
Time Warner Cable Modem Fee Is "Hi-Tech Consumer Fraud," Lawsuits Allege - boh
http://gothamist.com/2012/11/13/twc_modem_fee_is_hi-tech_consumer_f.php
======
jedberg
About two years ago I signed up for UVerse. There was no modem fee. 6 months
later, there was a $2 fee. Six months again, $4. And then 6 months later it
was $6.

At that point I actually noticed the fee (I hadn't really looked before that)
and so I went in to complain. Here was basically my conversation:

Why did you raise the modem fee in January?

Because we hadn't raised it in a while?

Did you give me better service?

No.

How do you justify raising the fee on old equipment?

Because we hadn't raised it in a while.

But my equipment is getting older and less valuable

Oh, is your modem broken? Do you want a new one?

No! I just want to know how you justify raising the rates on equipment that is
unchanged on service that is unchanged. You raised your rate and provided no
additional benefit to me and your costs actually went down.

Because we hadn't raised it in a while.

That's when I left.

~~~
potatolicious
To be fair, a front line customer service agent is probably an unreliable
source of corporate strategy, or really anything in general. In fact, I'm
quite sure Comcast customer service can make Mother Theresa herself look like
an evil megalomaniac.

~~~
seiji
That's the brilliance though. The TSA, customer service, and every other wish-
they-could-be fascist organization operates by distancing enforcement from
policy decisions.

Every try debating a TSA agent about how many explosive shoes they've seen in
their careers? They just have a job to do. They aren't allowed to think --
they just follow their state diagram. "Shoes on? Yell until shoes come off.
Why? Because that's what the chart says."

~~~
krickle
Those workers are not paid enough to pay attention. I wish we could remove the
Rapiscan machines and use that money to train and pay TSA staff. Then we might
get security instead of just the theater.

------
subway
I recently signed up for services with Insight (owned by TWC), and was told
while I'm permitted to bring my own modem, they require I take delivery of
their "free" modem when service was installed. At the end of the signup
process they required I agree to a 1 year commitment on the service. When I
asked why this 1 year commitment was required, the response was "Because we're
giving you a free modem".

Brilliant.

~~~
wjamesg
Same experience with Insight here (KY, USA). Since Time Warner recently bought
out Insight, I wonder how that is affecting things like fees. I've been
experiencing some connectivity issues lately as well, like they are imposing
changes on the network (throttling?).

Related: Elsewhere (FL, USA) I was able to avoid fees by providing my own
modem for a residential account (Comcast cable internet). Apparently, though,
this is not an option for business accounts which require a modem rental
(why?)

~~~
FireBeyond
Comcast Business uses a modem with custom firmware that provides, among other
things, a Management Interface for remote management, and specific support for
multiple static IP addresses behind the modem.

------
JagMicker
I have two experiences with Time Warner Cable to share:

\- TWC refuses to offer "wideband" service with a static IP. If you want a
static IP, you must pay for TWC "Business Class" (>$99/mo.) for speeds much
slower than with Wideband.

\- Forgot to pay my bill one month. Some TWC employee stops by my office and
tapes a flyer to the door. It basically says to call him or he will be the
person who disconnects my service. I call him. He wants nothing less than my
credit card number. Says I have to 'go through him' or it'll cost me an extra
$100 and he'll disconnect me anyway. It seemed very sketch. I called the main
TWC number and told my story. They asked me to fax a copy of the flyer I found
on my door. After a couple of weeks of calls back-and-forth with one of the
'higher-up' billing people, I'm finally told that they had no idea an employee
was going door-to-door and posting those flyers. Apparently, he made the flyer
himself. I was never told any more about it, but the whole thing seemed very
strange and was the start of me loosing faith in TWC. I now think even less of
TWC because of their negative reactions to Google Fiber. I think that TWC
cares about one thing, & one thing only --- profit. I hate to say it, but they
are worse than Comcast (but not DirectTV [1])!

1\. Washington State Attorney General's Office - complaint against DirectTV:
[http://atg.wa.gov/uploadedFiles/Home/News/Press_Releases/200...](http://atg.wa.gov/uploadedFiles/Home/News/Press_Releases/2009/DIRECTVComplaint2009-12-14.pdf)

~~~
driverdan
> I think that TWC cares about one thing, & one thing only --- profit.

