Comcast XFINITY → [Bill] Comcast charging for unused modem I own!

I am posting this so people carefully review their bills. I have been a longtime Comcast broadband customer. I rented their modem for years - paid for the junk many times over. Finally, I wised up and purchased a Moto Surfboard and returned their modem to them. That was a few years ago. I moved to a new town, and continued to use my modem, and VOIP via T-Mobile. At wife's suggestion we went to Comcast VOIP and of, course, started using their modem - I put mine in the closet. All went well until 4 months ago when they started charging me for BOTH their modem and mine still sitting in the closet. I called and the representative said he would get this fixed and credit issued. So - look at your bills. I wonder how many other people are being charged for equipment they own.

You are - sadly - just one of THOUSANDS who get charged for their own equipment by Comcast. I hope you still have your receipt because that is the ONLY proof Comcast will accept now. Apparently, some less than honest folk took advantage so now CC wants to see the receipt; heaven help you if you don't hold onto receipts ..... forever.

You might try posting on the "Direct" forum here. Fair warning: those modem charges have been known to crop up again from time to time so .... if you have your receipt, laminate it and keep it. Good luck getting it resolved. They will only take off 6 months of charges, too. :-(

Wonder why nobody has filed a suit. Seen this happen to way to many people here.

Than again lawyers probably would eat up all the money.

Sadly its a product of comcast using antiquated software. Unfortunately comcast is to big to upgrade the software. Verizon has the same software problem. There comes a point you are just to big to upgrade to a modern system and have things continue to work.

I wonder if the reverse of your suggestion would work. Ask Comcast to show you their receipt/purchase order for the modem the OP has with the OP's modem's MAC address. The MAC address is unique and CC should have a record of the corresponding MAC and a purchase order to whomever they buy their stuff from.

edit: I just remembered that if one buys something from Best Buy, and maybe some other stores or on line, you can go to the store and get a receipt. I can't remember why, but I needed a receipt for something I bought at BB and went to the service desk and they printed the original receipt for me.

It took me over a year to get the same thing fixed. Every time they swore the problem was taken care of, it wasn't.

Yes, happened to me as well, and I didn't notice the problem for over 6 months. It took me a month with many phone calls to finally get resolved.

In Comcast's defense, they did print me a check for the difference.

With all of the other stuff going on with Comcast at the time (problems/constant buffering Netflix), it was the last straw and I decided to leave. I should feel fortunate that I had 3 options, and the option I went with was actually better than Comcast. Most people are stuck where they are.

I think this is a valid question, and I to wonder if it would work. If indeed Comcast did purchase said modem, they should have a purchase order from it from the manufacturer, as well as a list of unique MAC addresses. They should be able to go to their accounting department, and get that information, and then provide it to the end user.

If they cannot do that, then they cannot prove that the modem is really their modem.

--Brian

I've never had a receipt with a mac address on it. there is no way I could prove to them that I bought the modem. I like your idea better. Have them show where the device entered their inventory.

Thats the whole problem to start with. Thanks to the dos based system comcast uses they have to add a customer modem into there inventory for it to work. Most receipts when customers get modems do have the mac addy tho.

Yup, and it is up to the Comcast CSR to "tick" something on their software screen to indicate that the modem IS customer-owned, or so I was told. I suspect that if you call to make changes to your account, SOME of these agents dabble with settings they shouldn't dabble with.

Pretty cool unearned revenue stream considering it happens to so many customers and that the most CC will credit back is 6 months worth.

Can't sue Comcast because they have the binding arbitration clause.

Thats when it happens, but its not a matter of them dabbling with things they shouldnt. Its a product of most getting used to most people having a rental fee. I dont think they have a choice but to dabble with it. Not really much they can do about it at this point. While i know a lot of people think they make money off it and such its really just employees screwing up and actually cost them money in the long run. When you consider the extra money they put out in phone support and the fact most people get reimbursed for the fee. Its not a way of making money for them. Not many people go over the 6 month limit for rental reimbursmnet and from what i have seen even if its over the 6 months they make it up in the form of other credits. Often totally much more than it ever costs the customer anyway. Hell if they did it to me i would want way more than they charged me. I would get it to. As would any other good paying customer that talks nice but firm to them on the phone.

Just a note: If purchasing your own modem, look for any comparable make/model other than what Comcast is leasing. It's a lot harder for Comcast to make this mistake charging you for a modem make/model that they don't distribute.

when I bought my modem from Amazon, I doubt it had the mac address on it. I was not talking about the receipts from Comcast.

Thanks to this thread I checked my comcast account and I am being charged for a modem that i own also. it was from 5/11 to 6/11 when i have been using my own modem for over a month.

I will be calling tomorrow to fix this issue.

Thanks OP. I hope you get your situation taken cared of.

I had this issue as well, and a quick phone call with my receipt from Amazon fixed that problem fast. I was pretty upset with them on the phone though. I am just glad that I kept my receipt.

I had the same problem a few years ago. Comcast kept trying to charge me for my Surfboard modem that I bought. I would call, the CSR would tell me to disregard the charge for the modem and that it would be corrected on the next bill. The next bill would arrive, there would be the charge for the modem PLUS a late fee for the charge I was told to disregard. I'd call again, same thing. After several months of this, I took the receipt to one of their service centers where they supposedly made a copy of it and "made notations" on my account. The charge, and the late fees, continued for 6 months. Every month I made the way-out-of-the-way trip to their service center and stood in line for over an hour just to show them the same receipt they supposedly kept making copies of. And THEN I find out they dinged my credit report for the late fees they kept charging me. I finally had to get a lawyer friend to send a threatening letter to them with a copy to the City of Atlanta's regulatory office to get Comcast to finally say, "oh, we're sorry, just a simple mistake, all better now". That worked for a couple of years and then they started doing it again. And again I had to make several trips to the service center with that now-ancient receipt in hand, along with a copy of the lawyer's letter, to get them to stop.

Save that receipt forever!

A note: Make a copy of the receipt as well because normal store receipts fade over years making them unreadable.

One has to love POS thermal printing.......

Yes, always make a copy of POS receipts as they will go blank over time.

** So there is no confusion POS=Point of Sale **

For one thing you can't rely on them to remove the mac address of your personal modem off your account and they blame it on people lying but in order to get that piece of equipment working you must have a clean mac address and Comcast should know all of theirs but guess not and the only reason you should need a receipt is if you need to return it or some reason to where you bout it not to prove to Comcast that they don't own it that is just nutty. I keep all my receipts on everything i buy including the box it came in and that is where the receipt is and yes I have a mountain of junk boxes but you never know when you will need it and if you choose to pass it on for whatever reason having the receipt and original box never hurts on the resale.

Thank you everyone for your responses! It seems this is a big problem. Fodder for class action, except the subscriber agreements don't allow class actions....

The agreements allow class actions. You just have to ask yourself if you really want to give a lawyer all that money to only turn around and have to pay it yourself. Plenty of class actions have been successfull at getting a lawyer about 20 million and the subscriber 2 bucks. But even after that the csrs are still going to make mistakes.