but that the store was only on Ticket #251. Rather than spend his afternoon at the store, O’Rourke came up with a plan. 
 
 "They close at 7:00pm, so I thought, I'm going to go at 6:45pm, then somebody will have a fire underneath them to address the problems," he said. "I had had it up to here." 
 
 A Comcast employee named Matt Doblias ended up helping O’Rourke, took back the equipment, and cleared the charges. But that still didn’t get to the root of the errors that had now persisted for months. (Ars sent an e-mail to Doblias, which bounced.) 
 
 "I provided Matt with the detailed spreadsheet in person, and he asked if I could send it to him, and he would take a look," O’Rourke said. The next day, December 31, he did so, but Doblias "responded that the spreadsheet never came through. I sent it again, then at the end of the day I asked for follow up and never heard back." 
 
 O’Rourke got irritated. 
 
 "On January 11, 2014, I was frustrated because I felt that I had done everything," he said. "I sent [Doblias] an e-mail that I was hopeful would ignite him to do something. What I did was [show Doblias by e-mail that] I sarcastically wrote a letter [to Comcast Senior Vice President Lawrence Salva], recommending Doblias for the Employee of the Month award. I wrote it up but didn't put it in the mail. I wanted to give [Doblias] an opportunity to fix the problem." 
 
 The letter included lines like: 
 
 The reason why I have chosen to nominate the San Jose center is simple. Their blatant disregard for the customer has made resolving my issues next to impossible. This behavior has proven to be quite profitable as I, like most customers, just throw their hands up in exasperation. However, now that I am no longer exasperated I intend on following up on my concerns. 
 
 But O'Rourke heard nothing, and the billing errors persisted—resulting in Comcast allegedly sending a collections agency after him. 
 
 "On February 5, 2014, [Comcast] said my account was two months past due and at that point pushing $300," he said. "I don't order pay-per-view, and I explained [to the collections agency] that that can't be right, and they were insistent, and I walked them through it." 
 
 She said, ‘What color is your house?!? Tell me the color of your house!’ She went on a tirade and said, ‘Just answer the question!’ 
 
 By this point, O’Rourke had yet to receive an errorless bill, he said, despite having been a customer for nearly a year. The following day, he decided to contact Lawrence Salva , Comcast’s Philadelphia-based controller, who oversees the division of the company that deals with accounting. He spoke at length with Salva’s executive assistant, describing his litany of problems. After the call concluded, the assistant said that she would have another Comcast employee contact O’Rourke directly. 
 
 "An hour later I got a second call from an individual who doesn't identify herself [except as Evelyn] but says that she's with Comcast," he said. O’Rourke asked her if she knew why she was calling, to which she responded that it had something to do with missed appointments. 
 
 "I laughed, because they missed so many appointments I don't even know which one she's talking about," he said. 
 
 When he tried to explain the situation, O'Rourke said that Evelyn began to berate him. 
 
 "She said, ‘What color is your house?!? Tell me the color of your house!’" O’Rourke remembered. "She went on a tirade and said, ‘Just answer the question!’" (O'Rourke lives in a condo complex.) 
 
 "I told her that I was angry and said, ‘You need to do your homework before you pick up the phone,’" he told Ars. "I told her I was going to call back to Salva's office. That's what I did. And I expressed my concern and said, 'You have sloppy accounting, you don't take anything seriously, and I should go to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.' That's the regulator that makes sure that accounting is done properly. I think that some of my terminology would have indicated that I wasn't a layman. I worked for 20 years in corporate comptrollership. These errors become material after a while." 
 
 Unbeknownst to O’Rourke, however, his call set off alarm bells within Comcast. 
 
 Listing image by Alyson Hurt ||||| Comcast Sued By Customer Who Says Cable Company Had Him Fired From Job 
 
 Last week, we brought you the story of former Comcast customer Conal O’Rourke, who lost his job at renowned accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers after someone from Comcast called his employer with details of Mr. O’Rourke’s numerous — and valid — complaints about his cable service. Comcast has subsequently apologized for the myriad billing and service problems but maintains it did not intend to have O’Rourke fired, but that has not satisfied Conal, who has filed a lawsuit against the nation’s largest cable company, alleging violations of, among other claims, a federal law prohibiting cable companies from sharing personal information without customers’ consent. 
 
 The complaint [PDF], filed in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, CA, on Thursday, accuses Comcast of violating the Cable Communications Policy Act, defamation, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unfair business practices. 
 
 “Mr. O’Rourke’s story is both simple and chilling,” reads the complaint. 
 
 For those coming late to this story, here’s the brief rundown. 
 
 In early 2013, Conal became a customer of Comcast. From the start, he claims the company failed to provide service at the promised promotional price. Multiple promises to resolve the over-billing resulted in only continued inaccurate invoices, even after meeting with Comcast staff in person and presenting them with detailed breakdowns of every charge and credit associated with his account. 
 
 It eventually got so bad that Conal says Comcast sent and billed him for $1,820 worth of equipment he never requested and did not need. 
 
 Exasperated with Comcast’s non-responsive customer service, Conal eventually contacted the office of the Comcast Controller, Lawrence Salva, and expressed his opinion that should perhaps be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private-sector oversight operation. 
 
 After this discussion with Mr. Salva’s office, the controller himself — who had not actually spoken with O’Rourke — contacted Conal’s employer, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which earns a significant amount of revenue (at least $30 million annually, according to the complaint) as a consultant to Comcast. 
 
