I hate this, too. In fact, I've also thought of writing to some of the companies that sponsor these mall kiosks.

But, here's the thing.

First, some of these kiosk's are manned by people who aren't employees of the company. They are contractors or "affiliates." While this doesn't excuse it, it's more difficult for a company to manage, apparently.

This is especially true with wireless providers. While some are "company" stores, often these kiosks are owned by entrepreneurs who hire people, on commission, to run the kiosk. The owner gets (for example) $150 per wireless contract. In turn, the employee gets (for example) $50. As such, the employee is motivated to get as many customers as possible, by any means. The owner isn't there and doesn't particularly care, as long as the employee makes enough sales. Not enough sales? That employee is fired the next day and is replaced by someone else.

Finally, the wireless company doesn't know or care because all they know if that they licensed their logos to the owner for use in selling their phones. It's kind of like writing to Kodak because a Best Buy employee was rude.

In this case, with Comcast, I have no idea if this is the case or not. They may be temp employees. But I'll bet you that they are being paid on commission. And, if they fail to sign up x customers in a week, they lose their jobs.

Anyway, I have a number of techniques for dealing with these people. One of my favorites is to respond back, in an equally loud tone, that the company did something horrible. For example, "I'd sign up for Comcast, but I'm tired of you accidentally showing porn on the kids channels." Or, "A Comcast truck hit my 5 year old and killed him!"

Or, "I'd love to sign up. Right now, I pay $5/month because (Company Y) offered me that deal. And it's good for the next 5 years."

Or, "I'm under contract with my satellite provider. Are you going to pay me to break that contract?" They rarely do. If they say "yes" then "I'm going to need to have a check written to me in the amount of $500 to cover that before I sign anything."

If I happen to be mildly interested in what they're offering, I'll ask how long the "limited time" offer is good for. If it's too short, I'll ask that they extend it for 5 years. When they refuse, I say "Thank you. Sounds like you aren't interesting in getting me as a customer."

If I'm in a really foul mood, I'll scream "Can't you hear, I said 'no.' How rude of you! What is your problem?!?" (I've actually done this only once, but I was in a particularly bad mood).

Of course, most of the time, I just ignore them. Keep walking. That works 100% of the time. If everyone ignored these people, then they'd eventually lose their jobs and maybe, just maybe, they'd learn.