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Businesses Communications

Spectrum Threatens Former Customers In Renewal Shakedown (latimes.com) 197

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Spectrum has been sending former customers strange letters threatening to report them to the credit agencies unless they renew services, in attempt to win back their business. The letters say that "as a one-time courtesy," the company will cancel debt it claims they owe and stop reporting them to credit agencies -- if they agree to resume cable service. The threat continues by stating that "You have worked hard to build a great future for yourself and your family" "We look forward to welcoming you back."
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Spectrum Threatens Former Customers In Renewal Shakedown More

Spectrum Threatens Former Customers In Renewal Shakedown

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  • What genius thought this up? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @11:34AM (#61884017) Homepage Journal

    This sound like criminal extortion to me. I'd love to see the DA get involved with this.

    • Re:What genius thought this up? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @11:38AM (#61884039)

      Indeed. How thoughtful of them to have provided written evidence.

    • Could this be a misdirected letter? Otherwise mail a copy to the relevant agencies and let them deal with it. That's why you all pay taxes in the first place.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      This is common practice. I had had subscriptions that should have expired result in negative credit reports because I did not update by credit card. People want their money. Negative credit reports are a risk free way to get it. The consumer has the right to challenge the report, and vendors just say they made a mistake.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        had subscriptions that should have expired result in negative credit reports because I did not update by credit card. People want their money. Negative credit reports are a risk free way to get it ...

        This depends on the terms of the subscription agreement. If you had agreed to renewal and they continued to deliver a service after the card expired, then the buyer has a legitimate debt for that time period that service was provided but no payment was made for.

        On the other hand.. if they cancelled/stopped

        • Let's be honest. How much of Symantec's residential sales are annual renewals for Norton Antivirus on computers that were recycled years ago?

          Continuing to deliver a service should not mean an abandoned online account with a service that could be used if you knew about it but is actually not being utilized.

          As shady as some businesses are getting about renewals, I think that consumers need more than just the 60-day chargeback window - they need to be able to go directly to the company and demand years of ref

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            This is why I still pay my bills by check, seeing that bill on the counter means that I'll actually look at the charges. If I just do it online I know I'm far to lazy to actually review it every month.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mysidia ( 191772 )

            I think that consumers need more than just the 60-day chargeback window -

            The typical window provided by payment processors is 120 days. This does not mean you could not demand a refund after a longer period of time, however: It's only that the payment processor does not help you after that time, and you might be limited to pursue recourse directly against the service provider.

            Continuing to deliver a service should not mean an abandoned online account ...

            Oh, for sure agreed. It SHOULD be that way. I

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by fermion ( 181285 )
          Trump had to return a large sum of donations because the auto renewal box was pre checked. Credit card companies were happy to do charge backs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gmack ( 197796 )

        The last time I dealt with a cable company (Videotron), they told me they sent me a notice of renewal and since I didn't cancel, I was on the hook for the entire next year of service. They sent me to collections even though I told them I had gotten no such notice. In the end I had to pay out my contract at full price just to be rid of them since they had shut down my service but still sent me to an agency to get the other 10 months of payments. Paying out was less expensive than damaging my credit rating.

    • Back in the late 1990s I had a subscription to Wired magazine and let it expire. They sent me to collections for not renewing. How the fuck does that work? I paid for a year of magazines and you delivered. Our contract has ended I owe you nothing. Told the collections company about not renewing and never heard about it again. Fuck those assholes and their $15.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )
        Depends on the agreement. My agreement with Comcast explicitly states that services will continue after the contract period. That being said, shit like you describe SHOULD be criminal. I've experienced similar, don't recall the magazine, but same idea. You pay them 15$ in January for the whole year, then Jan 1 the next year they charge your card for 60$ for the next year's subscription. If I recall correctly, it wasn't the magazine itself, it was one of the school fundraiser companies. Assholes.

  • can it? It seems this is gonna blow up in their faces big time...

    • Collection letters from debt agencies sound tougher than that including the whole "law firm of...".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      What would be illegal is if they called or wrote to a customer threatening to report a false debt they either know to be false or have not taken appropriate care to verify, and it's unlikely they would -- FCB violations and all.. the customers would be able to sue for some serious $$ if they actually did that.

      There's nothing wrong with what they have done by making a generic promotion to offer former customers an opportunity where the company will forgive any outstanding debts and remove derogatory items

      • There are credit protection laws. People would do themselves a big service by becoming familiar with them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        You mean other than the Mafia-esque Nice credit rating you have there. It's be a real shame if anything happened to it.

        Particularly when sent to someone who doesn't owe them any debt.

  • Spectrum always pushes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @11:43AM (#61884057)

    If you cancel a business with them, they send you bills after the cancellation. If you call and yell at them, they tell you it was an "honest" mistake and reverse the charge.
    They will turn your information over to a collection agency ~30 days after cancellation. Way too early. Then you get threatening letters from the collection agency.
    They demand the return of your equipment, even though they have no use for it. They do not give it to a new customer, they burn it (store employee at Spectrum used the word "burn").
    After you cancel your account with them, they tell you to return your equipment. Then when you try to return your equipment at a spectrum store, they tell you they can't accept the equipment because the account has been canceled. They give you an address to mail it back.
    These people are evil.

