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Comcast Charges $90 Install Fee At Homes That Already Have Comcast Installed (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Based on our tests, signing up for standalone Internet or TV service on Comcast.com often requires payment of a $59.99 or $89.99 installation fee, depending on where you live. (The fee was $60 in two Massachusetts suburbs and $90 at homes in Houston, Texas, and Seattle, Washington.) In cases where the $60 or $90 fee is charged, the fee is required whether you purchase your own modem or rent one from Comcast for another $11 a month.
The installation fee might be charged even if the home you're buying service at has existing Comcast service, and even if you order Internet speeds lower than those purchased by the current occupant. That means the fee is charged even when Comcast doesn't have to make any upgrades at the house or apartment you're moving into. Internet speed makes no difference, as the fee may be charged whether you purchase 15Mbps downloads or gigabit service. You can avoid the installation fee by purchasing certain bundles that include both TV and Internet, but the fee is often mandatory if you buy only TV service or broadband individually. The $60 or $90 fee is also charged when you buy phone service only or a "double-play" package of phone service and broadband.
The installation fee might be charged even if the home you're buying service at has existing Comcast service, and even if you order Internet speeds lower than those purchased by the current occupant. That means the fee is charged even when Comcast doesn't have to make any upgrades at the house or apartment you're moving into. Internet speed makes no difference, as the fee may be charged whether you purchase 15Mbps downloads or gigabit service. You can avoid the installation fee by purchasing certain bundles that include both TV and Internet, but the fee is often mandatory if you buy only TV service or broadband individually. The $60 or $90 fee is also charged when you buy phone service only or a "double-play" package of phone service and broadband.
Gonna rape you now!
They do this because.they.can.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Cable companies have been ripping consumers off for decades and it's common knowledge.
to see them finally realizing the error of their ways.
Why do people have their panties in a twist over this? Every other service has a service initiation fee. Power? Yep. Water? Yep. Trash? Yep. Phone? Yep. ...
If anything happens, they'll just rename it from "connection fee" to "service initiation fee."
Did you think you were going to get something free out of this?
Fees for no service rendered. Suspend license to operate in state.
... and gaze out at the horses.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Is there something on the roof of these Comcast Customers? Maybe they have to point at the hidden room just over the mountainside. Can Comcast dunk into the estate system in this manner? Totally against the death tax though. Long live Fiber.
Take your business elsewhere, problem solved.
Comcast deserves every amount bad press they get. But this story is just vapid. It's not as if the fee is hidden. Anyway, it can probably be reversed or excluded by ordering the services over the phone instead of online.
Beware of the Leopard.
The dishonesty of pretending it's actually for installation is irksome, but if it's up-front and people are willing to pay...
Disclosure: I'm gouged by my cable company, and I have nobody to blame but myself.
nt
When we had Comcast installed last year the scheduled day they were supposed to install was the afternoon of Easter Sunday. Unbeknownst to Comcast, our house, on a rural county highway, had never been wired for cable before. The hookup guy ended up escalating the install until eventually there were three trucks of installers involved. We didn't pay any more than the ordinary default, even though I asked for the service entry to be at an entry point that ended up being on the exact opposite corner of the house than where they pulled in the overhead service line. We got a pretty good deal, imho.
As a shareholder, I say fees are too low, here are some suggestions:
-Early Payment Fee
-Fee Payment Fee
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy Premium
-Disconnection Fee
-Reconnection Fee
-WiFi Test Fee
-Bandwidth under-utilization fee
-Bandwidth over-utilization fee
-Packet prioritization fee
-Packet de-prioritization fee
-Third-party DNS Fee
-Paper bill Fee
-E-Bill Fee
-Credit Card Payment Fee
-Check Payment Fee
-Bank Payment Fee
-Cash Payment Fee
-Equipment Depreciation fee
-Cable Fee
-Government Fee
-Non-Government Fee
-Local Fee
-Remote Fee
-Intermediate Fee
-Peer Fee
This a really sleazy move! I think I smell a class action lawsuit!
