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Comcast Admits It Incorrectly Debited $1,775 From Account, Tells Customer To Sort It Out With Bank (consumerist.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Consumerist: Consumerist reader Robert is fighting with Comcast over a $1,775 early termination fee that should not have been assessed after he tried to cancel his business-tier service with the company. Comcast itself has even admitted that the money should not have been debited from Robert's bank account, but now says it's his responsibility to sort the mess out with his bank. The Consumerist reports: "In an effort to save money in 2014, Robert called to have their service level downgraded to a more affordable rate. Shortly thereafter, correctly believing that he was out of contract, he cancelled his Comcast service. That should have been the end of the story, but only weeks after closing the Comcast account, the boys from Kabletown decided that Robert was not out of contract, debiting $1,775.44 from the checking account tied to the Comcast service. Skip forward to Jan. 2015 -- two months after being told he'd get made whole; still no check. Robert says that when he called Comcast, 'the rep actually laughed when I told her I didn't get a check yet. She said it would take three months.'" Two calls later, one in June 2015 and one in Jan. 2016, Robert still didn't receive the check even after being reassured it was coming. More recently, he received an email from someone at Comcast "Executive Customer Relations," saying: "I understand you're claiming that someone advised you Comcast would send a refund check for the last payment that was debited but this is generally not the way we handle these situations. [...] For your situation, you would have to dispute the payment with your bank." Good news: The Consumerist reached out to Comcast HQ and a Comcast rep wrote back. "More information just came in," reads the email, which explains that an ETF credit was applied to his account in Dec. 2014, but "through some error the refund check never generated." Comcast is reportedly sending the check for real this time.
Call it 3k by now
And comcast won't come in your...nevermind.
This is why you don't give asshole companies direct access to your bank account.
I wonder how the representative was able to say, "...For your situation, you would have to dispute the payment with your bank." without either falling over laughing, or suffering a crippling attack of guilt. Or both.
Don't step on the baby.
After that 2nd month, you might as well just take them to small claims court. Add your time and material costs to the damages and move on.
an ETF credit was applied to his account in Dec. 2014, but "through some error the refund check never generated."
So, Comcast's story is basically the dog ate it?
This sounds like a great nomination for a THIRD golden poo award from Consumerist. Comcast is breaking world records at being an asshole.
If someone tells you they'll send a check in 3 months, you may want to look at how long you have to dispute a transaction. In most cases, after 3 months you're out of luck and they know it.
If the rep laughs at you and says it'll be 3 months, that suggests that this kind of stuff happens all the time and they have a canned response to delay you.
There are a lot of seedy companies that will pull scams like this and just wait out the clock until it's too late. That's why it's important to review your statements and dispute transactions right away if you suspect they're wrong. If it turns out you were wrong, you can cancel the dispute and no harm, no foul.
Saving credit/debit card data with these people is just plain irresponsible. They would need a ten foot latter to see eye to eye with a snake!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I never give access to my accounts for bill payments. I do it the old fashioned way by logging in and paying the bill myself at the bank's site.
Trolling is a art,
No doubt nothing would have happened had this story not gone public and they started getting media queries. Now all of a sudden they discover the error and correct it! Really makes me angry. They should have done all this even if there was no publicity. It's rank dishonesty. Sadly dishonesty pays well these days. In spades. For them.
I was a Network Manager for a small community bank. You should NEVER give any entity the authority to perform ACH withdrawals from your bank accounts.
It is far better to setup all your bill pay payees as "push" rather than "pull". This gives you control over every dime that leaves your account.
Where was this f'n story when Microsoft did the same exact thing to me, but for $28,420.23... still dealin with that shit 6 months later.
1) i gave at the office
2) i'm only a little bit pregnant
3) comcast's favorite ... the cheque's in the mail
nuff said
This should be very easy to deal with. File a criminal fraud complaint against Comcast for manufacturing a phony contract for the sole purpose of stealing money. Demand that all Comcast representatives who had knowledge of this go to prison for said charges (plus any good lawyer should be able to layer a dozen or two additional charges on top of this).
Comcast representatives will be tripping over themselves to return the money before they have to explain their actions before a judge.
Once you send a check, doesn't the other party have all the information required to set up ACH withdrawals? The whole system is based on trust.
This is another reason to use a credit card. Dispute the charge and make the other party justify it.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
After the second call, stop using phone or e-mail. Send a notarized letter via US Postal Service, registered return receipt, to the CEO of the company, with a cc to the Corporate Secretary. No results, the next letter goes to the chairman of the Board of Directors audit committee. That tends to get results.
sPh
Absolutely not; that sounds to me like a good way to go to jail for theft. You have to sign a form saying you authorize them to directly debit or credit your account. My bank would not allow me to setup ACH withdrawals without that.
