Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Comcast May Have Enrolled Thousands in a Near-Worthless Protection Program Without Their Consent (gizmodo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the hitting-the-bottom dept.

Comcast has been embroiled in a legal battle since 2016 regarding potentially deceptive business practices surrounding its "Service Protection Plan" -- a $6 a month program which covered almost nothing. But as an amended complaint recently filed by the Washington state attorney general alleges, Comcast didn't just dupe customers, it may have signed them up for the plan without their knowledge. From a report: You might expect such a plan to, uh, protect the service a customer is paying for, by decreasing or eliminating the cost of repairs in the event something goes haywire. Not so! The fine print of the program excludes in-wall wiring and some outdoor wiring. This led the attorney general to conclude that the plan "simply covers the technician visiting the customer's house and declaring that the customer's equipment is broken."

8 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. I'm sure they did by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Informative

    this happens because call center reps are required to get a certain number of add on sales to keep their jobs. Even in rare instances where they're not the low pay means they need to push a number of these in the desperate hope they'll make enough money this month for rent _and_ food. It's a symptom of wealth inequality.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:I'm sure they did by haruchai · · Score: 3, Informative

      Comcast, the Wells Fargo of the Internet

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...`

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    2. Re:I'm sure they did by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This has absolutely nothing to do with wealth inequality. This has everything to do with a corrupt business that can afford to be caught performing deceptive or downright fraudulent charges because the fines do not outweigh the profits.

      My wife, then going through law school, caught this charge on her first bill and challenged it with the regional manager. The manager literally said he couldn't find out how it go onto her bill (as-in, the system did not show an agent adding it) and claimed to have removed it. Whether that is true or not is anyone's guess given that it is Comcast. Low and behold, the next month rolls in and the fee was still there. Finally the next call and a more formal legal threat got it removed.

      This is a problem with the complex systems that these massive businesses build to intentionally confuse their customers, which is completely accepted by the government that affords them their local monopolies, which leads to such things being "oops" moments until they're caught because the number that catch them are always lower than the number that do not. It's not generally because some lowly call center employee is adding these because they need to eat that night. The fact that you immediately blamed the working poor rather than the notoriously evil business is quite telling about your political spectrum and your intelligence.

  2. Job killng regulations! by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    High time we stop government from engaging in such high handed tactics. The Constitution specifically prohibits the government taking property away from people without due process and compensation. Corporations are people. The contract they have with their customers is their property with great revenue potential. Government can not stop corporations from bilking their customers. It is against free markets.

    Just get government off my back,( so that the corporations can stab me there without any impediment).

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. RICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At just what fucking point does someone in the government start looking at Comcast though RICO eyes? It's not that far-fetched, and is not an unrealistic or unfair viewpoint.

    Trump, you have a clown named Sessions. Do you have him doing anything useful? You know, something other than threatening to attempt to go after legal marijuana? Maybe you should tell the guy to deal with crime. You know, companies like Comcast. This shouldn't just be a matter of fines; you need to start arresting people who do things like in TFA and either they do the time, or they roll over on their bosses in exchange for immunity.

    Jeff Sessions, stop being soft on crime.

  4. Re:Old Glory Robot Insurance by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    Old Glory Robot Emergency Insurance aka O.G.R.E. insurance.

  5. company deleted 90 percent by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    The AG’s office said that Comcast initially refused to provide recordings because it was “burdensome.” After the judge ordered Comcast to provide calls, the company deleted 90 percent of the samples the AG’s office had requested.

    Sounds like some high up person at comcast needs to do some hardtime or at least go to criminal court over that.

  6. As usual, hang on before you light the torches by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 2

    For most if not all of the providers I've had over the years, there was a significant fee for the tech visit if the problem ended up being on your end, and that's true with Comcast as well. Looks like they're running around $70 per trip at the moment, and for $6 a month, that fee gets waived. So the break-even is about a year between visits. Depending on the condition of your internal wiring and your personal troubleshooting abilities, that may not be a bad deal.

    Automatically signing people up is a different issue, but it seems a bit much to say that the program is "near-worthless."