Comcast settles deceptive ad practices allegations for $1 million
The nation's biggest cable company will pay $1 million in a settlement over its advertising practices, which Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said misled many local residents about the cost and features of their cable TV service.
Comcast Corp., which has 1.6 million customers in Massachusetts, was accused of deceiving local consumers by advertising expensive packages without mentioning cheaper options and touting 'free' or discounted introductory cable rates that often carried hidden charges, according to the settlement filed in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday. It was also accused of overstating the number of channels it offered in its digital cable packages, charging some subcribers $5 a month to rent cable boxes they didn't need and charging installation fees after customers signed up for service believing those charges had been waived.
The settlement comes after a two-year investigation by Reilly's office that was sparked by hundreds of consumer complaints about Comcast and AT&T Broadband, a former cable provider Comcast bought in 2002.
Comcast denies any doing anything illegal but agreed to several changes in its advertising practices. Jesse Caplan, chief attorney for the state's consumer protection and anti-trust division, said his office didn't know exactly how many cable subscribers might have been affected or how much they may have overpaid due to their confusion over Comcast's ads.
“This likely had a significant impact on customers who ended up buying cable packages that they might never have bought if they knew how much it was going to cost," said Caplan, whose office negotiated the settlement.
The investigation into Comcast's advertising practices kicked off more than four years ago, when AT&T Broadband was the dominant cable company in the area. At that time, the attorney general's office was receiving more than 200 complaints a year about the cable company's advertising and customer service practices. Since Comcast took over, those complaints have decreased by nearly half but many of the same problems persisted, he said.
For its part, Comcast noted that it inheirited some issues when it took over the AT&T system and that some of the complaints against it predate even that company.