David Andrews
I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly, if you send the checks from the online banking thing (i.e. not your checkbook) it doesn't have all the same identifying information on the check.
Isn't this considered normal, and not exclusive to Comcast? The last time T-Mobile overcharged me, support told me to sort it out with my bank. So I sorted it out with my bank, problem solved. I'm liking the service but T-Mobile billing sucks eggs.
I've found that the only way to get Comcast to respond in earnest is to open up an FCC complaint. I had proof that they had over-billed me for months charging me fees for equipment I didn't own (I use a cablecard + HDHomerun). The rep said that they would only be able to credit me a single month. After contacting the FCC, I got direct attention from someone who was capable of speaking without a script and received a rather large check. You just know for every story like mine, there's hundreds of others that didn't get satisfaction. That's why Comcast has enough money to buy their own legislation. Screw Comcast sideways.....greedy bastards.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
Conal O’Rourke was right Comcast needs to be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
There billing sucks and he needs to win his 1M+ loss suit Now I think most the big lawsuits are BS but not that one.
Yeah, the information that this just went viral and now the world is watching you screw this guy over.
You never, ever sign up for autopay. And you never, ever autopay straight from a bank account! You will ALWAYS get screwed at some point...and you will have to fight to get the money back.
I had autopay for Verizon FiOS. I decided to cancel my account and move to Cablevision because the difference in price between the two was silly (almost $100 for just 25/25 internet vs. $54.99 for 50/25 internet and phone. A week after I cancelled they decided to take the full amount for the following month from my credit card. After much complaining, I was told I would get a refund in a few months. Thankfully it was an Amex and Amex reversed the charges no questions asked. I won't do that again.
looked at the bank one morning and they debited around $800 out. I had moved and placed my service on hold a few weeks prior. They instead charged me early cancellation and also charged me for my boxes that I owned as if they owned them. When I called them they said it would take about 6 weeks to resolve the matter. I immediately called my bank and reported them for fraud. Bank returned my money and found DTV at fault.
Why in the fuck does any sane human being grant access to their bank account to businesses? I see businesses push for automatic payment all the time, but I never thought anyone would actually enroll. Especially when not one of those businesses will agree in writing to reimburse you for any costs if they make an error. If they don't trust themselves enough to indemnify the customer, why should the customer trust them?
directly debit your bank account for anything.
ALWAYS demand that they send a bill, which you have the chance to review and approve.
Your your BANK's bill pay service, and then you have positive control over the amount and timing of payment, including whether any payment is made at all.
You're correct that the information is on the check, but it is very, very different because with a check they're only authorized to withdraw the amount on the check one time. They can actually convert it to an electronic ACH withdrawal if they want to, so as far as that goes you are correct. But if they use it to just take money they think you owe them, that would be criminal check fraud. Whereas when you give the company the information in a monthly payment authorization, you've given a blanket authorization that covers whatever they think the correct amount is. The fine print will say so. So there is a huge difference between "push" and "pull" payment methods, even when they look the same on the ACH system.
within an organisation - nobody can control it, it takes a life of its own and everyone is surprised that it even exists and nobody wants to touch it because anything done to it will cause more trouble.
"that would be criminal check fraud"
We are already talking about fraud by billing for services they did not render; this just changes the specific name of the fraud they may be committing and is unlikely to give them any pause.
File a lawsuit, ask for the money they stole plus $10M in punitive damages, and ask the court to let you depose Comcast's CEO, General Counsel, and chairman of the board. Their lawyers will pay you to go away.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Criminal charges are different from civil charges.
If you win a civil case then Comcast has to pay you money. If you win a criminal case then the Comcast employee that broke the law goes to jail.
Corporation laws only protect their employees from civil charges.
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
With so many billing errors made be ISPs and telecom companies, how come there's never been a class action against them? No other industries have so much trouble with billing and I've never seen a billing mistake that's good for the user. Well that's not quite true, but they quickly claim within a couple days it was an honest mistake and force you to pay it back, like when a company accidentally sells an item for $0.1099 instead of $10.99. But errors in their favor? No, those stay on your auto-pay account for months and then they refuse to refund only saying they won't do it next month but they still do.
Being a criminal charge, it would be prosecuted by your attorney general's office in real court... not by you in a kangaroo small claims court.
This does not make any difference in Europe. If they make a withdrawal you don't like, you just call your bank and they reverse it immediately. It happened to me.
entropy happens
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"
We'll make great pets
My wife was late on a bill, the vendor asked her to fax a copy of the check as proof that she wrote it. She faxed a copy, then mailed the check. The vendor cashed the fax, then cashed the check when it arrived.
