Senate Report Says Charter, Time Warner Cable Overcharges Its Customers (broadcastingcable.com) 101
According to an investigation by a U.S. Senate, Charter and its new subsidiary Time Warner Cable have been overcharging customers at least $7.2 million per year for equipment and service. Time Warner Cable over-billed customers nationwide an estimated $639,948 between January and April period this year. This projects the sum to a yearly total of $1,919,844. Charter admitted that it overbilled its customers by "at least $442,691 per month." A report on BroadcastingCable states:The study found that "Time Warner Cable estimates that, in 2015, it overbilled 40,193 Ohio customers a total of $430,393 and 4,232 Missouri customers a total of $44,152," while "Charter estimates that it has annually overcharged approximately 5,897 Missouri customers a total of $494,000 each year. Charter does not provide service in Ohio." The report also said that Charter and Time Warner Cable have taken steps to correct the situation as a result of the investigation.
They overcharge by 100% (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They overcharge by 100% (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations are not people, therefore crime is not criminal, and nobody goes to jail. They can steal with impunity, and when they pay their fines, that's just the kickback to the folks who grant them their monopoly. Lobbyists bought and paid for this contractual arrangement while we were voting for shills.
Welcome to the pig fest.
Re:They overcharge by 100% (Score:5, Informative)
There's one easy solution. Competition.
Unfortunately, the cable companies own more than enough politicians to prevent that from happening.
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There's one easy solution. Competition.
Unfortunately, the cable companies own more than enough politicians to prevent that from happening.
You use that C-word like you've never heard of muni-wifi. You do acknowledge the seemingly-utter fruitlessness of trying to compete against companies in established industries. Yeah, it's a shame that communities are hamstrung by their state's congress critters when they try a DIY approach.
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They're people when it's campaign finance reform and not people when it's their day in court, just like they love privatizing their profits and socializing their costs. Welcome to American-style capitalism.
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Funny, because the Left idolizes the USSR, and would love to go to that system of government.
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Corporations are not people, therefore crime is not criminal
Lie, Cheat, Steal... Corporations are sociopaths defined by their very mission --profit!
After SCOTUS declared corporations have free speech (Citizens United) regarding political spending, they're getting closer-and-closer to the legal definition of a 'person'.
+ First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) cleared the way for massive increases in corporate corruption of politics. Spending money to influence politics is now a corporate “right.” Justice Rehnquist’s dissent here is a recom
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If Comcast ran at zero profit and reduced the cost of all their services proportionally, the $80/mo internet service would be $72/month.
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You mean 40 down and 5 up?
I have CenturyLink too and I just had to accept a 12-month contract to get similar pricing.
This is after my last promotional deal expired and I was suddenly paying nearly $80 a month
I somehow don't believe they're not making money at $30 a month, so imagine the profit at nearly $80 a month.
If you're willing to complain and threaten to quit Comcast, they'll give you a deal too, but it will expire and soon you'll be way overpaying again.
It is a lack of competition and even though CL'
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If Comcast ran at zero profit and reduced the cost of all their services proportionally, the $80/mo internet service would be $72/month.
If they are competent, they are using Hollywood accounting to control their indicated profits.
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Hollywood accounting is only useful when you're giving a share of the net profits to an investor, because your budgeted object (e.g. movie) shows no profit. Your vertical-monopoly suppliers (other corporations you own) still reflect a profit, which the government taxes; your partners get a reflected low profit, and don't get a share from your supply firms.
Comcast has multiple divisions, but doesn't generally operate as separate firms (they have *many* subsidiaries). Both Comcast Cable and NBC Universal
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The gross profit analysis ignores the cost of cable infrastructure.
I call shenanigans!
Not a convincing argument when the telcoms graciously took $200 billion of taxpayer money to build the infrastructure via the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pu... [pbs.org]
We're now called the 'broadband backwater' of the world when compared to S Korea, Japan, etc. who had less time to build faster and cheaper access to the internet.
Also, not convincing when these clowns were recently found by the U.S. Senate of overcharging their customers for years amounting to million
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I'm not sure $200 billion is a lot of money in context; it could be.
