In hedge fund parlance they call this hoovering nickels. A nickel isn't much, but if you can suck up 1 billion nickels you're talking real money.

It's not surprising that Comcast would place the burden of proving the modem's provenance on the customer. It would be just as logical to ask Comcast to prove they own the modem if they want to charge a fee for it.

I'm a bit torn here. As a former cable company employee, I know how difficult it can be to deal with stuff like this. However, I do have a problem with them deciding to charge everyone, without notice, and let them deal with it. I think I would have been OK with a letter saying "We're going to start charing you unless you can show you own the modem, either with an old bill from Adelphia that indicates you weren't part of the lease program, a receipt, etc" and going from there. I understand the need of the cable company to roll the acquired customers into their system, under their prices and conditions, and it would probably be nearly impossible for them to sort it out. However, I have a real problem with doing things like this without any sort of notice. I don't have a huge problem with putting the burden on the customer, so long as they are willing to accept something short of absolute proof.

This sounds like a class action lawsuit to me.

I think that in order for Comcast to be able to charge these fees that they should have to also carry the burden of proof.

I know that in my case I likely couldn't prove that I owned the modem - I don't keep old utility statements and for inexpensive items that are no longer under warranty (such as my cable modem) the receipts are long gone as well.

Consider the way this works:
I wonder how it would go over if the police started issuing speeding tickets to everyone with a drivers license and then telling them that they would need to provide proof that they weren't speeding.

Back in the day, my parents use to Leach off free cable from Comcast.

@pylon83: "I don't have a huge problem with putting the burden on the customer, so long as they are willing to accept something short of absolute proof. "

Comcast has no right to charge customers for services or products of rendered. The burden of proof should be on Comcast.

*not

Start moving your shit into their office and tell them to prove that they own it. If they produce a deed or a lease, tell them it means nothing. If they can pull standards of ownership out of their ass, then so can you!

Was Adelphia's accounting so messed up that Comcast couldn't figure out who was being billed for what?

No wonder they got bought out.

"We think some of the dates may be a little off, so work out the chronology at your own peril."

For whatever reason, he's using European-style dates, DD/MM/YY. This makes it look like his dates are off.

@sethkinast:

Nope, I think he just messed up the 1/5/08 as 1/5/07 - makes much more sense considering the 18 months and rest of the timeline.

Do you at least have a copy of the last Adelphia bill? That might settle it.

Or if you do have a receipt, consider making a mail fraud complaint with the post office.

Oh come on, is nobody going to mention the sign? "WARNING: You are presently OUTDOORS. You may encounter NATURAL, WILD creatures in this area which may pose a RISK to your health. Stay on the designated ARTIFICIAL trail to prevent illness."

(But really, ticks are gross, so I'd rather have the sign.)

The cable companies have their fake modem lease fees only because they're jealous of the phone companies having their fake generic federal surcharge fees.

I think the proper word would actually be "leech", which has a distinctly different meaning from "leach".

...because including such details online would waste ink...

BZZZT Incorrect! The correct answer is "It takes up valuable ad space where we can upsell our customers."

I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to make the content "You" come for on a website less useful to "You" because some marketing genius wanted more 'breathing room' around his 'prominently placed' ad space. Because we all really go online for the ads, right?

@rmuser: Good work! Only about 200 bajillion more pages to proofread. Off ya go!

Thanks for posting this, Shadowfire and I are former Adelphia (now Comcast) costomers in Vermont! We'll sure;y be checking our bill.

Bah, if I could type...*SURELY be checking, heh.

I had Adelphia and they never offered a free lease to me... they charged $3.00/month. (supposedly just as the OP mentioned in his letter.) It was never itemized. The bundled package I subscribed to simply had a single price, but if you added up the parts, applied the discount, it came out (granted, very confusing).

Ok, so maybe some Adelphia franchises did in fact offer a free lease. Maybe that was the case here. Ummm... so the cable company offers a free lease on a modem. Would anyone else on here knowing that, go "Sure they'll give me free use of a modem. But no, I'm gonna pass on that and go out and buy my own. And if it breaks, then I'm responsible for repairing/replacing it. I just don't want to take advantage of an offer.. THAT'S FREE!"

Seems to me there might be a little more confusion here than just with the dates.

