cbrain
join:2000-05-21
Silver Spring, MD
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|  Comcast 3rd attempt @ $3/mo for owned modems!
Last month Comcast started billing me $3/month for a modem I own, along with other mis-charges. Their second attempt at this $3 in 18 months! When I called to get things fixed, the rep agreed to delete the charge. Minutes later my internet went dead. Called support and was told I had no internet service. When I got back to the billing rep, she discovered that she had “fixed” my billing problem by deleting my account. She then efficiently restored my service.
I took a look at my mothers Comcast bill and discovered she was being billed $3/month for the modem she owns. The rep acknowledged the problem, credited the current $3 and said she would research how many months credit we were owed. Still waiting!
Hello ... this is Comcast. How may I provide you with world class service? |
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newview
Ex .. Ex .. Exactly
Premium
join:2001-10-01
Parsonsburg, MD
| Have you recently called Comcast tech support? A $3.00 modem rental charge appeared on my bill after I called Comcast on a matter related to connectivity. The rep I talked to at the time kept telling me she was making "adjustments" to my account. She would NOT elaborate, but I'm convinced by the coincidence that she "adjusted" my account to start charging the modem rental fee. It took me two billing cycles and trip to the local Comcast office to get it rectified.
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adinn
join:2005-03-05
Elk Grove, CA | reply to cbrain
A friend of mine had the same problem and he kept calling and got very angry; and you know what they did? They gave him 4 months HSI service for $19.95 and apologized! Don't give up. |
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djdanska
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Glen Ellyn, IL
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| reply to cbrain
said by cbrain  :Last month Comcast started billing me $3/month for a modem I own, along with other mis-charges. Their second attempt at this $3 in 18 months! When I called to get things fixed, the rep agreed to delete the charge. Minutes later my internet went dead. Called support and was told I had no internet service. When I got back to the billing rep, she discovered that she had “fixed” my billing problem by deleting my account. She then efficiently restored my service. I took a look at my mothers Comcast bill and discovered she was being billed $3/month for the modem she owns. The rep acknowledged the problem, credited the current $3 and said she would research how many months credit we were owed. Still waiting! Hello ... this is Comcast. How may I provide you with world class service? You can't get them to take off the $3.00 charge, and i can't get them to put it back on! Back in june, i upgraded to the home networking w/o the router combo and the rep forgot to put in the system i rented the modem. I haven't gotten it fixed yet. they keep telling me they did it already and every bill i get doesn't have it on it. The only thing i was worried about is if my modem goes bad, they may accuse me of owning it. Hopefully that won't happen. If it does, i can at least tell them you can't buy the 5120 in the stores.
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masterwolfe2
Resident Redneck
join:2001-03-07
Hiawassee, GA | reply to cbrain
They have done that to me, too, but fixed it promptly.
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meb
join:2002-12-12
Potomac, MD |  reply to cbrain
Comcast has been wrongfully billing me this $3 for at least 3 months. This is the 4th billing error I have found. I got credit for 2 others but it wasn't worth the time and effort.
Thanks for the heads up! |
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JTRockville
Data Ho
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-28
Rockville, MD
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1 edit | ChrisP3 (from Gaithersburg) also noted this problem in a review of Comcast.
said by ChrisP3 's Comcast review:
I called the customer service and was told that from now on they will charge the modem rental to every customers that have the Internet cable with them.
If you don't want to spend the time and effort to get this corrected meb , I'd suggest you file a billing complaint with the Montgomery County cable office:
»montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/cabl···ents.asp
You do need to make an attempt at getting Comcast to correct the mistake before you file a complaint, but don't bother spending loads of time and effort - the county will take it from there.
Do you still have your receipt for the modem? If not, you might want to to contact the manufacturer of your modem with the model/serial number, and ask for confirmation that it was sold as retail. That way, if Comcast can't/won't resolve the mistake and your case gets forwarded to our cable compliance commission, you'll at least have something to support your assertion that the modem doesn't belong to Comcast.
Of course, you could always take a trip to the Comcast office, but who has the time for that? |
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meb
join:2002-12-12
Potomac, MD | Thanks JT. That should help. |
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djwan2see
join:2000-12-01
Acworth, GA | reply to cbrain
They have tried this with me a few times and I have to waste my time calling them to have it removed.