So my landlady died, and her son (my boss at the time) took over. And all I wanted to do was to change the billing name. TW tried to tell me i had to pony up like $60 for a (something), and then tried to claim it was a state law. Of course that was a full on lie and I called the NY PSC and they straightend that out. This suprises me not at all.
First, never sign up for a Comcast service online, ever. Always call or go to a store location.
Second, when they bring up the installation fee, say "no, this is going to be a self-install, and I already have cable from the curb to my house, and I know it's already connected in the box. I don't need anyone to come out."
The $90 fee is supposed to cover the guy coming out to the curb to connect your particular cable to the splitter hanging off the main line in the distribution box. If you don't already have that cable connected (even if your house is wired for cable), you really do need the guy to come out (unless you know how to open the box, and which cable is yours, and you have the tool to reach in the security collar to connect it... and I don't advise telling Comcast if you do have all those things). If you're the type who likes to open your own cable box and connect your house, I would do that first, and then simply tell Comcast that you know it's already connected (maybe you asked the Comcast guy to confirm it when he was out hooking up your neighbor's cable... *wink*).
They'll waive it pretty easily if you can convince them you know your stuff and don't need a guy to come out. If you fail the first time, talk to a different person or ask for a super. They'll get it done, and be a lot more competent about it than CenturyLink.
They've tried to do this to me every time I moved - 4 times since 2000. I always managed to get them to waive or refund it, though it took a LOT of back-and-forth calls and e-mails before they would. I'm sure they made it hard on purpose.
Isn't that a hourly pay or half of it for an technician? The driving time to the customer may be included in the charge, at the significant portion of the rate. The technician comes back to re-enable the connection that was disabled after the previous occupants terminated their contract. Maybe Comcast could improve their management tools and pass the savings to the customers? /alternative universe
Comcast sucks. They do several things that suck.
As someone pointed out below, they didn't charge him any more when his install out in the country cost Comcast far more than $90. They *could* charge $75/hour for installation. When customers ask how much the installation will be, Comcast would say "it depends". As I found out with my business, customers HATE that.
In my business I found out that customers would rather pay $75 than $50-$125. They really don't like it when the cost is "it depends". They especially wouldn't like paying $180 for installation when it turns out their house is a pain in the butt to run wires in, but they aren't overjoyed when it turns out their house is easy and it's only $50. They'd rather know up front.
Even if a house had service before, the cabling and connectors may not be up-to-date, they may be corroded, have too splitters to work with current speeds, etc. So "already had service previously" doesn't mean installation isn't needed. "Already had service before" means "it depends". Comcast sucks in a lot of ways, so if I wanted to complain about Comcast I wouldn't focus on them making the pricing consistent and predictable as the problem. There are much better things to complain about with Comcast.
Last time we upgraded service with Qwest the billing/support folks insisted that we needed a new modem and that a technician HAD TO come out to our house.
When the tech arrived he had our same exact modem and looked at us like we were crazy for having him there. We stood there while he called up the office and told them to cancel the charge for the visit and to, essentially, "push the button" to change our service as we'd requested. We thanked him for his time and we didn't get charged.
Had we not had a great tech or if we hadn't been paying attention, you absolutely better believe Qwest would have charged us for the "visit."
This isn't unique to Verizon, it's shitty telecom/internet behavior all around.
Damn! I came real close to getting suckered into a new deal. Comcast called offering me a huge bump up in internet speeds, cable TV, for two years for the same cost (or close). There would be an early termination, but at least the bill wouldn't jump up until after the contract expires. The deal was too good to be true. I decided to sit on it for awhile....
Now I know why, because they're profiting off the mandatory installation fee. FUCK THEM!! Sooooo glad I didn't go through the deal. But it was so tempting at the time.
Always trust your instincts. If it's too good to be true, it usually is.
Life is not for the lazy.
I am pretty sure Comcast could demand from subscribers to give their CEO a free blowjob and get away with it. Sure nbody forces them to do it, but if they don't and there are no alternative ISPs, no internet for them (which nowadays means not being able to even get a job). Something something unregulated natural monopolies.