    • That's why you do everything in a CYA manner. That pretty much applies to any large organization from businesses to government (oh boy can they make your life a living hell).

    • Re:Spectrum always pushes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @11:59AM (#61884125)

      These people are evil.

      My local Comcast customer service center had a little old lady walk in with a baseball bat and smash up the store. It takes a special level of evil to drive Grandma to commit violence.

      • Re:Spectrum always pushes (Score:4, Funny)

        by taustin ( 171655 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @12:50PM (#61884325) Homepage Journal

        Clearly, you have limited experience with grandmas.

      • I always hope I'll be lucky enough to be in a store when that sort of thing happens. So far, I haven't. As long as I'm not the target in any way, I'd love to see someone just come in and trash the place. Or maybe they're there to return their equipment, which they set on the ground and then go all Office Space on in the middle of the store.

        • I also wish I could have seen it.

          And I didn't make this up! Here's the story [washingtonpost.com]. (Claw hammer, not a baseball bat.)

          "Her take on Comcast: What a bunch of sub-moronic imbeciles."

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jmccue ( 834797 )

            Nice article

            Bacha noted that Comcast has more than 25 million customers, the overwhelming majority of which are very satistified with their service.

            From the article, who believes that quote ? No one I know is happy with COMCAST (Xfinity). They even changed their name due to their low ranking.

            So Bacha let me fixed that for you, 0.00001% of your customers thinks your service ranks sightly above "OK". And I think everyone here agrees with me

            • Meh. I know at least one person who is a happy customer. They get good internet speeds. Rarely have outages. Auto-pay their bills. Have never tried to cancel or change to a less expensive plan. So, I can believe there are plenty of happy customers under those circumstances.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by njen ( 859685 )
            That was a thoroughly entertaining read, thanks! Also, on an unrelated note, a great reminder that AI is very far away from replacing journalists like this. I doubt that an AI would have included the following line:
            "Until there! On the horizon! It's Hammer Woman, avenger of oppressed cable subscribers everywhere! (Cue galloping "Lone Ranger" theme.)"
    • Are you sure they are not called Spectre [wikipedia.org]?

    • Re:Spectrum always pushes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by taustin ( 171655 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @12:50PM (#61884321) Homepage Journal

      Cancel in person in their office. Get a receipt for the equipment.

      I had an ISP try that game with me years ago. The (out of state) collection agency I told I had no intention of paying them, then ignored. They went away after I pointed out to them that they couldn't even sue me for the outdated DSL $800 they claimed the modem was worth (plus about as much in "fees and penalties" without me being able to countersue them for $30,000 in Fair Debt Collections Practices Act violations (which I detailed for them), and that if they kept bothering me, it would soon be worth hiring an attorney in their state to sue them. When the local law firm specializing in collections sent me a letter, I explained what had happened (and they the ISP had confirmed that they had a record of me returning the modem), and that if I had to dig the receipt out of the box it was in in the garage (it had been well over a year at that point), I'd expect a $1,500 document retrieval fee that they would agree to by asking to see the receipt. (Which I couldn't have made stick, but it let them know I was tired of the BS.

      Never heard from them or the ISP again. Never saw a ding on the credit report, either.

    • Of course they reuse viable returned equipment. This is the dumbest thing Iâ(TM)ve read on here in a long time. If itâ(TM)s so old they want to no longer deploy something they wonâ(TM)t use it.
      • Sure. But they leave obsolete equipment in the field long after they stop issuing it. As long as it supports the service you are paying for, and still works, they leave it in place. But often, by the time you are canceling, they have moved on to newer equipment, and may not even offer the service you are paying for. This happened to me back in the day. When I moved the phone company said to "recycle" the modem/router because they didn't offer service that slow anymore. On the other hand, the cable company d

    • they tell you it was an "honest" mistake and reverse the charge.

      I've heard this multiple times from multiple telecom companies for multiple reasons, such as "phone insurance" I didn't ask for. Isn't that what Wells Fargo did? Keeping making tons of "mistakes"?

      One co that rhymes Ate Tea and Pee was the worse offender, requiring many phone calls to fix the bill. They don't even allow email discussions, forcing you to wait in phone queues as a disincentive.

      I realize regulation makes services more expensive, bu

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        The problem with "stronger referees" is called "regulatory capture". Those who regulate a company should be forever after forbidden from working for the companies that they regulated or receiving any other emolument from them.

  • Sounds like somebody forgot a where clause on the query.

    This might be useful for someone with a suspended account. But it's a big F-U to everybody else.

    Oops.

