For nearly three years, Comcast has been trying out data caps — sorry, “data thresholds” — in certain markets around the country where customers who reach a certain monthly usage amount are given the option of buying additional data at an outrageous price. Aside from pure greed on the behalf of Internet service providers, there is no need for most data caps, but one Comcast rep is telling customers that they are required by law.

A user going by the name of “gladimdonewithcomcast” learned that his market was included in Comcast’s data cap test and called to cancel his service. He then uploaded a recording of the call just so we can all see how bad Comcast is at customer service:

The customer tells the rep that he’s been getting charged for surpassing his cap and that he wants to move on to an ISP that doesn’t ding customers for using lots of data.

“I understand,” answers the Comcast rep, “But every Internet service provider has data cap. It is mandated by the law.”

The customer is more amused by the idiocy than outraged, laughing as he explains, “I’ve already talked to other Internet companies. They don’t have data caps where I live and that’s why I’m switching to them.”

In a statement to Ars Technica, a rep for Comcast confirmed what everyone except Comcast’s own employees already knew — that “There is no law requiring ISPs ‘to have data caps.’”

The media rep for Comcast then runs the usual nonsense that “Comcast discontinued having a cap in May 2012.”

That’s a half truth; maybe even just a quarter truth. What happened in 2012 is that Comcast removed the standard 250GB/month soft cap that had been in place for all customers and began these regional trials of “data thresholds.”

Back to the matter of the recorded call, Comcast states that “This representative’s statements are not consistent with the training and messaging we provide. We will work to retrain this representative and will reach out to the customer to clarify this information.”

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