America has 113,000 miles of fiber optic cable, with costs ranging from $30,000 to $80,000 to install, while a 6-fiber cable itself only costs $2,000 per mile. That's $0.226 billion for the cable and $3.39 to $9.04 billion to lay it. That's been incrementally installed over time. Caveat: that's 2016; in 1996, the unadjusted prices were much higher, because making a fiber optic cable involves engineering a composite material (flexible
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If you're lumping Bernie into the same group as Obama and Hillary (the 'usual suspects'), you don't understand his argument.
It's to bad it's not like there is an other choice (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Re:It's to bad it's not like there is an other cho (Score:4, Informative)
But to get that good internet in most places you need to buy it from the cable co.
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But to get that good internet in most places you need to buy it from the cable co.
There is that, too...
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And some cable companies have used this monopoly on Internet service to bolster their TV service which otherwise faces competition (both from satellite and from OTT services like Netflix). They'll set caps with overage fees to limit how much time you can stream or they'll price their TV+Internet bundles below Internet-Alone to push you to subscribing for cable TV. In the latter case, even if you put the cable box in the closet and never hook it up, they get to count you as a TV viewer instead of as a cord
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With good Internet there are lots of other choices. Not all are legal... But most are easier.
Haven't seen ONE yet that approaches 1/10 of the ease of "pickup remote, Go to channel-guide, pick a channel, watch or record", sorry.
We're SORT of getting there; but it's still WAAAAY too "techy" for average people. You and I can easily deal with it, but a LOT of "ordinary folks" (like the 99.99999999999% of the population who don't read Slashdot), um, just can't.
That's not their fault, it's ours; for being to stuck-up and/or lazy and/or stupid to come up with a solution that works more like a "TV" and
Re:It's to bad it's not like there is an other cho (Score:4, Insightful)
Hulu, Netflix, etc are too difficult for normal people to use? Since when? It's a rare person who has trouble using a web browser these days.
Now, if you want to watch shows on your big screen TV there's lots of cool techy options that are... almost completely gratuitous. Plug an old computer into the back of the TV, fire up the web browser, and watch away. Old laptops with plenty of power can be smaller, cheaper, and quieter than some cable boxes, to say nothing of things like the Raspberry Pi. And a small wireless keyboard and mouse make for a perfectly adequate remote... though I'd love to see a mouse designed specifically for the job, with at least extra buttons for volume, mute, pause, and on-screen keyboard activation. Not terribly difficult for a tech to set up, but there's no reason you couldn't make one that acted appropriately right out of the box.
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You don't even need a laptop. Get a Roku box and in minutes you can be watching Netflix, Hulu, etc. It's simple to do for people with little to no techy skills and is very inexpensive. (The priciest Roku is $100, IIRC.)
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You don't even need a laptop. Get a Roku box and in minutes you can be watching Netflix, Hulu, etc. It's simple to do for people with little to no techy skills and is very inexpensive. (The priciest Roku is $100, IIRC.)
Same thing with a 4th gen AppleTV; but even easier, due to the Siri Voice Search.
As I said, that is getting better; but it still puts off a LOT of people over 30 or 40 years old.
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Hulu, Netflix, etc are too difficult for normal people to use? Since when? It's a rare person who has trouble using a web browser these days.
I would agree if you restrict your audience to people
"Fuck 'em" you say? Well, unfortunately, at least for the next 10 or 20 years, those people are still a demographic that needs to be addressed, and "we" (techies) just haven't done that in a way that "just works" for the majority of people who can't spell, and/or can't type, or are just not happy with "computer-y things".
Yes, I am sure there was a time when there was a significant number of people who couldn't deal with the whole idea of a TV in gener
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I think you just have a shitty device. I've used all of the Rokus and I now have an Nvidia Shield. Voice search will find it across providers, many of which I subscribe to (Netflix, Hulu, Sling, Amazon) and I'm there in one click. Just because you have a shitty setup doesn't mean it's difficult -- it just means you have a shitty setup. I gave my parents my old Roku (they're pushing 70 years-old) and they have no problem.
You could be right. I need to do some research. Stuff changes...
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You've just described *exactly* why I think "smart TVs" and related dongles are gratuitous - we already have better solutions available that most people already know how to use. In the effort to "dumb down" internet streaming they remove much of the convenience that makes it so much nicer in the first place.
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I would agree if you restrict your audience to people
WTF?
LOL I knew someone would notice that!
Something ate the end of that sentence (probably an unclosed tag).
