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Overbilled Customer Sues Time Warner Cable For False Advertising
An anonymous reader writes According to a lawsuit filed Friday in a New York court, when Jeremy Zielinski signed up for Time Warner Internet service after seeing an ad that it was $34.99 a month, he didn't expect his first bill to be more than $94. He didn't expect he'd have to fight for weeks to resolve it. And he didn't expect that, Time Warner's next step would be to sell him faster speeds, not bother to tell him his modem couldn't handle them, send him a bill anyway, then demand that he drive to the local office at his own expense to get a compatible modem. So he's taking the cable giant to court, accusing it of false advertising and deceptive business practices. While a lone individual fighting in court against the second largest cable company in the world certainly doesn't have the odds in his favor, this could get interesting. According to the complaint, he opted out of TWC's binding arbitration clause a few days after he opened his account, so he might have a shot of keeping this issue in real court. Stay tuned for more.
and it sounds like a heard of lawyers heading his way...
I don't know why big companies just can't do what they say they're going to do. I just bought an iPhone 6 Plus from AT&T, and they promised a $200 buyback for the iPhone 4 if the purchase was made by Sept. 30. After they sent me the phone, they sent me a follow-up e-mail with a code for the iPhone 4, but the buyback value was only $100 with that code. So I had to call customer service, and they told me I had to go to the nearest AT&T store to get it straightened out. The nearest store is 30 miles from my house. Thankfully it's between my work & home IF I take an alternate, longer route. The guy at the store knew exactly what I was talking about when I got there and they were able to get me squared away without too much problem. I'm guessing they wanted to see how many people would just shrug and take a $100 hit.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I noticed a $10 line item on a recent TWC bill for "Home WIFI." I went through the chat option on their website to inquire what this was, and how TWC might think it is provisioning wifi in my home despite my owning my own cable modem and WAP. They told me that they could remove the line item, but that wifi would no longer work in my home. Laughable nonsense. I called their bluff and my bill dropped $10. I wish I had saved a transcript of that chat. They prey on people who don't know any better.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
It's too bad this plaintiff will have a difficult time outlasting the cable giant's efforts at playing lawsuit.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If you can get fined millions of dollars for stealing a 5 cent mp3, then certainly overcharging someone in the range of ~$100 is bound to bring in Billions of dollars in damages.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Comcast offered a $50 cash card if we signed up for internet service with them. We signed up in May, and the card never came. We called and they denied that they ever offered the card. A few more calls later, they agreed that they offered it and said they would send it. It never came. Last month, five months, a final call was made and the card arrived.
Clearly they have a strategy of screwing customers, either through intentional scripting or extreme negligence.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
For starters he filled his complaint with a bunch of throwaway lines that seem aimed at impressing the /. crowd but which are not relevant to his case and run the risk of annoying the Judge:
"Browsing through the TWC website, Plaintiff encountered an advertisement for a "Standard" Internet access line. While the rest of the modern world, and even otherwise-third world countries, enjoy substantially faster and better-value Internet access lines" <--- Not relevant and inflammatory
"After logging in, Plaintiff was able to view an online statement for his account. Plaintiff expected as a result of the advertising that his bill would be $34.99, plus perhaps some small amount in taxes. To his shock, however, the bill was nearly three times that amount – it was $94.45. Although the Internet service was advertised at $34.99 per month, Plaintiff was billed $39.99 for it. There was an unexplained "Internet modem lease" fee of $5.99 added to the bill, and an "Internet, Install service" fee of $47.99 added as well. The bill also included charges for services not yet rendered." <--- Month ahead billing is a standard practice in many industries, ranging from real estate (rent is due on the 1st, not the 31st) to telecommunications. This claim will fail.
He did have valid claims about the unadvertised install fee and price difference of $5/mo but by his own admission TWC waived the former fee while putting him on a $20/mo plan. He therefore he has no cause of action on either of these complaints. They will be disposed of with a simple motion to dismiss by the defendant, without ever being litigated. His complaint about not receiving promised speeds will fail, since the DOCSIS 2 modem they provided him with is theoretically capable of delivering the 20/2 speed he subscribed to; also, by his own admission he signed up for an "up to" service. The only complaint that may succeed is related to TWC's advertised list of "approved" modems, though I doubt very much a State Court is going to wade into such technical matters.
Disclaimer: I have no lost love for TWC and certainly have shared his aggravation when I've had the misfortune of dealing with them. In this case though? His own complaint tells me they made a good faith effort to resolve these issues. It was certainly aggravating for him but aggravation is not a cause of action in our legal system. TWC could win the majority of these points without even filing a response, based solely off what the plaintiff writes in his complaint.
His case is so thin that TWC could probably win a motion for court costs; I highly doubt they'll do that, the negative press would outweigh anything they'd gain, but they could if they were so inclined. This will end with TWC offering a settlement and writing it off as a public relations expense. If he refuses the settlement he'll look that much worse in the eyes of the Judge; Judges hate litigants who reject reasonable settlements.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Reminds me of a character in a Douglas Adams novel who contemplated suing the CIA until a lawyer friend of his advised him that would be like "attacking a lunatic asylum with a banana".
Breaking up the cable companies probably wouldn't do much without a new technology introduction. Break up of AT&T worked in retrospect because of advances in cell phone transmission, a leapfrog technology. Otherwise the Baby Bells would have still owned the local cable (like Fairpoint in New England).
I despise so much about Comcast. They have tech support / sales entertwined... Phone support techs in faraway lands read scripted lines like "your modem is at end-of-life". The "tech's" only knowledge of my modem is that it isn't rented from Comcast, can't tell me anything else? C'mon Tech Supporter! ...If you know it's "end of life" you must know when I bought it and must know what it is, right..? Ohhh... All you know is there's no monthly rent charge? Unfortunately, for now it's the fastest and cheapest bandwidth I can get. No other company is going to run a cable to my house. I doubt making "Baby Comcast/TWC" changes that. There has to be a technical advance, probably via satellite service. When Direct TV can compete technologically, cable will play nice.
Gently reply
to buy lawmakers and "lobbyists". Where is the anti-rebate money going to come from? Exactly.
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