Either Comcast's Billing System Is Messed Up Or This Woman Really Loves Ordering Porn
Who among us hasn’t had a slight bit of buyer’s remorse after buying porn? It’s okay, you don’t need to raise your hands; your silence speaks volumes. But one Comcast customer is being quite loud about the fact that she keeps having to ask the Kabletown folks to remove hundreds of dollars worth of pay-per-view porn items from her cable bill.
“I’ve lived here for 16 years and I’ve had Comcast as my provider ever since,” the woman tells the New Star-Ledger’s Bamboozled column. “I’ve always ordered regular pay-per-view movies, but I’ve never once ordered an adult film.”
She says it all began late last year when she downgraded her cable package and had to swap out her three old receivers for a trio of new ones.
And then when she tried to order a non-porn movie a few weeks later, she found out she’d been blocked because her account had been maxed out:
The films were ordered in batches over several consecutive days, several times a month. For example, on Jan. 12, there was an order for a six-hour TEN film at 3:30 p.m., then a six-hour Penthouse film at 6:30 p.m., followed by a Playboy film at 8:30 p.m. More films were ordered after midnight and for the next 18 hours, and eight more films the day after that.
Comcast said that though the orders appeared to have been placed via the customer’s set-top box in her bedroom — which she promptly swapped out — it would credit her the $280.
They also walked her through the process of setting up a PIN for ordering purposes so that no random ghost could order hours of hardcore on her account.
But then, not even a month later, another attempt to watch something without vast amounts of naked flesh was thwarted because someone had ordered hundreds of dollars more in porn on her account.
“Either I’m here or I’m at the doctor’s office,” said the woman, who lives alone, “unless it’s my cat who has an addiction to porn after I’m asleep at night.”
Once again, Comcast gave her the benefit of a doubt and issued a credit for $550.59.
Three new boxes were installed and the customer set up PINs on each of them.
And then she gets the bill for $423.65 worth of new PPV porn.
This time, Comcast was not so understanding and refused to issue a credit.
Since Kabletown wouldn’t budge, she turned to Bamboozled and provided evidence that neither she nor her boyfriend — who does not live in the house — were in the house when some of the porn charges were made:
For example, there were unauthorized charges on Jan. 21 from 12:30 to 9:30 p.m. Cell phone records, datebook records and receipts show that on Jan. 21, [the customer] was at a 1:45 doctor’s appointment and her boyfriend was at his job, 45 minutes away, from 9 a.m. until 8:14 p.m.
One expert tells Bamboozled it wouldn’t be all that difficult for a clever hacker to make it look like their massive porn purchases are being ordered through someone else’s set-top box.
Comcast says it has “done extensive testing and simulations” and currently sees “no indication of hacking or other intentional manipulation of our equipment or software.”
Thus that leaves only two possibilities, says Comcast:
At this time, we believe the charges could only have been the result of either a box inadvertently being associated with an incorrect account, or orders placed in the home without the customer’s permission or knowledge.
Meanwhile, the customer has filed a complaint against Comcast in small claims court.
Bamboozled: Seeing red over blue-movie fees [NJ.com]
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