Just moved into a new apartment and we have Comcast preinstalled in the place. There's a couple of outlets. Because I am not stupid, I own my own cable modem and SHOULD be cable to connect up, agree to pay them, and off I go.
Haha not so fast. The cable isn't hot. They've disconnected it in the wiring closet downstairs, so a tech HAS to come out to do nothing more than plug in the line. All of about 30 seconds of work.
There is no reason for this. There is no analog signal on the line any more. You have to have Comcast cable box or a cable modem they recognize by MAC to get service. Or probably a cable card device. But it has to be a device they on record. You get nothing plugging in a regular TV.
So there is no functional reason to disconnect the lines like this Except. They make $60 off the installer visit that doesn't need to happen.
Why? Because they can. Because they know the only other 'option' is AT&T DSL which tops out at the BLAZING speed of 768kbits Yes. The fastest DSL I can get is 768. And AT&T has the audacity to offer DirecTV over IPTV on that POS line AND wants a lot of money for it too.
Comcast's speeds and rates are much better. But that installer has to show up. For nothing.
I am currently using an LTE hotspot in what is a very bad cell signal area. But what I can get this way is unlimited, faster than AT&T and cheaper. I'll cope.
Sig for hire.
Hurray for all the wasted efforts on net neutrality, which takes the losing attitude of regulating the shitty monopolistic providers rather than creating a structure for actual competition. But hey, why focus on something that would have upside after upside when you could beg for crumbs instead, right?
-1, "I don't like the truth of what he said" is not a valid moderation.
Someone needs to permanently take away the moderator's ability to moderate.
p.s. Sibling replies accuse parent of defending the practice, which is apparently why it's modded down. (Hint: "Don't shoot the messenger.")
So their web page is broken. You can order by phone and waive all install fees, even waive the self-install kit.
I cancel Comcast every year and subscribe with new account for promo. Never paid more than $29.99 monthly rate. This article is bullshit.
SF Bay area.
Despite what people think, "working" especially at higher speeds is not easy. You have people who buy old wireless routers and wonder why they aren't getting what they paid for when in reality they are using 802.1b or something silly. Bad ethernet cables, shitty NICs, etc. they all add up to pointless calls to Comslut support.
Thus, the fee and liability should be waived for self installs. Whether or not you think any real changes were made are irrelevant since it's quite rare for them to disclose anything. The real problem I have with this is when providers don't fix identified problems yet still charge. They should be required for example to ensure the address meets the minimum speed (25Mbit I believe?), before they can reactivate any service. Otherwise it's illegal.
The other issue I have is over aggressive sales telling people they are required to have a virus scanner. It certainly wouldn't hurt Grandma to have one but there are _NO_ providers with such admission requirements.
but hey, it's still better than those socialist hell holes like Scandinavia, France, Germany, amiright? Just keep pointing out Venezula (a country with exactly two resources, oil and an electric dam) and telling yourself everything's OK.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
they didn't charge me but they still replaced the existing cable that was still good... my guess is that the contractors still charged comcast for it.
Signing up for Comcast at a new apartment. Selected "use my own modem", because I still have the DOCSIS 3.0 modem I used the last time I had Comcast service. It let me skip the modem rental fee, but the website didn't allow me to not schedule an appointment to have a "professional" install it, nor skip the $90 fee that would entail. I picked up the phone and got it sorted out - apparently the previous tenant didn't schedule to disconnect their service, so the system insisted someone needed to go out and uninstall whatever was there. The service rep was able to sort it out for me, but I imagine a lot of people wouldn't bother picking up the phone and waiting on hold listening to badly-bandlimited Vivaldi for five minutes.
You still pay for TV? Why?
Do you still buy CDs and talk on a metered landline phone? Lol
Maybe a little off topic, but I find this story sort of sums up Comcast's competence at logistics ...
