US Cable Support > Charter Internet/TV > [HSI] Fighting Modem Lease charge

[HSI] Fighting Modem Lease charge

The onus should be on Charter to prove that you have their equipment they're charging you for, not the other way around.

reply to Catfish
Started with me this month. Like you, they asked me for a receipt. I save a lot of things, but I doubt I have a Best Buy receipt from more than five years ago. Their own modem quit at that time and I bought a new one. Later I returned their unit to the local office.

I had discussed it with them in December and I was told that it was fixed and I "definitely would not be billed" in January, but today they seem to see no record of that.

They indicate they have sent a form to the "equipment department" and advised me to contact them again in a week to see if "they have determined that I own my own equipment."

By my estimate, they have burned up at least $50 of their time so far to collect $5.

I tend to agree with GreyWolfSC on this one ... I wonder what they'll say if I ask them to see their receipt?

UPDATE: Giving credit where credit is due, Charter apparently completed their research, refunded the charge, and I can see my account now specifies I have a customer-owned modem. So I'm happy to report my issue resolved.

reply to Catfish
I had the same thought about asking to see their receipt. What bothers me the most is the fact that i have never leased my modem from them. Either their system for tracking this kind of stuff is really screwed up or they are trying to dig out some extra revenue by tacking on this $5 per month charge. Just about everyone I know on Charter has had this charge just start showing up at some point. Its like they hope you just don't see it, as I'm sure many do not, and they get an extra $5 per month from a lot of people.

reply to Catfish
They only way I got that permanently fixed was to go into the local office.

reply to Catfish
Ask them to show you a work order where they came to your house and installed the modem, with that SN and MAC address.

Because that is the record they should be using.

I took an old cable box back to the local office and got two new style boxes a few years back. The lady gave me a receipt, I did not look close until some time later i find them charging me for a modem. I looked at the receipt that the charter local office gave me and it also listed my cable modem.

I called up and told them i owned this modem and did a self install three years ago. Then told them to check there records because they will not find any trip to my house where they installed one.

I have never seen that on my bill since then.

reply to Catfish
A few months ago after they raised my mothers rates I went to her house to phone them and renegotiate some type of contract for her. In doing so I first checked her most recent bill and they had been billing her a modem lease for over 3 years that she owned her own modem, I purchased it.

When I brought it to their attention they tried to play dumb and offered to "get back in touch" and I was adamant about having it rectified at that very moment or cancel. They removed the charge from her bill and refunded either 9 or 18 months of what they had over billed. They said the bill was her responsibility and they could not refund the full amount. I raised hell about it but it never got me any more money out of them. The refund was deducted from her following bill and was what they offered to reimburse her.

They know whose modem it is and if not you can read the serial number from it to them and they will know it is not theirs.

AxeKick,
I am beginning to believe this type of billing practice is by design and not by accident. This happens too frequently and to too many people, much of whom do not notice it or understand the bill and just keep paying the bogus charge. Come on Charter, its not that hard to keep track of and you know it. Charter has access to all the MAC addresses on their network so there is no reason for this to ever happen since MAC addresses are unique. Maybe I should call the state Attorney General and have them investigate this. Again, it just should not be this hard to keep track of with today's technology. And Charter IS a technology company!

reply to Catfish
Personally,
I think most companies do this in some way or another, with all their stupid little items!

Charter has been known for this though.
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reply to Catfish
The problem I have with this is that they should have a list of mac addresses that they OWN. Any OTHERS should be considered customer-owned. I don't see how it should be so hard for them to figure out. It's got to be the most simple database you could ever devise. When they purchase the modems, log in the macs, those belong to Charter. For the life of me I can't see where their "confusion" comes from.

I would think it goes something like this.
The problem comes from poorly training CSR (customer service REP) and software. Each time you change to a new package or promo, the software they are running must not hold these setting and by default reset to charge for the modem. So if the CSR don't take the time to correct the before and after setting you end up with a modem charge.

No one is looking for if you own a modem or not until you call in to complain.

reply to Catfish
Catfish I cannot think of any logical explanation for it repeatedly happening other than it being intentional.

The woman I spoke with rudely informed me "well your mother is responsible for reading her own bill, she is an adult."

I said: "she's elderly, nobody can interpret everything on your bills without cross referencing all the bogus charges."

she replied: "well, I can, I read and understand all of my bills"

I said: "really, then explain to me what the "franchise fee" is?

Charter: "it's some sort of government tax, I'm sure"

Me: "you're sure that it is some type of government tax? - yet
you just claimed you fully understand all of your bills. It is
not a government tax but rather an add-on tax imposed
by Charter."

Charter: "that's what i said, some type of tax"

Me: "Jesus Christ.. you people are unbelievable, that is not what
you said. You said some type of GOVERNMENT tax."

Obviously continuing that was pointless and I didn't continue to rub her face in it needlessly. But it was after doing so that she agreed to refund the modem rental fee for "as long as they are authorized to do so." I did protest the partial refund but to no avail.

I've never accidentally billed anyone for anything that was not legitimate and have operated my own business. If something is removed from your computers billing software, such as a cable model fee, then it would require someone to physically add it back into the computer that calculates the bill for it to suddenly return. That simply couldn't occur by accident.

