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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
Fees for no service rendered. Suspend license to operate in state.
I recently moved. None of those had an initiation fee for me. The only one which would have had a fee was phone, which I couldn't care less about because I don't have an landline anymore.
Stop being an apologist.
I've never been charged an initiation fee for power, water, phone, internet or trash.
The closest think I've had to pay is a refundable bond for power when I was younger. Understandable as I had never had a power service before and it's paid in arrears for actual power used.
Sometimes internet/phone packages come with minimum 12 or 24 month terms, but those usually give you something in return, like free modem or discounted monthly fee. Upgrading to fibre cost me a 24 month term, but in return I got free install, including connecting the fibre to my home and a termination device. Also got a free router to handle the gigabit connection that retails for over $200.
Things are much better when wholesale is separated from retail, breaking the monopoly and eliminating the capital required for competitors. I could have bought my internet service from literally dozens of providers.
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.
Take your business elsewhere, problem solved.
in your drug-addled mind people can pick up their houses and move them at a whim
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.
That would be great if it were possible, but in much of the US there's only 1 broadband option. For many people, subscribing to another provider would require moving to a different area.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
So, in a world of monopoly internet service, just exactly WHERE would you suggest people take their business?