I have a relative who moved into a rented house and ordered Comcast CATV+Internet the day they moved in. The installer showed up a day or two later, got everything hooked up, and they were all set. About a week later, the CATV and Internet went offline. After spending a bunch of time on the phone talking to customer support they learned that Comcast prioritizes connection work orders over disconnect work orders, and the disconnect work order of the previous renter wasn't carried out until that day, and that was what caused their outtage. So Comcast had to roll a third truck to reconnect the service.
Comcast could have saved themselves money, and not pissed off a customer, if they'd had enough logistical sense to cancel the disconnect order of the previous renter.
Yes, we charged the same whether the customer installed it or we did. We installed using very well-defined procedure, mostly handled by a Perl script in the end, which always did it right - it never forgot a step. Customers trying to install it themselves fucked it all up more often than not, frequently causing damage we would have to clean up later. Customers doing it themselves wasn't good for them or us.
Verizon did the exact same thing to me. I had a fiber ONT in my room from the previous tenant, and I told them I already had fiber installed, and I already had my own wifi access point, and all I needed was a single CAT5 cable or really any connection type for just one internet device. Just give me the FIOS modem and I will plug it in. They still charged me a $90 "installation fee", which was separate from the "sign-up fee". They also tried to get me to verbally authorize a recurring $140 monthly payment for TV, internet and phone service which I explicitly told them earlier I did not want, that I only wanted basic internet. I was also told that after the 12 months of my initial contract, the price will automatically go up after that, by $20-$30 per month, and there is nothing I can do about it unless I cancel my service. So, while Comcast sucks ass, the competition (Verizon) were really sleazy and definitely charge unnecessary fees.
> Yes, their irrational and deceitful imposition of a fraudulent installation fee is a much better complaint.
> That they lie and claim it is a state-mandated charge
Agreed, those would be much better complaints. Did they lie and say it was a state-mandated fee? Doesn't surprise me. I'm sure the fee is *allowed* by their franchise with the city, but that's quite different from mandated.
> their installations are crapppy, their techs ignorant, and their service subpar
Again, much better complaints than "their pricing is consistent and predictable".
They have been pulling this crap on apartment dwellers for decades. It's already wired up. Yet you have to pay an install fee to flip a switch.
But thank you Slashdot for news that is not relevant since everyone already knows it, and most of us have ditched cable TV long ago.
Welcome to irrelevancy, just like cable TV.
Upgrade your service, and there's usually a fee for such things!
Never mind if you're a long term/loyal customer or not.
And they wonder why so many people want to just leave it alone...
That means the fee is charged even when Comcast doesn't have to make any upgrades at the house or apartment you're moving into.
It doesn't matter.... it's not like the fee is unfair or large compared to the monthly rate -- it is STILL going to require Comcast employee labor to update records in their system to get your service up and running, and you can consider some of the install fee to help recover some of the customer service employee labor costs that are common for service setup for many people. One-time initial activation fees are pretty common for services, even some cell phone carriers use an initial fee for setup, and it's part of the way companies choose to recover some of their costs and make their profits.
Selection bias and confirmation bias certainly are very real.
Also very real are the reasons that after we hired IT majors, we needed to train them for a few weeks before they were able to do simpler installations by themselves, getting help when they ran into non-typical configurations. Some things really do benefit from knowing what you're doing.
As you may be aware, we tend to remember the exceptional cases. That which isn't normal stands out. I remember the two customers (of thousands) who could do their own installs because they had dozens or hundreds of of their own systems all according to the same template. For them, installing our stuff consisted partly of copying exactly the way we set it up on their last dozen systems. They could put the red peg in the green hole, copying the last install, without understanding WHY the green peg was in the red hole for them, and why it would be in the yellow hole for a different customer.
Watch your statements. Next thing you know nice little charges appear. I've always owned my cable modem. Every so many years a monthly rental fee will show up. Used to be $8, now it's like $11.
Soon, calling tech support will cost you $50/call.
They are a communication company that can't even communicate with themselves. I have literally had a "support tech" telling me there was no outage reported in my neighborhood the moment a comcast bucket truck stopped at a pole nearby and set up. I casually asked one of the guys on the crew and he told me an amplifier had failed and the whole street was out.
