A former Comcast customer in California who claims he was fired from his job at PricewaterhouseCoopers because he complained about his cable service, has taken his case to court.
Conal O’Rourke, a former accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Jose, Calif., went through a months-long customer service nightmare with Comcast, complete with erroneous billing, receiving equipment he didn’t order and watching his high-speed Internet speeds slow to a crawl. He claimed that after he tried to contact Comcast corporate accounting chief Lawrence Salva (a former PwC partner) he became the subject of a months-long internal investigation and was terminated in February.
At the time, O’Rourke said he wanted a public apology from Comcast, his job at PwC back and $100,312.50 before Oct. 14. He got the apology from Comcast senior vice president of customer experience Charlie Herrin in a company blog posting earlier this month but apparently the rest of his demands were not met. After the apology, O’Rourke’s attorney called it inadequate, perhaps telegraphing their intention to file a suit if they were not satisfied.
According to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. on Oct. 16, O’Rourke is claiming Comcast violated federal privacy laws by sharing his customer information with a third party – his employer – without his consent. He is also suing the company for defamation, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unfair business practices. He is seeking more than $1 million in legal fees and damages.
In a statement, Comcast denied playing a role in O’Rourke’s termination.
“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 said in the statement. “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.”