It could be worse and they could have de-provisioned you out of no where. |
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Morty
Premium
join:2004-09-18 | Don't waste your phone time talking with them on this, I would just go in to the local office and get it corrected. It's hard to remove a charge from someones account with no proof whether they own the modem or not. |
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gccjr
join:2004-11-04
Poolesville, MD
| I ran into the same problem last month. I was part of a VIP promo about 2 years ago that stated if you kept the program for a year, you owned the modem. Last month when they split out equipment costs (a way to significantly increase prices without the promo price increasing), Comcast started charging me the $3 modem rental. A phone call got a promise to check into the promo with no call back. However, I emailed them and got a polite response back saying they would credit me for the modem charge and remove it from future bills. My bill came yesterday and surprisingly everything worked out well! My suggestion is to forget calling (where they can claim no record) and contact them by email where you can at least print out a record of the contact. |
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cbrain
join:2000-05-21
Silver Spring, MD
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| reply to Morty
said by Morty :Don't waste your phone time talking with them on this, I would just go in to the local office and get it corrected. It's hard to remove a charge from someones account with no proof whether they own the modem or not. So you believe in guilty until proven innocent? What about Comcast having proof before beginning to bill for modems they have no proof of ownership for? If I can prove ownership should Comcast pay for my time and travel expense? This was the second time Comcast started billing me for this same modem and third counting my mom. They never argued or questioned ownership when caught. When Comcast scans the tag from a digital box they know the machine and account without asking a thing. Are they really so inept only as to modems? |
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jtrobs
| reply to cbrain
Comcast charged us for the modem we owned from the time we had HSI installed until we returned the modem. They would not accept a receipt from the place we bought the modem as proof of ownership. They said that in order to remove the charge, we had to return the modem. Our modem got fried, so we bought a new one at Circuit City. We returned the fried modem and got interrogated in their office as to why we waited so long to return THEIR modem. They had notes in their system that we had called in five times in 18 months to dispute the charge. Still, they insist the modem was theirs even with a receipt that shows otherwise. Our receipt even had the serial number on it!
Now, Comcast is charging for Digital Cable with the converter and remote that we returned to them three months ago with the modem. We have a receipt for the return of the equipment and they are now telling us the same thing as with the modem -- that we have to return the converter. What a bunch of a**holes.
We have no choice but to use Comcast for internet and TV -- that's the only reason why we haven't switched to another company.
And, we have taken both of these issues to our state Board of Public Utilities.
How many people are out there who just pay their bills without reading them? My guess is quite a few. That's why Comcast readily abuses and defrauds their customers like this OVER and OVER. |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| reply to cbrain
said by cbrain :So you believe in guilty until proven innocent? What about Comcast having proof before beginning to bill for modems they have no proof of ownership for? If I can prove ownership should Comcast pay for my time and travel expense? Guilty until proven innocent doesn't really apply to private enterprise - customer relations. Look heres the deal, phone monkeys take calls all day long from people who say they don't owe such and such because they don't understand a charge or they didn't read their contract or they just want to get one over on the company. It sucks but you can thank fellow customers for the suspicious reaction.
It doesn't help you now but it appears that comcast is attempting to stop these types of things from happening by standardizing tools and procedures. When you have a million different people doing a million different things in a million different ways (some approved, some in ways that work but aren't approved and can have unintended and unforeseen consequences) can cause bad things to happen when audits are done or someone tries to fix issues down the road (such as fixing odd entries in the databases in anticipation of/after rolling out a new provisioning system; ohh look at that, bedrock).
As I see it you have 2 choices:
visit a local office in person to try to get the issue worked out
or
wait it out and hope they notice the error and backcredit you.
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ChasMays
Senior Member
join:2002-11-24
Washington, DC
| reply to JTRockville
Wow, and I only thought this was happening to me! This started for me back in 2001 when I moved into a new house a mile away form my old one. It took 5 months, faxes, letters, and countless hours on hold. But it did get "resolved"..(I was so exhausted that I didn't even want the credit - just for them to stop the incorrect billing).