You do know TWC is a business right?

------
moepstar
This whole rent-the-router/modem-you-absolutely-need-to-use-our-service is
getting more and more popular.

Here in Germany one big cable-ISP (Kabel Deutschland), while not charging for
the modem itself, wants you to fork over for enabling WiFi on it.

_Enabling_ it via firmware, mind you. Every modem has the hardware capability,
however depending if you fork over the 5€ per month they'll enable or disable
it via forced firmware updates.

Sadly, it seems the days where you got a subsidized router for a certain
percentage of the retail cost with your contract, as it was for almost all
telcos a few years ago, are gone :(

~~~
TkTech
These are easy to circumvent almost without exception. I have a cable modem
that disables bridged mode unless you "ask nicely" and get a firmware update
to enabled it. The solution was simply to modify the form being submitted,
since the change in the firmware was purely adding an <option/> to the
template!

------
67726e
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?

~~~
AJ007
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.

~~~
Karunamon
>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.

~~~
crazcarl
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..)

~~~
Karunamon
>What if it got lost in the mail and never delivered? Is the reciever
responsible for that?

What happens if a bill gets lost in the mail and never delivered?

~~~
jetti
The bill isn't a legally binding contract.

~~~
Karunamon
The contract generally says something about failure to pay bills on time...

------
georgemcbay
I'm on Time Warner because where I live there is no viable alternative. After
they added the modem rental fee, I went out and bought my own cable modem (I
highly recommend doing this, with the current fee your own modem will pay for
itself within a year). I brought back my old modem, switched the service to
use my new modem and thought that was the end of it.

The bill for the month when I was transitioned had a prorated modem lease fee,
so that was good, but the next month had a full modem rental fee charge! I
noticed this on the bill and called customer service and they adjusted the
charge and said it won't appear in the future, but if you bought your own
modem like I did, beware of the possibility of them continuing to charge you
the fee.

------
bnycum
Our Comcast modem fee went from $0 -> $3 -> $5 -> $8 in a years time between
2010-2011. No notice on 2 of those fee changes. Once it finally reached $8
last year I bought my own Docsis 3 modem for ~$70 and gave back the Docsis 2
rental they gave me. Glad someone is getting them for their highway robbery.

~~~
X-Istence
When I signed up for my Comcast internet I looked at the cost of modem rental,
and then looked at the price of a modem. If I use the modem for 1 month more
than a year, I have paid less.

Easy proposition at that point.

------
Wilduck
This is reminiscent of phone rentals that used to be routine when using a
landline. Eventually most consumers ended up buying their own phones, but
there have been instances reported where companies happily continue charging
their less savvy customers [1].

This is definitely unethical. It's even more frustrating when you're in an
area where there's a telecom monopoly and you're essentially forced into
accepting these twisted business practices. Is this something that should be
outright outlawed?

[http://articles.nydailynews.com/1995-08-20/news/17982976_1_p...](http://articles.nydailynews.com/1995-08-20/news/17982976_1_phones-
at-t-rental-customers)

~~~
yardie
My grandmother is an in home nurse. One of her clients passed away a few years
ago. She still had the Ma Bell bakelite phone and was still paying $15/month
to rent it. Considering that she was 95 when she passed and probably retired
around 60 that is one hell of a lease.

I imagine there is some small group of near-retirement ATT employees
processing these payments every month in some dark basement somewhere.

~~~
mturmon
$15/month * 12 months/year * (95-60) years = $5400

The lease for just one year is $180.

------
cloverich
Am I the only one that doesn't think this is a big deal?

I get cable through TWC, and it is far and away the worst ISP experience I've
ever had.

