You know those hacky crime novels and movies where a suspect is locked up because everyone is convinced he’s the killer — only to later be vindicated when the murders continue while the suspect is behind bars? This story is like that, but with porn instead of dead bodies.

The ABC affiliate in Tampa reports on a local couple who started receiving purchase-confirmation emails from Comcast thanking them for the many, many porn movies they had rented from Kabletown.

As usually happens, the couple’s protests — we didn’t order these; we’ve never ordered porn before, why would we start now? — fell on uncaring ears at Comcast, which continued, even after the involvement of the local news team, to insist that “The box that is sending the authorization signal to order on-demand movies is the box that is assigned to the account.”

Rather than continue to have Comcast treat them like they were starring in a porn movie, the couple canceled their service and shipped back the box that had allegedly been used to purchase all of these erotic videos.

That box went back on April 7, and yet porn purchases continued to rack up on the account on April 10-12.

Only then, after this obvious error was pointed out, did Comcast admit to a “data stream” error that they dub as “unique,” but which we’ve certainly heard before.

In the end, the couple’s account was credited for the porn and Comcast still a company that treats its customers very badly.

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