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.

Comments

Good for him!

[XxtraLarGe]

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.

Re:I hear the sound of big business

[fnj]

and it sounds like a heard of lawyers heading his way...

I herd it was a hole heard full of wholes.

TWC are (surprise, surprise) crooks and thieves

[GungaDan]

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.

Re:TWC are (surprise, surprise) crooks and thieves

[sycodon]

It's things like this that make someone who is conservative and pretty much Pro-Business agree with Obama that these people need to be declared Public Utilities and suffer all the usual regulations.

Right now, Cable companies are gaming the system. They claim to be competitive businesses and that they should not be regulated like a utility, yet they enjoy the protections from competition typically enjoyed by Utilities.

  My neighborhood has Time Warner and AT&T DSL. AT&T was only able to provide internet because they had the phone lines. As it stands now Verizon, Google, or anyone else who wants to provide broadband, can't because of the franchise agreements. Time Warner can fuck you in the ass and all you can do is beg for lube because no other company is going to think, "hey, we can do a better job at a lower price" and then provide service because the Government (local) won't allow it.

So Two Options...Declare all exclusivity/franchise agreements null and void and allow anyone with the capital to lay/string lines and provide service, or declare these fuckers utilities and MANDATE levels of service or tell them to GTFO and let someone else provide it.

Comcast tried to steal $50 from me

[schlachter]

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.

Re:Comcast tried to steal $50 from me

[jeffmeden]

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.

The *only* reason to offer some sort of price promotion later instead of just giving you the discount up front and making you sign a contract (even for three months of service) is so that they can roll the dice on customers signing up after being enticed by the promotion, and then not claiming the promotion. Rebates work the same way. Why is it that we can pass a thousand consumer protection laws about credit card interest rates and privacy disclosures, but can't just ban the blatant rip-off of rebate promotions?

Re:Comcast tried to steal $50 from me

[Solandri]

The *only* reason to offer some sort of price promotion later instead of just giving you the discount up front and making you sign a contract (even for three months of service) is so that they can roll the dice on customers signing up after being enticed by the promotion, and then not claiming the promotion. Rebates work the same way. Why is it that we can pass a thousand consumer protection laws about credit card interest rates and privacy disclosures, but can't just ban the blatant rip-off of rebate promotions?.

Actually, rebates serve two different purposes. It allows the manufacturer to pass along a price cut to the final buyer without affecting its contract pricing with distributors and retailers. And it allows manufacturers to make price cuts (sometimes rather large ones) without having all of the product bought up by middlemen - e.g. eBay resellers who quickly snap up all of the available inventory at the lower price and list it on eBay at close to the original price (rebates are typically limited to a certain number per household address).

The rebate companies hired by manufacturers to run the rebate programs work as you say. They get paid a lump sum by the manufacturer, and get to keep anything left over after paying out the rebates. So they have an incentive to stall, lose, and deny your rebates. But the reason rebates exist are legitimate and have nothing to do with ripping off consumers. In fact the second reason actually helps consumers (by cutting out flippers who drive up the price).

This will fail....

[Shakrai]

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.