  • Actually, according to the article they said they would stop reporting you to credit agencies if you signed up. However, getting a credit report of the person who got the letter showed that they were not actually reporting him. So they appear to be lying to extract money from someone. Isn't this just fraud?

  • There's a small independent company running fiber in my city right now. I'm in an enclave in the center of Los Angeles where my choices currently are Spectrum (200/30Mb), or 25/5Mb from AT&T.

    I am going to be so glad to switch away from Spectrum as soon as the fiber is lit. Insane that in a dense area in the center of the second largest city in America it has taken so long to make fiber available. I suspect once this small provider is in, AT&T will rush to get finally start rolling out fiber.

    • The reason you don't have fiber even though it is the second largest city in America is because it is also on the biggest fault system in America. Fibre doesn't play well with excessive vibrations and abrupt movement. While the newer short distance stuff is plastic, the long range cables are still glass. Laying hundreds of miles of cables in an area that has on average of 5 or so 3.0 - 4.0 earthquakes a year is just begging for having 5 or so times a year where they have to deal with multiple fiber breakage

      • Funnily enough, there's decades of history in providing both underground and overground infrastructure of all types, including fiber optics, all over the LA region. The local universities are core nodes on Internet 2 and have fiber rings installed. Massive data centers are located near internet backbones all over the city. There's even a 60 story data center in downtown. Earthquakes aren't new problem and it's easily solved with standardized solutions and installation practices. Verizon FiOS (sold to Fronti

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          The lack of rollout is purely from lack of competition.

          You misspelled the word "profit". Even in large cities, ISPs build out fiber into neighborhoods largely based on how much money the average person in the neighborhood makes. That's why I, living in a mobile home park in the heart of Silicon Valley, have only one usable ISP (Comcast) even though there is fiber only a block away from the entrance to the neighborhood.

          If there were enough money to be made, the phone companies would roll out fiber. Instead, they bleed their ever-diminishing number of landline

  • This is taking those bullsh*t "Final Notice" sales pitches to a new level of obnoxiousness. While we're banning all kinds of other speech, why not ban this tactic too?

  • The fact that they did not evidently previously warn him about this unpaid debt puts them on very shaky ground, if you ask me. Unless they can say exactly when the debt was accrued and how much the debt originally was at the time, they won't have even one leg to stand on.

    But let's assume for the moment that they can provide that info...

    A company certainly has an obligation to try to contact a person to notify them of charges owed before they report them to for it being unpaid debt. How can you accuse

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sebby ( 238625 )

      The fact that they did not evidently previously warn him about this unpaid debt puts them on very shaky ground, if you ask me. Unless they can say exactly when the debt was accrued and how much the debt originally was at the time, they won't have even one leg to stand on.

      Gets even shakier:

      Schklair said he made two calls to Spectrum to see what was happening. Both service reps, he said, found no outstanding obligations.

  • Does anything reek more of desperation than this sort of thinly veiled threat? Best guess is their customer base has collapsed recently, the company is on the verge of becoming insolvent, and they hired some consultant who thought the Prenda model would be a good way to win people back.

  • This isn't the first time I've seen a tactic like this. I canceled a newspaper years ago, and got the same crap. A few years after I canceled they started delivering a "trial subscription" I didn't ask for. Then they sent me a bill for the newspapers they delivered without my consent. We started getting harassed by collections, and my wife threatened to report them to the State Attorney General. Haven't heard anything since.

  • Glad I went with C64

  • The FTC was made to kick companies in the ass for pulling this shit. Where is the FTC and why aren't they acting?

  • As a formal Charter employee, the whole organization is full of unethical scoundrels. I've seen so many cover ups working in the network security operations organization it will blow your mind.

  • Less credit = less spam.

  • If they are threatening to report you to credit agencies, when you don't actually owe them anything, report the threat to all the major credit agencies in advance.

    If they make good on their threat, such reports would be a bad mark on the reporting company's history, for filing false reports.

  • It's clear that they're giving customers a chance not to be hounded for the debt that they legally owe Spectrum. Spectrum has no requirement to do this. And it may actually repair these people's credit histories.

    It's really annoying when people demonize companies for trying to find a productive solution to problems. Makes it much harder when there is a serious problem we a really need to be addressed, but it's buried under people crying about a company wanting to be actually paid for the services it rendere

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      RTFA. The customer called Spectrum to see what the outstanding debt was, and Spectrum reps told him that he had no outstanding obligations.

      Blackmail, pure and simple.

  • We think some a$$hole is signing your company name to some poor shakedown letters. Signed, Thomas Dewey Dewey, Cheatam, and Howe

  • Time for people at Spectrum to go to PMITA prison, and for the company to be seized by the federal government and sold off by them.

    They really fucked up big time, and I don't want to see the usual slap on the wrist and 5 cents off coupons.

      If any government official is reading this, this is your chance to make yourself look real good in the public's eye and cement a nice long political career and retirement.

  • ... with less than a paragraph of content before the shakedown.

  • How is this not blackmail?

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