Even though I told the "support tech" the situation was handled, sure enough a guy rolled up a week later "to fix my internet".
Here's a news story from the end of last year - Comcast: Loss of cable television subscribers accelerates. I am sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with the billing practices described in TFA. Nope, unh-uh, not at all, not one bit, nothing to see here folks, these things are totally unrelated.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
As prerequisite to doing business with them, require your cable provider to credit the full amount of all installation and equipment fees to your account, such that any installation or equipment fees also cover actual service charges equivalent to the same amount (subscription, premium content, etc). -- That way, the cable provider can still be covered for equipment and labor costs involved in setting up the services, without having anywhere near as strong a temptation to get into the business of issuing arbitrary charges (as the only thing an arbitrary charge would accomplish [if successful] is to keep the customer subscribed for a longer period of time).
You might be charged to activate gas or electric service in your name at a home that (gasp) already has gas and electric lines! Highway robbery! How can evil Comcast do this!?
Frankly, lots to complain about with Comcast, but this is really trivial. How about the "whatever we can get away with" pricing where they charge far less for the same service if (and only if) there's another provider (like Google fiber) in the area, or the caps or charging an "HD technology fee" or trying to charge per outlet, for no apparent reason, even if you have all of your own equipment, etc.
There are three boxes to be used in the defense of liberty.
We've already tried the soapbox.
The ISPs bought the ballot box out from underneath us.
Only one left to try is the ammo box.
GENERATION 667: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation
The opportunity remains for a competitor; in the long-run, that's all that's needed.
Get out of your shitty coastal location. Your Internet sucks, because you're living with all the other fools in America.
The USA has always been scam-heavy going all the way back to patent medicine travelling shows. Dare I say that we're used to it by now. We know our government is corrupt, and we know that we aren't the generation that made the country great. I actually want a better country, but as always, the 10% gets what the 90% will accept. Comcast would gladly give up the top 10 percent noisiest, most demanding customers, and their monopoly means we have nowhere to go. Our politicians are on the take, and are holding our ass cheeks apart while the corporate cock with a barbed-wire condom plunges ever deeper into our anus. It's futilte to change it because of the whole 90% thing. Believe or not, though, we know how pathetic it is. At least a lot of us do, and I spend more time than I'd like taking the companies to small claims court to get my pittance. Outside oof that, there's not much we can do. Both major parties simply perpetuate the status-quo.
The reason we can't have nice things is because the world is filled with your stupid aunts and grandmothers.
they already use your electricity to power their wi-fi side business. and you pay for the equipment too. bend over
Case in pont in my house there was an old fiber optic installation. A phone company technican came to install the new router that had a 100BASE-LX instead the old router 10BASE-FL port, different connectors and anyway the fiber had to be checked for damage. In this case, as you can guess the problem was becaus my house was used for an early FTTH installation in the 2000s, so the technology they are use, Ethernet is different if compared with newer installation (GPON).
For PSTN the day a line is deactivated, the wires are marked as available so there's no guarantee that even if the cabling is present that the line is in workable condition so a linemen has to check it.
Myself included am just stuck dealing with Comcast the company that nickle and dimes you even when your a loyal customer. But in my experience Comcast has these policies of charging they give out a list of all the charges to customers for rentals, installs, etc. Its not like Comcast hides any of their fee's. Many times if you complain to the service rep they will waive or credit you for these charges. Its kind of like, if your dumb enough to pay them we will gladly charge you.
Correction, Shocking!
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Last time I signed up to internet (not in the USA) I didn't only NOT have a sign-up fee, but I also didn't pay anything out of pocket for the hardware they gave me, and on top of that I had a 50% discount on the service for the first 4 months.
It's called competition.
Cell phone providers literally don't need to lift a finger to activate new service, yet they routinely sock people for $50.
FIXME: Add a sig here
So?
I just had a Comcast install, and it cost under $30. The guy came to my house, and told me that we had 10 techs for 10,000 households. He (the installer) needs to make money for the service visit.
