
Ask HN: Why and how did Comcast figure out I'm moving? - parliowl
I&#x27;m moving out of my rented apartment soon. Today I got a letter from my current ISP, Comcast, titled &quot;Moving?&quot; with details on how to set up Xfinity at my next place.<p>It is of course possible to deduce that the current resident of an apartment will be leaving if that apartment is listed for rent on various websites, but my name isn’t on those listings. My current landlord and realtor of course know my name and that I’m leaving. My next landlord and realtor know this too, since my address is on the new lease. So one of them could have told Comcast. Or I suppose Comcast could deduce their customers’ behavior by scraping rental sites. Does anyone know exactly how they are doing this?<p>Also, why would they want to do this?<p>I can’t shake the suspicion that the primary reason for sending such a letter is not to remind me that they exist and are an ISP option at my new residence, but rather to let me know that they figured out on their own that I will be moving.<p>I have lived in the USA for a number of years, and have moved many times. In the last three placed I’ve rented, I’ve been able to plug my Comcast router straight in and connect to the internet immediately, without contacting them first.  The first time this happened I was perplexed, and when I called to notify them of my change in address, the rep said that the renters before me must’ve forgot to cancel <i>their</i> account with them. This didn’t seem like the truth, so I tried it again when we moved for a second time, and then again when we moved a third time. The last move was to a different state. Each time, the router connected immediately, and each time the Comcast rep told me that this was because the previous tenants had forgotten to cancel or update their account.
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pwg
> but my name isn’t on those listings.

But your address is, and you also say this:

> Today I got a letter from my current ISP, Comcast

Which means Comcast has your current address. It is not hard to look up, in
their own database, a name when given an address from a rental listing
website.

> Also, why would they want to do this?

Their marketing department likely saw it as a "customer retention" activity.
By offering to make the transfer of your Comcast account to your new location
easy and effortless (they hope) their belief would be that they might retain
you as a customer.

It is unlikely they were even aware of the nefarious seeming aspects of the
practice.

~~~
parliowl
> Which means Comcast has your current address. It is not hard to look up, in
> their own database, a name when given an address from a rental listing
> website.

Yes, this is exactly what I imagined, which is why I wrote, "I suppose Comcast
could deduce their customers’ behavior by scraping rental sites," but perhaps
it wasn't totally clear.

> Their marketing department likely saw it as a "customer retention" activity.
> By offering to make the transfer of your Comcast account to your new
> location easy and effortless (they hope) their belief would be that they
> might retain you as a customer.

This makes sense.

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rachelbythebay
Did you start the process of permanently forwarding your mail at the USPS yet?
Even if you haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, did you start? This happened
to me when I started (but never actually moved).

I figured they were tied into the marketing feed that gets updates when people
register for "all in" forwarding.

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Jugurtha
Comcast handles terabytes of telemetry data daily from customer-premises
equipment[0]. They could have internal machine learning models for customer
retention / churn reduction from the data you're generating, whether bandwidth
usage, sites visited, etc. Some model(s) may have inferred that you had a
higher likelihood to move and or churn. You can train such models from
historical data of people who have moved in the past, and if there's a chance
that people who move tend not to care about their subscription anymore, cancel
it, or renew it after a long period, there is lost revenue to be minimized. A
provider will then engage you, either through email or via a customer support
representative if the revenue per customer is high.

This does work and organizations pay close attention to it. If you have a
retail bank that makes around $1,000 per customer with 6% churn rate and 10
million customers, this adds up to quite a chunk of change.

It could also be a coincidence due to the current trend of people moving
around, and sending emails like this to remove one cognitive process from
someone who already has many things to sort out.

[1]: [https://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com/Paper/2019/2019-what-
can...](https://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com/Paper/2019/2019-what-can-your-cpe-
tell-you-/download)

------
Spooky23
It’s just customer retention.

They are mysterious about why your router works in other locations to
discourage you into looking into how cable modems work. It’s pretty easy to
steal cable. Google “rooted cable modem”

~~~
parliowl
Huh, I had no idea about this. Thanks.

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hindsightbias
What was your lease period? If you get a note every 12 months, that would
explain it.

Most people are auto paid to the end of a billing cycle, idk that comcast
gives credit. So moving in before the end of their cycle it should work.

You say you move with your comcast router- if its a rented device, why
shouldnt they be able to recognize the MAC address and connect?

~~~
parliowl
I'm breaking the lease and moving out mid-cycle, and I bought the router
independently (not rented from Comcast).

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t0mmyb0y
" I can’t shake the suspicion that the primary reason for sending such a
letter is not to remind me that they exist and are an ISP option at my new
residence, but rather to let me know that they figured out on their own that I
will be moving. "

Really? Really? Like, seriously?

You may want to look into a lawsuit based on them being a low-key bully....

~~~
parliowl
I'm assuming you mean to imply that I'm being overdramatic by suspecting
something nefarious is going on when it isn't. That might be true, yes, thanks
for your input.

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oarla
I get those mails as well from Comcast, though I'm not moving and haven't
moved in the last 4 years. I think they just send them out at random.

~~~
parliowl
Could be a coincidence for sure. I've never received one previously though.