I had a similar situation, moved from one Comcrap county in MD to another, which had recently been Adelphia. When they installed, they claimed I was renting the modem. Nope, I had bought it. They removed the charge, but I had to call every month for like three months to get it removed AGAIN. (In addition to needing to call every few weeks to re-authorize the MAC, but that's a story for another day.) At one point I actually told them that I have an older modem just laying around and would gladly donate it for them to just STFU about "leasing" it.

You'd think that they would be buying them in enough bulk that Motorola or whoever supplies them could have the S/Ns sequenced in some way: "Oh, if your modem's serial number starts with CC it's owned by us, if it's TW then it's owned by Time-Warner, it has no letter prefix? Must be yours." Done deal.

Similar problem, where I had the install order with 'customer owned modem' written on the order and signed by their tech. They wanted me to prove I owned the modem, I countered with "Can you prove you do? Show me where you brought out and installed the modem."
No problem.

Comcast is one of the greediest companies i've ever seen. A few years ago they bought out a small cable company in my area. My bill for basic analog cable went from $25 a month to over $50 a month in the span of 2-3 years and we LOST channels. I can't say enough bad things about them

@evslin:

Short answer: yes.

After the FCC gets done with them, they'll need the extra $3/month, at least! Don't be so selfish, they're Comcastic!

People actually lease their cable modems from their cable company? For the amount you pay, you can buy a brand new one every 17 months.

Anyone know what the Franchise Fee is on the Comcast bills? It's about $4. To me it looks like I'm paying off their cost of doing business (office space, taxes, who knows), in addition to paying for their service. Am I wrong?

@glennosmond: When i originally received excite@home / comcast@home i went through 3 modems in the span of 4 months. The last modem lasted 5 years plus before it was returned to comcast.

I would NEVER EVER buy a cable modem. They are some of the most shoddy peices of hardware ever made. When I had time warner installed when i moved to college it took the tech 2 hours of calling them and activating the MAC addresses on half a dozen modems that were all busted and previous techs never took out the truck correctly until he found one that finally worked.

Leasing is by far the best advantage for cable modems.

I despise Comcast... practically had a party when I got them out of my house in favor of DSL and Direct TV. And I've never been sorry.
With their cable, they used to love to send out letters saying, in short, that I should be very excited because they were making improvements to my service. Then they'd take away channels (1 HBO instead of 3) and raise my rates.

This was my letter, and yes, I meant 01/05/08, sorry about that. I was never personally offered the free lease, so that's why I bought my own.

That 01/05/07 is meant to be 01/05/08 (the new year always screws me up), and I was never personally offered a free lease, that was simply a program that Adelphia had at one point in time.

@darkened: I bought a Linksys cable gateway a couple years back and it has worked wonders for me, with no problems, ever. Basically I'm just saying that if you know what you are looking for not all cable modems are shoddy pieces of sh*t.

@Mariajl: I LOVE it when they make changes to their line-up. I do.

They change the channels, add a couple, remove a couple, and shuffle a few.

Then they send you a nice notice about it - a couple months later.

So Adelphia provided the modems at no charge, Comcast buys Adelphia's service area and then cahrges for modems they didn't supply or pay for?

Cool.

@darkened: Were you buying or leasing all those modems before you decided to lease? Could it be because all your replacements were used?

Never had a problem with my linksys and it's been over 2 years.

Comcast is physically linked to every cable modem. The MAC address alone would indicate who made the modem and screen out manufacturers that Adelphia never used. There's probably other information that could be gleaned from the MAC and/or DOCSIS information.

Bad records or not there was at least some work Comcast could have done on their end to see who might be leasing modems.

@Trick: Comcast bought Adelphia, which means it paid money for all the assets and infrastructure owned by Adelphia.

@Mariajl: I love how, in their most recent shuffle, the shuffled the TV Guide channel onto a digital one. So the only people who can watch it are the ones who already have a converter box with the onscreen guide.

As they predicted, I was very excited about these important changes to their lineup, and I think the few extra dollars per month are worth it for the vastly improved service I now receive.

@That70sHeidi:

Of course you're paying for their costs of doing business, how else would they stay in business? If they just charged you for the direct costs their pay to their programming providers, how exactly would they build the network, pay their engineers, pay their local taxes, etc?

