Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Thursday shared part of a 26-minute call with her cable company during a congressional hearing about the industry’s customer service and billing practices.
McCaskill read a transcript of the call where she tried to remove a charge on her bill, highlighting the frustration customers regularly say they experience with cable and satellite providers.
{mosads}The senator was charged for a “protection plan fee.”
During the call, a customer service representative told McCaskill that the plan was for covering equipment repairs, even though the company already guaranteed to maintain their cable equipment. The rep also tried to push McCaskill onto the equipment department and warned her of a $10 “disconnection fee” if she sought to drop the protection plan.
“I don’t think you want to lose me as a customer, do you?,” McCaskill asked at one point, “over $10?”
McCaskill eventually threatened to cancel her service.
“If you’re going to keep charging me $10 for something I don’t even want anymore, then I think it’s time to switch carriers,” she said on the call.
She was eventully transferred to another representative. That person told McCaskill that she didn’t have to pay the cancellation fee.
The senator expressed her frustration with the call.
“If I hadn’t threatened to quit, you wouldn’t have gotten me [on the phone], and I would have been charged $10,” she said.
McCaskill had previously posted a 15-minute snippet of the call online.
She shared the call as senators from the Homeland Security Committee panel on Investigations grilled cable and satellite representatives on their service practices at the Thursday hearing.
During the hearing McCaskill said she is a subscriber of DirectTV and hinted that the call was with a company representative.