I'm probably missing some details, but what exactly makes this a scam? I completely agree that charging some fee like $7/month (how Comcast does it where I live) is absurd, but how is it a scam? One can always buy his/her own modem and not have this fee. At what point does the consumer need to be responsible for his/her own decisions?
The story seems light on details, I am guessing by your post you didn't really read it, but it seems to me like the way they added the fees break specific consumer protection laws.
If I am already in a contract, and the company alters the price on me during that contract period, how was I capable of making a decision?
The right answer is that the other side broke the contract and voided it, but if it was through a "confusing notice of the fee in a junk mail postcard they’ll throw in the garbage" then I may have missed the window to politely exit the contract.
Then again, if I went to all of the trouble waiting for a cable man to show up and install my new cable, only to have the price altered a few months later, they have not only wasted my time but also set themselves up for a potential run in with the FTC by advertising something as $XXX a year which really turns out to be $YYY a year. Price differences are often what make a consumer choose one service over another so it most certainly matters in that regards.
>confusing notice of the fee in a junk mail postcard
<post type="devils-advocate">
There's nothing "confusing" about the wording on the postcard. If you get something that's very clearly from your cable company and you chuck it in the trash, you are (and should be) responsible for the consequences of not reading it. It could be a bill, a disconnect notice, or any number of things.
That's not even getting into the fact that it's a backdoor rate raise, but cmon. There's nothing sneaky about it as far as the customer is concerned.
I think I should only be held responsible for not reading mail from the cable company if the cable company refrains from sending me junk mail advertisements for their service. I get a couple of pieces of junk mail a month from Comcast telling me how I should totally sign up with them. I never get legitimate mail from them (electronic billing), so I'm pretty well trained to ignore their stuff. I guess they don't correlate their subscriber database with their advertising database.
What if it got lost in the mail and never delivered? Is the reciever responsible for that?
It seems like if they are amending your contract, the sender should at least need proof that the reciever got the notice and has agreed (snail mail with signature required, phone call, email with link to website, etc..)
I got my notification a week before they billed me for it. Using the same method they use to advertise all their many services monthly (3-4 postcards/month). That's certainly falls in the 'sneaky' category, I think.
If it was important it should have been included in the bill - like virtually every other sane company would do.
They get these things for probably $20 wholesale, and they often sit in peoples' basements for 5+ years.
Meanwhile, rate hikes in many areas are regulated by state/local governments, so it certainly looks like a way to raise revenue without triggering government reviews.
In my experience, one can not always buy his/her own modem. I was required to rent one for a Comcast Business Class internet account, specifically informed that I could not provide my own modem.
