The Lies Comcast Allegedly Told Customers To Hide Full Cost of Service (arstechnica.com) 89
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A new lawsuit filed against Comcast details an extensive list of lies the cable company allegedly told customers in order to hide the full cost of service. Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued Comcast in Hennepin County District Court on December 21, seeking refunds for all customers who were harmed by Comcast's alleged violations of the state's Prevention of Consumer Fraud Act and Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The complaint alleges, among other things, that Comcast reps falsely told customers that the company's "Regional Sports Network (RSN)" and "Broadcast TV" fees were mandated by the government and not controlled by Comcast itself. These two fees, which are not included in Comcast's advertised rates, have gone up steadily and now total $18.25 a month.
Comcast has responded to some lawsuits -- including this one -- by saying that the company had already stopped the practices that triggered the court actions. But Minnesota says that Comcast's lies about the sports and broadcast fees continued into 2017, which is after Comcast knew about identical allegations raised in a separate class action complaint filed in 2016. (That case was settled out of court.) When contacted by Ars, a Comcast spokesperson yesterday said that "our policy is to be very clear to our customers about the broadcast TV and RSN fees and [tell them] that these are not government-mandated fees." But employees make mistakes, the Comcast spokesperson said. "Employees may go off script and incorrectly characterize things, but that is not in line with our policy because [the broadcast TV and sports charges] are not government-mandated fees," Comcast said. According to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Comcast agreed in November to pay $700,000 in refunds "and cancel debts for more than 20,000 Massachusetts customers" to settle allegations that it used deceptive advertising to promote long-term cable contracts.
Comcast has responded to some lawsuits -- including this one -- by saying that the company had already stopped the practices that triggered the court actions. But Minnesota says that Comcast's lies about the sports and broadcast fees continued into 2017, which is after Comcast knew about identical allegations raised in a separate class action complaint filed in 2016. (That case was settled out of court.) When contacted by Ars, a Comcast spokesperson yesterday said that "our policy is to be very clear to our customers about the broadcast TV and RSN fees and [tell them] that these are not government-mandated fees." But employees make mistakes, the Comcast spokesperson said. "Employees may go off script and incorrectly characterize things, but that is not in line with our policy because [the broadcast TV and sports charges] are not government-mandated fees," Comcast said. According to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Comcast agreed in November to pay $700,000 in refunds "and cancel debts for more than 20,000 Massachusetts customers" to settle allegations that it used deceptive advertising to promote long-term cable contracts.
Corporate Death Penalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there no such thing as a corporate death penalty?
If any company has earned it, Comcast has.
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This would be the highest-ever rated special on Pay-Per-View.
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The grandparent is actually entirely correct. Comcast's internet advertised pricing is all-inclusive, with a few caveats: you have to own your own modem and you have to understand whether you're looking at one of their first 12 months contract discount prices or one of the normal prices. My bill is always exactly what I expect it to be. Comcast cable tv, I gather, takes a much more deceptive approach... but I gather that's the case with most of their competitors in the tv industry as well.
As for state and l
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Is this the new fad, apologists for comcast and shitty companies.
Accuracy is more important than torches and pitchforks.
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Caveat emptor: If you go with Comcast Business and require static IPs, they won't let you own your own modem. You have to rent theirs for an extra fee (which is not included in the static IP fee).
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Maybe for this month.
I work in IT, I'm 100% familiar and comfortable with owning my own modem and troubleshooti
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AT&T still makes you play the whole threaten to leave to keep the same price you are paying game. They are two sides of the same damn coin.
Re:Corporate Death Penalty? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps Comcast customers should simply pay their bill, minus "accounting, postage, processing and handling fees" equal to Comcast's "fees."
Re: Corporate Death Penalty? (Score:2, Funny)
No need for the death penalty. Just make it OK for customers to lie about how much they're going to pay Comcast. Customers should be able to deduct payments according to govt. mandated discounts that aren't really govt. mandated because sometimes customers go a bit off script and word or frame it differently, and you know, reasons.