How can he be a "Consumerist" if he does boneheaded like give a company the ability to make withdraws from his checking account at will?
I don't know about the USA, but in the UK it is no longer reasonably possible to be the customer of an ISP or telecoms company without a Direct Debit arrangement. Well, it is possible but gnerally with a stinging "admin" charge. I can understand an admin charge for cheques, as they require human handling, but not for electronic transfers.
Wire fraud. Call the DA in the county where the "local" Comcast office resides and press charges. Bet he gets paid PDQ.
Wouldn't this be a better article if they waited until the check arrived? Saying that Comcast has never sent the check when asked and that they still haven't sent it isn't a complete story.. Let's wait until the check is cashed THEN write the story about what it took to get it.
Once you have their money, you never give it back.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Seriously---letting any company have direct access to your bank account is dangerous.
Letting a company like Comcast have access to your checking account to make withdrawals at will is an EPIC FAIL.
Not that I'm a fan of Comcast, I think I might see a problem, from the article:
In an effort to save money in 2014, Robert called to have their service level downgraded to a more affordable rate. Shortly thereafter, correctly believing that he was out of contract, he cancelled his Comcast service.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, usually downgrading your service will automatically renew the contract for another 2 years. Coupled with terminating his account shortly thereafter, the ETF is gonna be high.
Screw that! I'd be writing letters to the Attorney General (AG) of the state in which he lives citing fraud. In my experience telecommunication companies and health insurance providers really snap to attention when they get a letter from the AG's office. I'd also be filing complaints with the Public Utility Commission, Better Business Bureau, and would start to find out who their insurance provider is to contact them as well.
Not enough now to just refund, Comcast needs to give him an extra $1,000 for all the trouble.
Since we don't offer any actual security for most bank accounts it's hard to avoid. The ACH system (including checks you write) simply doesn't offer any method to individually authorize or deny transactions, at least not from a consumer perspective. It hardly even offers protection against someone miskeying an account number.
We can have our direct debit come from a credit card account, which is great. If you don't like an ISP's charges and they won't fix it, you file the dispute with the credit card company and they'll fight your battle for you.
Imagine how fast Comcast would sue the living shit out of you if you somehow got into their bank account, grabbed $1,775 from them, and then refused to give it back after admitting that you had no claim to the money..
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
0) Don't give them access.
1) Is 0 not possible, set up ONE account from which to push bill payments. Be sure this account does not have overdraft protection or connection to any other account you own.
2) Keep in this account ONLY THE MINIMUM balance required to pay what you've explicitly authorized; be aware of when you submit online payments so you'll know how to time the balance (i.e., when to deposit) to prevent Company A from grabbing money you meant for Company B.
3) Laugh at the bastards if they try to pull from a bank account with an effective balance of 0.
Any bank that pays an online charge from an account which the bank knows has a 0 balance and no overdraft protection can go pound sand down the proverbial rathole before trying to get me to repay them. Any company that send such a charge can do the same, and then fuck itself on the way out.
Lesson # 1: Never, ever, ever set up direct withdrawals from your bank accounts with any entity.
Online banking is okay if YOU are sending out the money, but never set up automatic withdrawals with anyone. Bad. Everyone got that? Good.
Why didn't the gentleman have his financial institution return that big debit unauthorized and set up a stop for all ACH debits from comcrap? Even the mere threat to a vendor that I'm going to start returning debits unauthorized usually gets me to the department that (still, usually) resolves my problem.
-Miser
Assuming you can get an AG to care about a sub $2k bill.
No, with corporations it works like, if it is civil fraud the victim has to spend the money on lawyers to sue, and they may or may not see very much in the end. Criminal fraud, the government prosecutor does all the work, and the victim gets full restitution plus interest.
I would be wondering how many times Comcast has taken a write off on this item in the years following. Voodoo accounting prepares all billing and tax liabilities. Customer satisfaction has grown at an astounding rate in their latest poll.
In my country (I live on Brazil) if some company charges you unduly , and you get to the court, the company is obliged by law to give twice that value to you... You only have to fill a complaint at some consumers rights office, although some people go straight to a lawyer sometimes. Those laws really helped to diminish abuse from big companies, but the number of people that just doesn't complain is huge. Knowing it's own rights is something really rare, unfortunately...
I don't understand. Why would anyone expect both a check *AND* an ETF transfer? That would be paying twice. Granted, Comcast should have simply told him at the start that his account was being credited. This story isn't about Comcast screwing a guy over, it's about Comcast customer service reps being to stupid to know what's going on, and too stupid to be able to FIGURE OUT what's going on.