I would file a complaint if I were you, I often do the same regardless of if I think it is going to change things. Those too lazy or too complacent to do so are only encouraging businesses to continue to add bogus fee's and rip them off further.

reply to GreyWolfSC
Bottom line, to protect yourself you need to get a receipt of return when the equipment is turned over. The best way to do this is to go to the local Charter office, hand it to them in person, and don't leave without getting a receipt. That's what I have done with Comcast. The way Charter has screwed up our bill 5 out of 5 months we've had service, I will be sure to do this when I buy my modem soon.

reply to Catfish
I went through this with Charter last year. I dug through my records and saw that they had been charging me the $5 monthly fee ever since I had to change out a dead modem (that I owned) to a new modem (that I owned) in June of 2008. I didn't catch it until January of 2009, and it took several calls over the course of 3.5 months before I finally found someone who could reverse it for the entire amount, including taxes. By the time they reversed it they were reversing something like $70.

They went through the whole "provide a receipt" thing with me, at which point I automatically said "transfer me to a supervisor" and explained that it was mine and that I didn't have a receipt, I was able to pin-point the occasion when it got flipped (when I called to have them change the authorized MAC address on my account, which activated the new modem) and that the operator at the time was the one that was at fault.

reply to Catfish
Your only hope is to go to the local office. I am recently unemployed thanks to Charter. Aside from looking for any reason to let go of people from their local offices and dispatchers, they are auditing everything, which includes the modem leases. Charter is using the mistake as a money grab. The modem audits actually started at the end of 2009 (I know since I've been one of the people who had to go through the modem reports). If you have a modem that is mislabeled in the system as a rental, local office employees are instructed to add the modem lease charge. The call center cant do anything. They'll send whats called a kms form to the local offices and they usually just get closed. You might get a call or voicemail telling you to prove the modem is yours, but thats about it.

You're caught between a rock and a hard place. Who has a modem receipt from however many years ago? And an even better question, why did thousands of modems get added into the system as rentals when they were never charter's property? Its a huge mess. Your best bet is to go to the local office and plead your case. The rep will cave in...and I'm speaking from personal experience. Believe me, its not just annoying to the customers. My co-workers and I have been dealing with it for months. And this isnt the first or the last time that Charter has dumped a huge mistake on the local office. Oh the joys of having angry customers walk in and take out their frustrations on you.. Thats one thing I wont miss. But for what its worth, you can have the problem resolved. Just go into the office and plead your case. And remember, you will get better results if you are polite and patient. I hope this helps someone.

reply to Catfish
I'm having the same problem with Charter so I'd like to add my voice. I have no idea how long they've been charging me for my modem. I was upgrading my service and purchased ANOTHER modem (Motorolla Docsis 3.0 capable) and was looking at my bill, and saw the lease fee. Tried calling. Went to the local office--who all say that without a receipt, there's nothing they can do.

I think a class action suit is in order, because I realized not only is Charter defrauding countless customers, but others are doing the same thing as well.

Edited to add, I contacted the BBB about this, and found a lawyer online inquiring about these fees, asking folks to contact him. This is one case where I wouldn't mind lawyers getting fat on Charter.

Post the lawyers contact info please. I have the same issue!

reply to Catfish
Front page worthy discussion?

Just for what it's worth, I have a SB4100 that I purchased from a member here YEARS ago for $10.

I too got hit with the $5 fee, didn't notice at first, and had no luck on getting them to refund anything but the current month.

Then just a few months ago it happened all over again. Since I stopped auto-pay and now use my bank to send them an EFT on MY terms it was easy to catch.

What a scam...

reply to Catfish
Same problem here in NV. Even though I own my own modem, Charter started charging me a modem lease fee "out of of the blue," back in 2009. I had the charges removed, and things seemed to revert back to normal.

Oh, but silly me for thinking things were normal again. Because I have paperless statements + auto-bill to a credit card, I never really look at my monthly invoices. Well, lo-and-behold, it turns out that Charter stopped the erroneous billing for only a couple of months, and then reinstated the modem lease fee, which they continued to bill me for almost a year. The only reason I detected this is because I logged into my Charter account to update my credit card expiration date and then noticed the reinstated lease fee when I took a look at a recent pdf statement.

I visited the local Charter office, where the pleasant CSR took care of the problem in about 5 minutes. What I find appalling, though, is that the CSR said that the computer system already showed that my modem was "customer owned." I can only conclude that Charter is deliberately and maliciously engaging in financial fraud. This fraud is crying out for a class-action lawsuit. I really hope some attorney/law firm pursues this matter to the fullest.

I am one pissed off customer.

P.S. - My modem has already rebooted 3x today. Sigh.

reply to Catfish
Your modem needs to be in the billing system as a device otherwise it gets audited and shut off. Someone (at the local office more than likely) accidentally added your modem to Charter's inventory database instead of adding the modem to the equipment screen as a placeholder (a 'fake' device that lets auditors know the equipment SHOULD be provisioned but tells Charter the device is not owned by them). Reps can add placeholders but cannot touch (add/remove/modify) the actual inventory database. That is a local office/engineer/admin access.

So. When your modem is added to Charter inventory, the reps literally can't do anything about it except notify the LO about it and credit your bill for the rental fee.

If the local office disagrees and believes the modem IS theirs, nothing changes and repeat ad-nauseam.

If you have a local office near you, stop in. You can speak to the people that control that database directly.

If they don't believe you and you have no way to prove the modem is yours, you may be SOL though.