I've also been getting charged by Comcast for modem rental for the last 4 months or so even though I physically returned my "rental" modem that was suppose to be a free modem given out when I originally signed up for Time Warner before it was bought out. Anyway, I returned both my "rental" modem and a DVR and decided to use my own cable modem. I even had a carbon copy receipt of my return but after recently noticing that I'm still being charged a rental fee, I called and they told me they have no record of my return even though I have this piece of paper saying I did. So now I have to find the time to run over to their closest building and show them the paper they gave me saying that I returned to modem. Only with Comcast will they mess up and then blame you before ever looking at the issue.

Oh, your fun is just starting!

Guess what happens when you cancel service? That's right, it's "prove you never had an Adelphia issued cable modem." I used to have Adelphia before Comcast took over. I moved over the Summer and in what I assume was a move on Comcast's part to make things easier, they canceled my old account and activated a new account at my new residence. That way they don't have to deal with a legacy Adephia account. Well, after moving and receiving my first bill, I discovered they wanted to collect on an unreturned cable modem. I had to spend quite a bit of time on the phone convincing them that I never had an Adelphia cable modem because I own my own.

This sounds...a bit trollish to me. I'm in Vermont, I'm a former Adelphia now Comcast subscriber. When the switchover came, Comcast didn't start billing me for my modem--they knew (from Adelphia) that it was customer owned, and didn't charge me.

As for it not appearing on the online bill...the online bill only seems to show total charges. However, there's a link to the paper bill that you can display onscreen, with all the itemized charges. There's something else that the OP isn't telling us...

I swear that there is nothing that I left out. I had autopay on, so as long as the charges looked about right I didn't question it. I never went looking for the lease charge because I never thought they would start charging me. I'm telling you exactly what was told to me on the phone. I never leased a modem from Adelphia, and I have the receipt at home to prove that I purchased the modem on 06/02/06, less than a week after I moved up here.

Are these the same people who rented rotary phones for decades???

Actually, it's not trollish. I just realized this month that I've been paying the $3 modem fee through Comcast. I own my modem and have had it for over 6 years. I moved to Charlottesville, VA a year ago and started with Adelphia, which was then promptly switched over to Comcast after the buyout. Didn't realize I was being charge the rental fee until my bill increased by $50 this month due to Comcast's increased rates. Looked at the bill and noticed the fee was there, despite the fact that the couple of times I've called customer service in the past, they have asked if I own my modem and I have confirmed that I do. I also found it interesting that Comcast automatically put me into the highest rate categories for service when my promotion (1 year full cable with some movie channels and high speed internet for $75/mo.) ended. Time to call Comcast and see what I can do about getting costs reduced, otherwise, it's off to DirecTV.

Uh, "charges removed"? I hope you got a big refund too, pal.

They tried this same thing with me after the Adelphia conversion. I noticed it on the first bill, though, and got it removed without too much trouble. I did have to argue with them a little bit.

@SuperJdynamite: It seems to me that if Comcast and/or Adelphia kept "bad records" on who was leasing modems and who wasn't, then Comcast should be forced to just eat the loss of all those modems if they can't prove they own them. You can't just charge people because you're not sure. It was their fault that they got mixed up.

I signed up for Comcast as a new customer, not an Adelphia conversion, and they automaticaly charged me a rental fee. I had to call several times to get that removed. I have had SERIOUS ongoing problems with Comcast. They're one of the slimiest companies I've ever dealt with.

@econobiker:

LOL! My parents did! About 13 years ago I was at their house looking at their phone bill & realized they were paying a rental fee on the rotary phone they had since as long as I could remember growing up there. I think it was like $10. It was listed though on the bill. I convinced them to call the phone company & cancel the rental. The phone company even came out to pick up the phone! An old big boxy beige rotary wall phone. JESUS WHAT A SCAM! I bet the phone company made a small fortune off of my parents.

@JustAGuy2: Of course you're right that companies will always pass on their cost of doing business to the customer. But when Adelphia was my cable company they did NOT charge me a separate line item passing on these regulatory fees. I'm sure they were passing it on, but it was including in their fee for service. First thing Comcast did when they took over was start charging a separate $5 or so per month in fees for "franchise fees", "regulatory cost recovery", etc, while leaving the fee for service the same. They actually had the guts to say on the bill that "this is not a rate increase". Um, yeah it is if it used to be included in the service fee and you didn't lower the service fee by the amount of the fees you broke out as separate line items.

Comcast is the greediest company I've ever had the displeasure of doing business with.