Comcast blasted for seeking “loopholes” in rule requiring disclosure of all fees.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If your billing is too complicated to be accurately described to your customers, then you may have put yourself in a situation where you are incapable of being honest with your customers. That’s on you.

    It’s the job of regulators to ensure that you are honest with your customers; therefore, they can reasonably forbid you from having billing so complicated that it cannot be described accurately.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      1 year ago

      It’s funny, my local ISP tells me I owe X dollars a month and that’s what I pay. How on earth do they do that? Comcast is telling us it can’t possibly be that simple

      • fubo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The airlines managed to figure it out, weirdly enough. Calculating the price of an airline seat is Turing-complete, and at least one airline software service, ITA, needed the runtime compilation feature of Common Lisp to do it efficiently. Yes, when a user asked for a ticket price, their systems wrote and compiled a piece of code to determine the answer.

      • xavier666@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Many companies, specially telcos, have a complex scheme of paid plans to confuse the users so that they become fed up and say “ok, so how much do I have to pay”. This is their exact objective.

        My local ISP (not a part of some huge elite ISP) is similar to yours. Pay X and you get unlimited internet for a month at Y Mbps uplink/downlink. Somehow it’s too complex for Comcast.

        • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Heck, my ISP, which is a huge elite ISP, has a simple number too. You know why? There is competition in this market. I pay $80 a month for 1000/1000 fiber. That includes free HBO Max. Not as good as Sonic, but it’s a simple number.

      • misguidedfunk@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I’d love to have a local option. We get spectrum or wind stream, which means spectrum. They charge whatever they want because they have a pseudo monopoly.

      • keeb420@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        mine even manages to do it for the price they advertise. and without a data cap. and without having to have a comcrap router in order to pay more to not have a data cap. i had my own router i didnt want to use theirs mine was better. but the only way i could find to pay to not deal with the cap was to have their router. fuck that.

        • psudo@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, but are they making their faceless shareholders insane profits? I say this as a joke, but I do feel like that’s a large reason why Comcast and the like are so terrible to their customers.

    • ptsdstillinmymind @lemmy.studio
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      1 year ago

      If the FCC is anything like the SEC/DOJ I wouldn’t hold my breath. All of these regulatory agencies are regulatory captured via the revolving door.

  • BackOnMyBS@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    That’s some straight up gaslighting shit. If they can figure out to charge it, they can print it on a bill.

  • Rentlar@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    It’s a simple solution, Comcast. Don’t charge any fee you aren’t willing to spend the effort to disclose.

  • dan@upvote.au
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    1 year ago

    I’m so glad I don’t have to use Comcast any more. A small local ISP (Sonic) expanded to cover my area last year and offers 10Gbps symmetric fiber for $40/month - half the price I was paying Comcast for 1.2Gbps down / 35Mbps up.

    • frostycakes@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I’m super jealous. At least I’m moving to a new apartment with fiber from CenturyLink at it, but even they are running $70/mo for gigabit. I’m living the T-Mobile 5G home internet life right now because CL only has DSL at my current place, and fuck Comcast in general.

  • k32481@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If it is too hard/difficult for a company to itemize all their fees, they are charging way too many fees.

  • worfamerryman@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    They need to do a reset of their pricing them. Figure it out again from the ground up.

    I pay exactly what my isp advertises never a cent more.

    I live in a third world country.

  • ChrisN@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    “The label hasn’t even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes.” Is anyone surprised? I’m not a huge fan of Google’s privacy practices, but their Fiber service is outstandingly easy to use and fast. I’m lucky to live in Kansas City though…

  • Helium@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Comcast is a truly rotten company. Like without fail they continue to impress me on their new clever ways of misleading customers. Like remember “10G” from earlier this year…?

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      1 year ago

      Most cable companies appear to be rotten to the core… Cox Communications is rolling out fiber into my neighborhood… Know what speeds they’re advertising? 900/30… Which is WORSE than their gigabit coaxial option… At least there you could get 960/30