However, equipment lease'ing seems like a completely legitimate practice; the
'backdoor' charges have always been clearly itemized on my bill (and explained
up front), and were removed when I purchased my own cable modem without any
hassle. Furthermore, if TWC bills ahead (its their practice here), that
itemized bill should come with enough time to purchase your own and avoid the
charges altogether.

If the charges arren't itemized, or if they force you to use their equipment,
I can see a point. Is that the case?

------
Osiris
I used a cheap $20 DOCSIS 2 Cisco cable modem with my Comcast service. That's
compared to the rental fee of $3 a month. When I switched to DSL they wanted
$100 for the modem or a $6/mn charge. I went to Craigslist and found someone
selling the exact same DSL modem for $35. Despite having gigabit ethernet and
wifi I just put it into Bridge mode and use my own routers and switches where
I can use TomatoUSB firmware.

I'll never rent or buy a modem from an ISP again.

~~~
debacle
This isn't about you and me. It's about the million other subscribers that TWC
or Verizon or Comcast are bilking to the tune of millions of dollars a year.

~~~
Osiris
I was trying to point out how ridiculous the prices they charge are for
everyone and that it's a total rip off. Unfortunately, most people don't know
any better and they make it really hard to not get charged for "Professional"
install.

------
binarycrusader
Comcast Business Class pulled this little stunt around the same time as well.

But unlike Time Warner, they already had a vague statement in the contract
saying they could change the fee charged for the cable modem at any time.

They seemed to not understand that regardless of whether it was in the
contract, silently taking my continued paying of the bill (which most
customers are on auto payment) as agreement to their new fees is a completely
unethical way of doing business.

Real notification means calling me personally and letting me know; not just
adding the fee to my bill and taking my automatic payment of it as acceptance.

If they would have given me a new modem, I could see the fee being justified.
But I had already had their service for almost two years before they decided
to start charging for it.

In fact, when I originally signed up, I was told that the reason the modem was
free (and there was no monthly fee) is because I signed up for a contract.

Totally bollocks.

------
logn
TWC wanted to charge me $500 or so if I didn't return my modem. I had to get
to a return point on the other side of town (in LA!) between 9-5 Mon-Fri.

Compare that to ATT who would charge me $100 and allowed me to return it with
a prepaid FedEx sticker in the box it came in.

------
beaker52
tl;dr Time Warner decides to begin charging existing customers a rental fee
for existing (previously free?) broadband equipment.

~~~
gav
I called up TWC to complain as I figure that after 2 years of service they've
more than covered the cheap RCA modem they gave me. I was told that some
customers were paying $2.50 and some were paying $0 so they were going to
charge $3.95 to make it fair. They also pointed out that sometimes the modems
break so they are on the hook to give you a new one, which is why the fee is
reasonable.

The list of approved modems is here:
[http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/residential-
home/support/t...](http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/residential-
home/support/topics/internet/buy-your-modem.html)

Checking today the list is a lot more reasonable, when they first released the
news they would only support the SBG6580 (~$135) and SB6141, which nobody
seems to carry. The SB6121 is around $80.

I'm still confused why they'll lease me a cheap DOCSIS 2 modem but expect me
to buy an expensive DOCSIS 3.

~~~
pyre

      > I'm still confused why they'll lease me a cheap
      > DOCSIS 2 modem but expect me to buy an expensive
      > DOCSIS 3.
    

It's pretty simple. If the alternatives are all $80+, people will be less
likely to buy them, and will just bend over to take the new monthly fees.

It's sort of an 'illusion of options.' They'll give you options, but make it
as inconvenient as possible in order to discourage too many people from
exercising them.

------
patmcguire
This is so they can lie about prices in advertisements. Time Warner offers
internet for $40 a month, it just happens to cost $48.

------
ta12121
RCN, on the other hand, simply raised my rate without even apologizing. They
pretended to give me a promotion of "increased speed" and then the promotion
"expired" and my rate went up. And oops, the old speed and old rate was no
longer being offered.

