By: Red Pill | 08-20-2017 | News
Photo credit: consumerist

Lawsuit Against Comcast for “ Massive Illegal Scheme “ wins Judge’s Approval

Comcast is considered one of the worst ranked companies on the planet in terms of customer service and overcharging their consumers.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Comcast Fails To Kill Lawsuit Over Sneaky Fees…For Now - <a href="https://t.co/eckq0RVFy3">https://t.co/eckq0RVFy3</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/broadband?src=hash">#broadband</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/dsl?src=hash">#dsl</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fiber?src=hash">#fiber</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cable?src=hash">#cable</a></p>&mdash; DSLReports (@DSLReports) <a href="https://twitter.com/DSLReports/status/898553586728042496">August 18, 2017</a></blockquote>

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Not only do the consistently make headlines for bad business practices but they've been caught promoting both sides of debates in order to confuse the public, such as they attempted to do over Net Neutrality in recent months.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The lawsuit against Comcast for its sports and broadcast fees will continue. <a href="https://t.co/P1CmOuq6vh">https://t.co/P1CmOuq6vh</a></p>&mdash; consumerist (@consumerist) <a href="https://twitter.com/consumerist/status/895183729748004864">August 9, 2017</a></blockquote>

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The company has a bludgeoning reputation for overcharging its customers with hidden fees and surcharges, something that for years consumers and consumer rights advocates have complained over.

Now a federal judge in California says that the lawsuit against Comcast Corporation suggesting the company engaged in a “massive illegal scheme” by not properly disclosing special fees to its TV subscribers can go forward as planned.

The fees, which the lawsuit says amount to over $1 billion in illegally obtained revenue a year for Comcast, or about 15 percent of its profits; have long since angered the consumers.

The Philadelphia based giant in television and internet says that it has properly informed consumers of the fees before applying them, which it claims help cover the cost of regional sports networks such as Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia and the cable distribution of traditionally free over the air free TV networks.

According to Comcast the fees were first introduced back in 2014 and in the Philadelphia area amount to around $12 a month.

However back in early August, Judge Vince Chhabria denied Comcast’s attempts to dismiss the 2016 lawsuit, saying that when he reviewed how Comcast subscribers ordered their cable TV service, “it was plausible that a reasonable consumer would be misled to think that the price of the service will be Comcast’s advertised price, plus taxes, government-related fees, and any onetime installation fees” without an additional broadcast TV and regional sports network fees, something hailed as a major victory for the consumers.

Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Moyer contradicts these claims saying in a public statement m that the company had “always listed the broadcast TV and regional sports fees separately on the bill and included clear disclosures about them in our advertising. It’s also worth noting that because this case is in the early stages, the court was required to accept the plaintiffs’ allegations as true, and that the complaint itself demonstrates that these fees were disclosed and were not part of promotional pricing. Also, prior to the most recent hearings, and as part of our ongoing efforts to improve the customer experience, we updated the online buying process at issue in this case.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in this case are lawyers Dan M. Hattis of Bellevue, Washington, and Jason Skaggs of Palo Alto, California. Neither could not be reached for comment.

However other companies such as Verizon Communications Incorporated, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, and Charter Communications also charge similar fees for broadcast television networks ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS or for their respective regional sports networks.

These two individual categories of content have added increased daily pressure on cable and satellite TV bills in recent years to change their mantra for business.

The fees amount to taking up a large portion of individual Comcast subscriber’s monthly bills.

For example in the Philadelphia region under Comcast’s “Double Play” package a subscriber, one who has internet and television services, or who pays $100 a month will pay an increased $7 in broadcast television fees on top of $5 for Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, boosting the final bills by 12 percent.

The new California lawsuit comes as Comcast’s fees are being called a “massive illegal scheme of falsely advertising its cable television service plans for much lower prices than it actually charges.”

During the beginning phases of the lawsuit plaintiffs were named in the states of Ohio, California, Washington, South Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, and Florida.

However it's currently been deflected back to solely California consumers, in an attempt to win a victory that may set precedent. The suit claims that Comcast had breached its contract with consumers and was using deceptive tactics with its advertising in order to profit.

Most Comcast subscribers would agree that the company itself never falters in adding additional charges, and regardless of what package or contract you may have signed you could notice an increase or decrease monthly, which effectively goes against the agreement.

Source:

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/comcast/comcast-consumer-1-billion-suit-tv-sports-fees-20170816.html

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2 Comment/s
N2N No. 6941 2017-08-20 : 19:47

N2N - We had COMA-CAST for 10+ years over several work relocation moves. In fact they were one of my IT Security clients long ago. But over the years their High Speed internet service got more and more restrictive & costly. Finally when they slapped a monthly tiered traffic limit on consumer ISP accounts with auto price increases, we dropped them and never looked back. We are now using another Major ISP w/o a monthly traffic cap for almost $20 less a month and no cable-TV. ….

But in all honesty, this is not just a COMA-CAST sneaky problem. Many cable-TV providers are bleeding on their bottom lines. The hurt is due to increasing channel provider costs, Infrastructure MTBF issues, and the availability of free, or at little cost al carte Internet Media Streaming channels like offered by ROKU, Hulu, Youtube, Netflix and others. Cable-TV is rapidly becoming like the Printed newspaper. …..

The availability of Hi-Speed Internet has circumvented the need for the Cable-TV service, with the 1000's of alternative media sources out there.

N2N No. 6942 2017-08-20 : 19:52

BTW: there is a good reason why Comcast won the Golden Poo award as the Consumerist Worst Company In America IT EARNED IT.

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