Massive Comcast Cable Theft Operation Busted in PA

That $150 "premium upgrade" fee was almost certainly paid in cash.

And the cable company would have to accuse the customer of stealing to have even a chance of collecting in civil court.

Once a company with deep pockets accuses someone of stealing, they'd better have the evidence to back that up.

Or face losing a defamation suit where they'll end up paying far more than the amount they were trying to collect.

Probably would cost more to litigate than the net receipts. Comcast should just bill those customers for the full price of what they were getting for the period they were getting it, plus standard late charges. Due with that month's bill. Fail to pay, current customers get terminated...and all of them get sent to collection. The hit on their credit reports would cause them far more harm.

because Cable Reps just don't offer you the services out in the public. common sense.

If these rouge sales guys looked the part and talked the talk... how are they supposed to know?

This guy could hardly be compared to someone stealing from the rich to to give to the poor - he kept his ill gained profits for himself.

So your definition of competition is STEALING?
Does that go over well in TX?

Umm, what about negotiations and licensing with the content owners to distribute the content? Charging $150/yr for all of those channels is not profitable if done legitimately. If it were, the margins at the MSOs would be significantly larger than they are now.

"What I was meaning when I said "But isn't that kind of the point of what's needed in our country? Competition..." is that if there was real competition in this country this kind of crap wouldn't be happening, rates would be lowered because there would be more companies willing to pay for content, and so the creators of content wouldn't be able to charge each company the same rates they are trying to charge current companies..."

How exactly is this like competition?

He used Comcast's service, over Comcast's cable lines, and probably with stolen Comcast equipment.

Basically no overhead. He didn't pay for the content.

That's not how competition works. Someone can't come in and use a competitor's hardware and headend and call it done.

I'm not sure what logic you are using to say this was "profitable."

I'm not meaning it from the standpoint that stealing hardware and etc is competing, I'm meaning that a new startup company, that only charges this much, and would only charge this much with hundreds of thousands of customers could be a profitable adventure.

It's pretty sickening you don't get that.

This isn’t competition, this isn’t what this country needs, this is theft pure and simple, and it’s pretty sickening you don’t get that.

You call it ‘Robin Hood’, I call it theft.

Every time I hear of a cable/sat piracy scheme being shut down, it reminds me of this. (NSFW language)

(youtube clip)

Does today's "impoverished customer" really need HBO and Cinemax?

As far as I'm concerned ... these shenanigans are not much different than the bona fide Comcast Rep offers to lower prices for existing customers for services in areas where Comcast has significant competition.

If this was offered by someone in a Comcast uniform, driving a Comcast vehicle, and presented in a manner that was convincingly reminiscent of Comcast CSRs and Retention personnel, then many people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between real & bogus.

Comcast does have a $10 a month Internet service.

You can never underestimate the stupidity of some people. There are people who don't know what a gigabyte is, and those are the same people that won't have any suspicions if a supposed Comcast door to door salesman sells you a $150 a year deal.

As far as I'm concerned ... these shenanigans are not much different than the bona fide Comcast Rep offers to lower prices for existing customers for services in areas where Comcast has significant competition.

If this was offered by someone in a Comcast uniform, driving a Comcast vehicle, and presented in a manner that was convincingly reminiscent of Comcast CSRs and Retention personnel, then many people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between real & bogus.