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Since we aren't allowed to go all frontier justice on lowlifes, modern society's best bet is preventative: avoid high-crime cities/neighborhoods, don't subscribe to cable, and avoid anything else that asks you put a lot of cash down up front (e.g., timeshares).
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You want to stop white collar crime? Start fucking shooting CEOs, lawyers, and politicians ... they're the real fucking crooks.
Whooo whooo whooo. . . bullets cost money. . . . . . how about a white collar battle royale?
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and I was modded down.
So I guess you don't get to hear my story.
Aw, I'm sure it was a great one too.
Regulatory Compliance Fee (Score:3)
It's a cynical and immoral attempt to shift the blame for their high prices onto government taxes. As an added bonus it also undermines people's faith in government, which large corporations are happy to do since that discourages people from participating in Democracy, creating a power vacuum they can exploit for their own benefit.
Settlements just tick me off (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Comcast agreed in November to pay $700,000 in refunds "and cancel debts for more than 20,000 Massachusetts customers" to settle allegations that it used deceptive advertising to promote long-term cable contracts.
I am getting so sick of all these stupid settlements. For once, I just wish that our governments would see these lawsuits through to completion. Stop the settlements, where these corporate crooks get to say things like "Allegations were made...as redress for these grievances, Comcast agrees to..." nonsense. Get a judge to spell it out for them in just six simple letters: GUILTY. Once that's finally established, then we can really dig deep into their coffers and hit them with a financial judgement that has some teeth to it.
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The best one I heard recently was Uber has a forced arbitration rule where the arbitration must occur in the Netherlands.
The clause required drivers to resolve any disputes with Uber via mediation or arbitration in the Netherlands, a process with an upfront cost for drivers of US$14,500.
Thankfully this was recently shot down by Ontario's (Canada) to court.
https://business.financialpost... [financialpost.com]
Wells Fargo Syndrome? (Score:3)
If employees are given incentives to sign customers up to as many services as possible without monitoring, then management turning a blind eye to a bad practice may indeed be at play here.
Didn't Wells Fargo also initially blame the "surprise" fees on random rogue employees? Concast should know to inspect for such after Wells Fargo's "mistake" was revealed around 2012. They can no longe
and they are running ad's saying ATT lies this way (Score:2)
and they are running ad's saying ATT lies this way. While they do the same thing!
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No wait that can't be, Comcast must be lying so that means AT&T doesn't lie. But I know AT&T lies!
Oh. . . my. . . god! Its all lies isn't it!
Gee, thanks, Comcast! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast has responded to some lawsuits -- including this one -- by saying that the company had already stopped the practices that triggered the court actions.
Murder Suspect: "Yeah, I killed somebody once, but I'm not doing it any more, so you don't need to punish me."
Re:Gee, thanks, Comcast! (Score:5, Insightful)
"And, sure, I was paid $250,000 to do it, but obviously I should only be fined $10,000 at most. Anything more would be unfair."
The Three Rules of Telecom (Score:3, Insightful)
1. They will Overpromise.
2. They will Underdeliver.
3. They will Overcharge.
I have been dealing with Telcoms for decades now and this has always been my experience.
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Glad Comcast lost, but .... (Score:2)
To the people complaining that they were even allowed to settle? I think it really *is* an issue that the people hired to do customer support regularly go "off script" and say things that aren't true. And that's not something Comcast can really control 100%. Nobody pays much for labor for the telephone work, and people are gonna say whatever they can sneak past their supervisors if they think it'll get more sales and boost their metrics for a possible raise.
Comcast absolutely does suck. I'm a customer....
Even the print ad's hide the fees + others (Score:2)
Even the print ad's hide the fees + others
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Comcast is totally at fault here. Their policies says "don't lie", but their compensation structure says "lie". Their bills are deliberately misleading consumers. They then try to cover their asses by having policies which tell support staff not to lie to customers, yet it's the staff that breaks those rules, telling lies that reinforce the misrepresentation, which get the bonuses and raises.