Well, I looked at my bill last month and there is it again! I actually had my complete file from three years ago along with the modem receipt from Circuit City (albeit very hard to read). I managed to get someone on the phone and faxed the receipt and they said it would be taken care of.
Of course I have no confidence whatsoever that they will, "take care" of it.
If they improperlyl charge only 10% or their customers $3.00/month = a lot of $$ think about it. |
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JTRockville
Data Ho
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join:2002-01-28
Rockville, MD
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1 edit | said by ChasMays :(I was so exhausted that I didn't even want the credit - just for them to stop the incorrect billing). Unless you're willing to pay the "unreturned modem fee" when you eventually cancel, it's important to get the billing corrected. Sorry to hear it took so much effort last time. |
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JTRockville
Data Ho
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join:2002-01-28
Rockville, MD
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| reply to Combat Chuck
said by Combat Chuck :As I see it you have 2 choices: visit a local office in person to try to get the issue worked out or wait it out and hope they notice the error and backcredit you. You are correct in excluding "just cancel" as an option in this situation.
However, gccjr 's suggestion of resolving the issue by email could also be a choice.
Particularly for people in Montgomery County Maryland, using the local franchise authority's complaint process is another choice. Other area franchise authorities may also have such a process, but I bet it doesn't have the teeth that our process has! |
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cbrain
join:2000-05-21
Silver Spring, MD
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| reply to ChasMays
said by ChasMays :Wow, and I only thought this was happening to me! This started for me back in 2001 when I moved into a new house a mile away form my old one. It took 5 months, faxes, letters, and countless hours on hold. But it did get "resolved"..(I was so exhausted that I didn't even want the credit - just for them to stop the incorrect billing). Well, I looked at my bill last month and there is it again! I actually had my complete file from three years ago along with the modem receipt from Circuit City (albeit very hard to read). I managed to get someone on the phone and faxed the receipt and they said it would be taken care of. Of course I have no confidence whatsoever that they will, "take care" of it. If they improperlyl charge only 10% or their customers $3.00/month = a lot of $$ think about it. I don't know that this situation is intentional or even how wide spread it is. Two members of my direct family currently have Comcast HSI. Comcast has only done this to 3 out of 2 of us.  |
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Morty
Premium
join:2004-09-18
| reply to cbrain
said by cbrain :said by Morty :Don't waste your phone time talking with them on this, I would just go in to the local office and get it corrected. It's hard to remove a charge from someones account with no proof whether they own the modem or not. So you believe in guilty until proven innocent? What about Comcast having proof before beginning to bill for modems they have no proof of ownership for? If I can prove ownership should Comcast pay for my time and travel expense? This was the second time Comcast started billing me for this same modem and third counting my mom. They never argued or questioned ownership when caught. When Comcast scans the tag from a digital box they know the machine and account without asking a thing. Are they really so inept only as to modems? If someone added the modem you owned to your billing account and set it to "leased" rather then owned, there is no way to tell if it is your modem or not other then by going to a office and having them run it through the inventory. It's not a matter of being guilty until proven innocent, if the system says you have a Comcast modem we're not going to take your word for it that you no longer have a Comcast modem and let you walk off with one. Think about it. Ok so I rent a modem from Comcast, I'll Just call comcast and tell them that I don't rent one, I'll have the charge removed from my account and I get a free modem out of the deal. Business is to make money no matter how customer oriented a company is. And although you would like to think someone cares about your time, no one does. Your time is no more important then that of mine or some homeless person, the reason you do the work is so that you don't get charged. |
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newview
Ex .. Ex .. Exactly
Premium
join:2001-10-01
Parsonsburg, MD
| When I bought my modem, I traveled from the point of purchase directly to the Comcast local office, unboxed the modem there and gave the local person the MAC number right from the modem. I went home, hooked it up and returned the rental modem the same day, and got a receipt. Mysteriously, a support call about a year later resulted in me once again being charged for a rental modem. I went to the local office again, and their account records were still showing that I owned my own modem. How is it that the tech support person can override that information entered by the local office where I HAVE previously proven that I own my modem? Incompetence or animosity?
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