When your cable company has charged you hundreds of dollars for a cable box you returned five years ago, you’d hope that the response would be “Sorry about that. Here’s your money back,” not “We’ll give you your refund if you agree to not tell anyone about this.”

But that’s a demand that one Comcast customer says the company made of her when she disputed her years of charges for a box she’d long since given back.

She and her husband showed Philadelphia’s Action News Troubleshooters their five years’ worth of bills showing the overcharges.

“I am not happy about it, that’s over $600,” says the customer, who also played a recording of a voicemail allegedly left by a Comcast staffer.

“We will issue a $600 even credit,” explains the caller, “pending that you sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

Action News also talked to other Philly-area Comcast customers with similar equipment-related issues, but they were all offered no-strings-attached refunds from the company (after being contacted by the media, of course).

The cable industry is notorious for failing to properly track returned equipment. Comcast recently began accepting returns via UPS Store locations to give customers some sort of paper trail when Comcast inevitably charges them for lost set-top boxes and modems.

Yesterday, Comcast announced — as part of what it claims is an overhaul of its customer service — that it will begin issuing digital receipts for returned equipment so that there is (hopefully) less doubt about if/when/where/how a piece of equipment was handed back into Comcast’s care.

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