This is the same kind of management practices that gave us Wells Fargo opening unauthorized accounts for their custom
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And that's not something Comcast can really control 100%.
No but it IS something they can make right. If your employees run around promising things to customers then you need to give those things to those customers and than discipline and or fire that employee. Now there are exceptions at the extremes if the employee said something that your typical customer should realize is unreasonable / impossible that is different you got some wiggle room there.
Of course some customers will try and lie, which is why you record the calls and keep at least electronically gene
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Nobody pays much for labor for the telephone work, and people are gonna say whatever they can sneak past their supervisors if they think it'll get more sales and boost their metrics for a possible raise.
Comcast absolutely does suck. I'm a customer.... I know. But not everything is because corporate trains their people to lie to you.
They're not "sneaking it by their supervisors", they're saying this stuff while their supervisor stands over their shoulder whistling and pointedly looking the other way; ready to beat them if they don't meet a set of self-contradictory metrics with rules impossible to comply with without lieing to customers.
airlines where foreced to show the full min price (Score:2)
airlines where foreced to show the full min price why can't hotels and cable co be forced to do the same?
Ours went up $10 (Score:2)
Starlink and 1-web will have LOADS of new users when they hit America.
When I worked at AT&T (old Cingular) as a CSR (Score:3)
People got fired very quickly if they tried anything like this; even the CWA union would say "your an idiot, goodbye" and not help you out. AT&T has a very nice "knowledge base" called "MyCSP" that pretty much has everything you ever need to say on any support call. Oddly enough, compared to other companies knowledge repositories and "how to documentation", MyCSP was one of the best I'd ever seen...and I've done tier 1 support for huge clients at HPE, IBM, MCI, and dozens of non-500 firms. HPSM (Hewlett Packard Service Mangler) made my soul bleed and cry myself to a alcohol-induced coma at night; it's "java-based fake web page" front end is the stuff of nightmares.
Time to push local cities to install fiber (Score:3)
For those of you living with these nightmares, push your local gov to have an election to install fiber. Lots of cities around the nation have done this already.
I have Comcast @ my office (Score:2)
So I sure don't see how this could be spun as an employee training issue.
Just my 2 cents
Broadcast fee? (Score:1)
and "Broadcast TV" fees were mandated by the government and not controlled by Comcast itself. T
I still don't know how they have gotten away with this one for so long. A cable TV company... whose sole purpose is to broadcast TV... having a 'broadcast TV fee' on top of it's existing fee is like a gas station charging an extra 'petroleum pumping fee'.
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Yep, even worse I end up getting stuck paying it even though I'm not even using the cable TV because I'm using the "Broadcast TV" for free over the air instead of their degraded quality re-broadcast version. Why in the hell would I do that? Because internet plus useless TV is cheaper than just internet. Even with the fees.
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Uhh, no. The cable TV company has many purposes. The initial purpose was to be a community antenna system -- which meant it served to carry the signals from broadcast stations to people who could not or did not want to install their own antennas. In those days, the broadcast stations were crying for a regulation called "must carry", which meant that a cable system MUST carry a broadcast station in their area. This was designed to remove the po
"Employees make mistakes" (Score:3)
This line is all too common, companies intentionally poorly train their employees or in some cases expect them to lie, because they know that most customers are equally unaware of the facts...
A good example of this is consumer protection laws in europe, which tend to be fairly strong and provide consumers with various rights for replacement of faulty goods, right to return etc. Under EU law for instance the warranty on goods is 2 years, not 1 as typically advertised by the manufacturers and any return shipping costs for faulty goods are the responsibility of the merchant not the end customer. Usually whoever you speak to first on the phone or in a store won't be aware of this, and will insist the warranty is only 1 year and you have to pay return shipping etc. This will usually fool most people, but if you demand to speak to a manager they will usually handle your complaint.
There should be laws on advertising however, any price displayed should be the price you pay - any non optional fees or taxes should be included in the advertised price.