Senators Blast Comcast, Other Cable Firms For "Unfair Billing Practices" (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Six Democratic US senators [Wednesday] criticized Comcast and other TV and broadband providers for charging erroneous fees, such as cable modem rental fees billed to customers who bought their own modems. The senators have written a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler asking the commission to 'stop unfair billing practices.'.....Last year, more than 30 percent of complaints to the FCC about Internet service and 38 percent of complaints about TV service were about billing...

Comments

Very naught, naught boy

[houghi]

It is election time. So they say something that sounds nice to voters. Nothing will change. Even if they put up a bill, it will be changes so much that it will be law to do what they are doing.

This is great, as they can always blame the other party. Both parties are guilty here.

Let's be honest,the political game is lost to the companies for a long time now. They are able to fool enough of the people all of the time.

I mean, even Sanders said that even if he got elected it might already be to late.

There is a reason for separation between church and state. That is that a certain group might get influence over a majority that might think differently and only that groups interest will be looked at and not that of all. The same must happen with corporations. There must be a separation between business and state (and business and church, but that was covered 2000 years ago). Only then will there be a governement for the people by the people.

Until then: I do welcome my old business overlords.

Comcast offices built like fortresses

[jfdavis668]

I had to return my parents Comcast equipment when we sold their house. I took it to the local Comcast office. I was stunned by the level of security. Inch thick bulletproof glass. You couldn't even touch the workers, everything had to be passed through lock boxes which would only open on one side at a time. I personally live in a rural area. The local cable company is located in a converted ranch house. You can walk in and talk to them at any time. Just a counter you can step around, not even a door in the way. If Comcast needs that level of security to protect the workers, it must be one of the most hated companies around.

Happened to me

[Not-a-Neg]

I bought my own cable modem, had been using it for over a year when I finally decided to return Comcast's modem. Took it down to their local office and had the customer service rep. check the modem back into inventory and remove the rental fee from my account before leaving. The first month after having it removed everything was fine, there was no rental fee billed, the 2nd month after it re-appeared on my bill and they tacked on an extra charge for the prior month as well as sent a separate mailing notice to inform me they had noticed there was no rental fee on my account and it must have been a billing error on their part but not to worry as they weren't going to charge a penalty, just 2 months worth of rental fees. In order to have the issue resolved I had to call customer service and have them "open an investigation" to check with the local office to verify they had received my old modem back.

Re:They're digging their own grave.

[oneiros27]

Comcast was dragging their feet in upgrading our community to fibre, telling us it was going to be years off.

As soon as our town (Upper Marlboro, MD) passed an ordinance granting Verizon a franchise agreement, Comcast suddenly had crews out upgrading. Maybe it was a month or so delay ... whatever it was, they did everything they could to try to get their stuff installed before AT&T could. (and they were shutting down town roads without going through the proper procedures ... so residents were pissed off)

Comcast will do everything that they can to make sure that they have no competition -- even pushing for state laws to ban municipalities from installing their own ... but as soon as it's inevitable that there's going to be competition, they'll do everything that they can to make sure that they keep the customers (and thus, make it less profitable for whoever new comes in).