Mediacom → [RANT] No happy about add-on charges, feel cheated

So I have been at Prime forever, and really I have been more or less satisfied with my speeds. But lately everyone seems to be upgrading, so I thought I would call to see how much a bump would cost. I gave my account information and was told that Prime to Prime+ would cost an additional $5 per month. I specifically asked if that was all, and the rep said as tax was figured on the total it might be a few cents more, but yes, that was basically going to be the cost.
Due to advice from Chad in this forum, I decided to trade in my old, basically fine router/modem combo to ensure I would receive the best speed increase. Then the office where I turned in the old one said I would also have to pay a $3.95 wireless access charge, which I never paid in the past. I wasn't happy, but okay. I still haven't seen any great increase in speed by the way. When I connect directly to the combo, the increase is evident, but over wireless (which is all we use) the increase is more like 10-15%. So now we are at $8.95 extra. Then I get my new bill. The speed bump charge is there, as is the wireless access fee, but on top of that is a $5 modem rental fee, plus the base rate had increased an additional $5. So now I am looking at an additional $18.95 per month, for something that isn't even noticeably better. Of course I have the option of going back to basic, but that will only decrease my chrage by $5. All the extra charges that I was never told about will still be there.
I have been a Mediacom customer for a long time and have never complained. But now I feel lied to and taken advantage of.

First rule of thumb with Mediacom service - unless something is actually broken or your requirements truly have changed, if you are otherwise more or less satisfied with your service, don't change a thing. Stay with what you have. Changes seem to always bring with them unexpected grief.

I am not a MC employee, nor am I defending them, but when you first talked to customer service, did you tell that rep that you were using a wireless router/modem combination or that you were considering changing them in? If not, then I would not have expected this person to have known of or thought to mention the other likely/possibly service changes that might result. And every now and then, Mediacom will run an audit on its customers and their installed equipment/services, and "correct" any missing charges in order to catch the accidental grandfathered situations. It looks like an account change in your case triggered such an audit. One positive bit - at least they didn't back-charge you for all the months when you should have been paying these other charges but weren't.

I see what you are saying, but still feel deceived. No, I didn't mention the combo to the csr. Why should I? I had no idea that Mediacom considered wireless an extra service that should be charged for. If they provided me a combination gateway that has wireless capabilities, wouldn't they expect that I would use it?
As for the other charges, the csr I spoke with saw what services I had and what I was being charged. If something was missing charge-wise, shouldn't she have informed me of that?

In a perfect world, yes. The Mediacom world is far from perfect. The CSR is operating under the default assumption that what is on the screen in front of them about your account is accurate. I really doubt the CSR is trained to do the account analysis on the spot. I understand why it seems obvious that the CSR should know better or know more, but without knowing how the data is organized on a customers account and how that data is presented on the screen to the CSR I wouldn't be able to say why the CSR can or can't know about issues like you describe.

i hate mediacom billing practices as much as the next guy, but feel i should point out that for once, this fee is actually listed on their website »mediacomcable.com/site/i ··· ork.html

and, they do send out a price sheet with your bill at least once a year. just be glad you didnt upgrade to phone service, unless they changed it they would charge you a modem rental for internet, and phone modem rental for the phone service, even though its the same modem.

as drslash pointed out, unless you NEED to make a change with mediacom. dont. i think things like this are there way of catching the "better deal" folks.

mediacom could of course put a lot of this to rest by providing prices on their website, even just the base prices with "taxes extra" in the fine print. but they will never do it. they know if they did people could price shop instead of dealing with a high pressure sales CSR who is encouraged to upsell at every possible opportunity.

you can PM MediacomChad with your info and he can look in to your speed issue, but if you really dont need the speed, and dont want to pay that extra you can all ways go back to what you had, but youd still be charged that modem rental fee unless you buy your own.

oh and those audits like to catch legitimate equipment as well, last audit caused one of my DTA's to get deauthd even though it was listed on my account. and a lot of times if you have your own modem/router combo theyl still try to sneak in that fee or disconnect the wifi side.

basically with mediacom, dont make changes and dont use anything more than a basic modem with them. use your own router and save the $$

Hello karrun ,

I would be happy to further look into this for you and make sure all of the billing is properly setup. I do show previously you were using a modem that you yourself had purchased but now are renting the Mediacom modem. I want to make sure that's the best thing for you and that the proper equipment is being listed. Could you send me a private message of the CMAC/HFCMAC from the modem you are actively using and we can get started making sure everything is correct.