 There is little debate about the above points. Where Conal and Comcast differ is their respective accounts of his call to Mr. Salva’s office. 
 
 Comcast claims that Conal mentioned that he was employed by PwC and attempted to use it as leverage to get better service. 
 
 “Mr. O’Rourke believes that the Controller’s office performed an online search after Mr. O’Rourke stated that Comcast should be investigated by the PCAOB, and learned that Mr. O’Rourke worked for PwC,” contends the complaint. 
 
 The call from Mr. Salva — who is also named as a defendant in the suit — to a PwC executive resulted in Conal being subjected to an ethics investigation, which Conal claims consisted solely of a 20-minute phone interview. 
 
 Conal says he has made repeated requests for recordings of the call where he is purported to have name-dropped PwC, but in spite of Comcast’s claims that it exists, the recording has not materialized. Additionally, neither Comcast nor PwC will provide details on exactly what Mr. Salva told PwC. 
 
 “Defendant Salva either directly asked for Mr. O’Rourke’s termination, or implicitly requested and caused it by making the knowingly false, defamatory, and malicious accusation that Mr. O’Rourke had violated accounting ethics rules by attempting to use his employment with PWC as leverage in his ‘negotiations’ with Comcast,” contends the lawsuit. 
 
 Section 551(c) of the Cable Communications Policy Act forbids cable companies from disclosing “personally identifiable information concerning any subscriber without the prior written or electronic consent of the subscriber concerned.” And since Comcast has yet to argue in any of its statements that it obtained this permission, Conal believes the company has violated this statute. 
 
 Additionally, Section 551(f) of the same law allows victims of such violations to seek actual and punitive damages, along with legal costs. 
 
 The lawsuit also alleges breach of contract, as Comcast has admitted publicly that it failed to live up to its obligation to provide the service that Conal ordered and paid for. 
 
 “Comcast breached the Agreement when it engaged in… overcharging Mr. O’Rourke, failing to show up for service appointments, sending Mr. O’Rourke to collections, and failing to repair his internet service,” reads the complaint. 
 
 Finally, Conal accuses the defendants of engaging in “unfair, unlawful and fraudulent business practices” in violation of California Business & Professions Code, by “violating his privacy, defaming him to his employer, unfairly and persistently overcharging him, and retaliating against him for questioning the legality and propriety of its billing and collections practices.” 
 
 The suit ultimately seeks damages and legal costs in excess of $1 million, an injunction barring Comcast from: providing subscribers’ personal information to third parties without consent; defaming customers to third parties; over-billing customers; and retaliating against customers who complain. 
 
 UPDATE: Comcast has provided the following statement to Consumerist regarding the lawsuit: 
 
 “We don’t normally comment on pending litigation and as we have said, there were clear deficiencies in the customer service that we delivered to Mr. O’Rourke. Comcast had nothing to do with PricewaterhouseCoopers’ decision to terminate Mr. O’Rourke. Once again, we apologize to Mr. O’Rourke for his service issues. We said we were determined to get to the bottom of exactly what happened with Mr. O’Rourke’s service and we are doing that. As part of this investigation, we have listened to recorded calls between Mr. O’Rourke and our customer service representatives and his treatment of them and his language is totally unspeakable. Mr. O’Rourke’s claims are without merit.” 
 
 UPDATE #2: Harmeet K. Dhillon of Dhillon Law Group, the firm representing Conal, has provided the following response to Comcast’s statement: 
 
 “It is unclear whether Comcast is accusing our client of using profanity, or simply being angry after months overcharging and broken promises to resolve his billing problems. In any event, being angry or using profanity isn’t illegal. Even reciting a George Carlin routine in frustration at utterly incompetent and abusive ‘customer service’ isn’t illegal. Violating the privacy of a cable subscriber and defaming him to his employer, is.”
– Even Conal O'Rourke knows his story might sound convoluted. But the California man hopes documentation and an in-person interview provided to Ars Technica will help prove that Comcast had something to do with him losing his job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers after a lengthy battle with the cable company over billing and service issues. O'Rourke has hired a lawyer and has issued an Oct. 14 ultimatum to Comcast—a PWC consulting services client—that requests "a full retraction and apology, his re-employment with his former employer, and $100,312.50." His lengthy timeline begins in 2012, when he says he moved to the Golden State and signed up for Internet and TV with Comcast—and everything started going wrong almost immediately. Among O'Rourke's numerous allegations: late bills; charges for and shipments of equipment he didn't order; not receiving the right promotional items; "unworkable" Internet speed; and not hearing back from Comcast employees when he tried to resolve issues. They never even got his name right on the bill, he adds. But the worst repercussion, according to O'Rourke, was getting fired from his job after he started calling Comcast's controller's office. He says via a letter written by his attorney that he was called in to a PWC partner's office and told that Comcast, a "very valuable" client, "was very angry as a result of Mr. O'Rourke’s complaints, and that Mr. O'Rourke was not to speak with anyone from Comcast." O'Rourke alleges after that meeting that he endured a PWC internal investigation and then was fired on Feb. 18. His attorney's letter says O'Rourke was "shocked, humiliated, and ashamed based on the unjustified loss of his job. He sought counseling and was prescribed medication to address his emotional distress." He now has AT&T service at home, and is threatening to sue Comcast if the company does not comply with his demands. (Follow the entire Ars Technica timeline for further details.)