Comcast XFINITY → cable modem rental fee scam

seems like they should self audit for correct billing though.

They audit the taps dont they?

Far too messy... Would you want your internet bumped offline so you had to call Comcast because some people are being billed incorrectly? They actively fix accounts if they have enough information one way or another, issue is, there are many accounts which say the modem is being leased or owned, but there is no actual indication whether the modem is actually leased or owned on that account, and in order to verify it, they would need to bump a customer offline, and have them take it to a local center and do equipment research on it. Messy to say the least...

Let me start by saying I have absolutely no knowledge about Comcast's internal billing mechanisms and policies and whether they SPECIFICALLY are doing this ---

But anyone that thinks a "dirty little trick" like this is vapid conspiracy theory is fooling themselves.

I work for a legal information provider (our customers our the corporate counsel that basically write up these type of agreements) - and I can tell you absolutely, simply by our content offerings, what our sales force tells us customers want -- something like this is absolutely NOT unheard of.

I have heard it referred to as "passive revenue streams". It's not always simply a matter of intentionally overbilling... there are dozens of ways to do this without getting too overt. Sometimes it's as simple creating lax internal audit controls. Believe me - no company has ever come to us and said "OK that's the law... but do you have any information or guidelines about how I can institute policies over and better than the law?" Other times, it's a matter of perfecting the right 'maze' for resolution... one that's just messy enough that you essentially 'bleed off' X percentage of people who say "to hell with it" and 'eat' a charge - carefully balanced with research on how messy a maze needs to be before it begins to drive down satisfaction. I have a consultant friend who's working on just such a project.

Hell, we -- just like other companies in our industry -- do it, too. Say corporate counsel XYZ buys a one-time title from us (a book... for example). When the new edition comes out, we auto-mail and bill everyone that bought the previous edition. Of course - one can simply return the item, and *poof* bills goes away... doubtless, some folks DO want the new edition anyway. However - market research also tells us that a measurable percentage simply pay the bill without even thinking about where it comes from. My company is NOT a fly-by-night operation... very old... very large - and like I said, virtually all of our competitors do the exact same thing.

I'm absolutely NOT a marxist - I am very much a free marketeer.

BUT -- anyone that thinks something like this is doesn't go on every day, with respected and large companies...

Believe me - small print, end-user agreements, inhouse counsel... these things do not exist to protect your balance sheet.

Of course mistakes happen (and that may well be exactly what happened here), but any company worth its salt makes sure that the mistakes happen more often on the 'right' side of the balance sheet.

That may well be, but if YOU the consumer don't look at the bill and blindly pay whatever for months on end, that would be your fault.

As stated earlier in this thread, I was charged for modem rental on my first bill.
As soon as I opened the bill and seen $3.00 Modem rental, I was on the phone!

It was taken care of right then and reflected on the next month's bill.

Oh sure, I'm not saying otherwise...

I'm just saying that billing systems are put in place to legally maximize revenue... and those 'systems' involve a lot more than making sure the printers have ink and calculators have batteries.

Nothing illegal about it in all but the rarest cases (and I'm pretty certain here, too... like I said, it probably WAS just a typo somewhere in the chain).

The pure ethics of the matters are a different discussion...

Or ask yourself this: Have you ever been underbilled?

Course, then the next question is did you report it

hey at least they're only hitting you for $3.00.. every now and then their billing system goes nuts and charges me the residential fee on top of the commercial fee..

dunno what happens, every quarter like clockwork it happens.. there must be some process they run which breaks my account

the whole thing about those mistakes is hat the technician is human and humans make mistakes! It is not the companies fault by any means, yes the tech should have been more careful, but the customer needs to call in for a service problem ASAP so that the issue can be fixed, we are here 24/7, you will not get a tech out at 11:30pm or 2am, but a person is always here to attend to calls. people need to take conrol of their own lifes and get with the program.

you will disconnected for nonpayment after 90 days, then when you want service anywhere you live you will have to pay the outstanding bill

quote:

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As soon as I opened the bill and seen $3.00 Modem rental, I was on the phone!

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Of course. And I think most of the people in these forums would do the same thing, as would I. The point is that you should not have had to pick up the phone in the first place! Time is probably a person's most valuable and limited resource -- by having to have made that phone call, you lost time either at work, with your family, or some of your own personal "down time," of which there is an internally generated value attached to each. They are essentially depriving you of this benefit by making you waste your time.

Cable bill is not the only bill I look at before paying... *ALL* bills get looked at!

If there is any bill you just blast money at no matter what, DAMN!

Thing is to look at your bills - because ANY bill can have erroneous charges on them! From whomever!
Not just Comcast.

No! We should not have to call, in a perfect world...

We shouldn't have to call every month for 6 months, or drive to the local office with receipts and proof of ownership of the modem 6 times. We shouldn't finally get them to stop billing the $3 every month but then demand payment for the 6 months they NOW KNOW they made an error. We shouldn't have to get letters from collection agencies for the error Comcast made. We should not have to beg Comcast to remove their collection notice from our credit reports for an error THEY MADE.

*I* didn't!
I called and it was taken care of right then!
I haven't called Comcast for anything since then(3 1/2 years ago).
No need to... everything works fine here. Even billing.

Markets vary, I suppose I'm in one of the better ones.
Sorry to hear of your bad experience.

As with anything, YMMV.

And that is why you seem to be content with Comcast and their service, and someone who has gone through my example may be less than happy with Comcast.