Comcast offers a free "self install" if the wiring is already there. They will either ship your equipment, you pick it up yourself, or you provide your own. I didn't do it because I needed the tech to bring the wire into the house from the curb.
No, I will not work for your startup
My experience with Comcast was they let me do a self-install, but the self install didn't work so they sent out a technician and charged me. The first time, the wires run to the newly built house were bad. The second time, reinstalling in the same house, there was no reason for it not to work. The other weird thing about Comcast: they really don't care whether or not you return the cable modem when you terminate service, and when I did put it all back in the original box a return it, they immediately took it out of the box and tossed it in their big garbage bin of old modems.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
GTE, which was bought out by Verizon, was even worse. I switched a land line to ISDN service with the same company, years later I found out there were unpaid long distance charges that posted to the old account after I paid the closing statement that were showing up on my credit report because they couldn't find me to bill me for them. I was still at the same address, and still had (ISDN) service through the same company... but they couldn't find me to send me a bill!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
After self-installing over the phone, my internet was working but Comcast a week later started calling me every day to send a technician to "complete the installation". Finally they just show up to my place. I watch the guy do absolutely nothing and point blank ask him if I'm going to be charged for this. He says no. Sure enough I get billed $60 installation fee. I called Comcast and explained what happened, and they took the charge off right away. Still, it rubbed me so wrong I haven't used them since. Switched to RCN for the next place.
I'm so glad this is getting attention. I had to fight this years ago, even though the drop line was already at my house from previous owner they charged this fee.
COX communications does this too, btw; know this from my parents moving and helping them install their cable and network. Even if you "self install" they will charge a fee, though the cable drop line is already at the home and terminated ready for split into cable modem, tv, or whatever....total money grab.
Comcast are assholes.
You're lucky they don't sell your house the next day by what you unwittingly signed. OOPS! Darn! I gave them a new idea
I moved recently and wanted my RCN connection transferred to my new place. RCN insisted that a technician needed to come and hook up the cable.
This made no sense to me at all as I know they can do this remotely once the modem from the previous apartment was connected. Sorry no. So the guy came and pretended to do some 'stuff' for a few minutes, made me sign and then left. The charge? $50. Ridiculous.
So I called them up and asked for a refund. I'm a long time customer, pay on time and all of that. Surprisingly, they agreed and credited my account.
Not much chance of this happening with Comcast I expect.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
As a comcast technician, I was responsible for all of the outlets in the entire house for any job... I was responsible for the drop... everything.
The previous technicians or the home owner missed things or didn't connect a cable correctly.
This is because some technicians come and just move a working line to the new service, and break existing service because they found a quick way to do things... because contractors are paid by the job.
Comcast can fix this by paying contractors partially by the hour, and partially by the job.
If your technician doesn't ask if there are any other problems in the house, the technician is risking getting fired because he didn't do his job.
The wire to do an outlet is pretty expensive... the fittings are pretty expensive.. the labor is expensive.
It needs to be fixed... but customers also need to know that the service visits have been lost leaders, and everyone pays for the wires with higher bills for the rest of time.
So, in a world of monopoly internet service, just exactly WHERE would you suggest people take their business?
Presumably to a city whose monopoly home wired ISP happens to be a company other than Comcast. See comments by sglewis100, Zero__Kelvin, allquixotic, Bengie, FlyHelicopters, several anonymous contributors, Thanshin, DiSKiLLeR, another anon, kenh, and postbigbang. Even if you can't move now, you can make abusive Internet access pricing a deal breaker the next time you do move, as suggested by anon, luis_a_espinal, and Gr8Apes.
I'm failing to see how no Comcast means no Internet. The public library offers Internet access at its branches during normal operating hours.
When I got Cox I informed them that I had everything I needed and that I could do the installation myself. I saw there would still be a $20 "equipment" fee .When I asked why i was being charged the fee, I was told it was a "standard installation fee". I knew arguing with the customer service rep was pointless, so I just went along with it to get my internet turned on. When I got the "self installation package" it was a short coax cable with a card telling me how to activate my service .