IIRC, I think I was saying "...if you restrict your audience to people who are at least somewhat computer literate."
And they were bashing on TWC for sure. (Score:2)
https://www.dslreports.com/for... [dslreports.com] for a screen shot/capture and discussion. ;)
Of Course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of Course (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mitch McDeere: There's two hundred fifty acts of documented mail fraud there. That's racketeering!
You forgot the copyright violation...oh wait... never mind.
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just ask thier customers
Boy that's no shit...
The real news here (Score:2)
A billing system that prevents fraud? I'm pretty damn impressed.
Re:The real news here (Score:4, Insightful)
There should be a 10x penalty for billing errors, or some other type of real teeth.
Inevitably this stuff leads to a fine that costs less than the infraction profited, and maybe a class action lawsuit that might resolve after several years with tiny vouchers for the class members.
Short of campaign finance reform to cut out the root of the problem (lawmakers beholden to companies instead of the electorate) I don't see this or many other problems ever coming close to resolving.
Monopolies in utilities like internet access should be regulated as monopolistic utilities.
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The first time it happens, the company should have to pay it back with interest. If it was a mistake, that's fair, and it makes sure they don't benefit from it by sitting on the money even temporarily. The second time, they should have to pay double. The third time, triple. And so on. After some period of time without any significant "billing errors" in their favor, the meter gets reset back to "damages plus interest". (Say, two years for these jerks.) This would protect both legitimate business who do occa
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I agree that this would be a just way of dealing with the problem. Especially in a regulatory environment that cable should be in. However, I feel the need to illustrate the sort of language you would encounter if this was proposed in legislation.
"Why do you hate American business so much? What have they done to deserve your ire? Why, without these businesses and their job creation you wouldn't even have the option for the sorts of entertainment options available to you. And now you want to punish them when
quid pro ho (Score:3)
I'd like to see how much the senators on this committee received in donations from Comcast and AT&T. And not just to their own campaigns, but to super pacs too.
Re:quid pro ho (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbyist: "Here is your cut, sir."
Senator: "Oh, thank you very much."
Re:quid pro ho (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously. I'm a Charter customer, and while they're not perfect, I'm much happier with them than I ever was with Comcast.
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We had 3 choices here, an area with a relatively large population. Choice A sucked badly so we tried B. But B sucked badly also so we were just about to try C, when C merged with B, and now we only have A and B, and they both suck.
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I wonder if Charter will be better for TWC customers. :(
It's so easy to justify stealing money... (Score:2)
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The money spent by consumers to roll into the profits which then get paid out to create those 7,000 jobs is not spent elsewhere. Consumers have limited money, and not limited desires: if you give someone twice as much salary, he's going to buy stuff with it. That means those 7,000 jobs represent their combined salary elsewhere (7,000 jobs at 3 times minimum wage could instead be 21,000 minimum-wage jobs or 3,000 Silicon Valley tech jobs).
Indirectly, the build-out could reduce cost of services elsewher
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Which charter region? I want to learn more about this offering, in case I can use it now.
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....... It's always the same excuse... "A computer error"
Because they meant what they said. Had you not noticed the overcharge, nor called, then the computer was working correctly. Its a game of customer against algorithm, and you won that point. But this game is like pong and really gets tedious for people. So that's why they do it. And we hate them even more.
That's quality and commitment we can count on!
Re:Not the only ones... (Score:4, Interesting)
It helps explain why companies want to go paperless, doesn't it? No US Postage Stamp means they haven't committed mail fraud.
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"If I steal your grandmother's heirloom jewelry and nobody notices, it's not theft."
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If you agree to let me charge your card $20, and I intentionally charge your card more than $20, it is fraud. It's simple consumer law.
Film at 11 (Score:2)
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I wouldn't know, due to our lousy ISP the images of the sky look orange, the sun is stuck behind an upload spinner, and water looks metallic.
(Maybe I should try that outdoor walking thing muggles talk about.)
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Protecting their monopoly is aiding and abetting (Score:1)
So, are we going to do anything about it? Opportunity awaits in only a few short months... Jus sayin'
shocking (Score:2)
Speed comparison (Score:2)
Midwest -- TWC -- 20down/2up -- $65/mo
What you call overcharging (Score:2)
They call profit.
Really, if I buy candy in bulk and sell it to my coworkers for twice the unit price am I overcharging?