Jim owns a cable modem. It got old, so he got a new one. Now Comcast has claimed the old one as their property, says it has not been returned, and wants money. Jim does not want to relinquish the money, or the modem, to Comcastlandia and their colonization attempts.

Jim says:

In December, I bought a new cable modem to replace my aging Motorola SB5120 (which I own). On my next billing cycle, I see a $40 charge for non-returned equipment!

For some reason, the “purchased” status of my old modem reverted to leased. On January 19th, I went to my local Comcast Service center to show them my proof of purchase. The service rep made a note on my acccount and told me to call Technical Support to get this issue resolved. You may now see where this is going. I called Technical Support, and (unsurprisingly) they claimed that I had to get this resolved by going to the Service Center. Great! The lady was nice enough to submit a form to prove my purchase to the warehouse, and she claimed that they would call me within the next seven days.

Seven days pass, and I receive no phone call. On February 5th, I go to a different Service Center to see if they can resolve my issue. The service rep copies my proof of purchase and faxes it to the (mythical) warehouse, and she claimed that she would call me if any problems arise.

Today (February 18th), I call Comcast to check the status of my modem, and I find out that it is still leased. Again, the technical support rep tells me to go back to the service center with my proof of purchase. He makes another annotation on my account. I am pretty frustrated right now.

After 3 phone calls, 2 trips to the service center, and 2 account annotations, nothing is resolved.

Consumerist, any ideas on what I can do?

Note: Even though it shows up as leased, I’m not paying the monthly fee for it. The status changed from “purchased” to “leased” when I deactivated it.

They probably want to sacrifice your modem to to Xfinity, the god of Terrible Rebranding Attempts.

We’d try reaching out to the Comcast Twitter team, either at @comcastcares on Twitter or email them at We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com.

UPDATE: Yep, that worked. We’re like the UN of the Internet and sh*t.

Hi,

I emailed Frank Eliason, and his team solved my problem within an hour.

Thank you so much for posting my story!!!!

Regards,
Jim

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