Report: Man whose home burned down had trouble canceling Comcast

ST PAUL, Minn. -- A 66-year-old man whose house recently burned down said he lost everything. Everything, that is, except a monthly bill from Comcast.

Jimmy Ware lost his home and all his possessions on April 1 in a wind-whipped fire in St. Paul's North End, Twincities.com reports. Since then, Twincities.com reports, his daughter tried to cancel his Comcast cable subscription.

But when Ware's daughter first called Comcast, representatives allegedly said they needed Ware's account number to end the service.

"Gone in the fire," Ware's daughter told them.

Ware then got on the line to provide the last four digits of his Social Security number. That still wasn't enough to cancel, the representative allegedly said.

"I've said to Comcast, 'Here's your choice, disconnect the service or send someone out to fix the cable, because it's not working,'" Ware's daughter said. "The (Comcast) guy said, 'That doesn't make sense, because the house burned down.' I said, 'Exactly, shut the service off.'"

Ware's daughter told Twincities.com that she had to call the cable giant four or five times before she finally received a response from the company's corporate office Tuesday. A corporate representative profusely apologized, and said the cable company hadn't handled the request properly at first.

"We understand that this is a difficult time for Mr. Ware and apologize for the inconvenience," the Representative told Twincities.com.

Comcast backdated Ware's cancellation to the date of the fire.

A neighbor who also had their home burn down had no problems canceling their cable service, Twincities.com reported.