Customer Sues Charter, Time Warner Cable Over “Broadcast TV” Fees

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I like this guy already. Not only is he suing Charter and Time Warner Cable for what he claims are illegal fees, he is getting around the forced arbitration by not seeking any money. Grab the popcorn, this is going to get good.

The TWC arbitration clause does include a 30-day window for new customers to opt out, but the plaintiff in this dispute is still hoping to avoid being shunted off to the arbitrator. How? By not seeking any financial damages. Instead, the plaintiff is only seeking injunctive relief — for the court to stop Charter/TWC from the allegedly illegal practices — and for a declaration that these practices do indeed run afoul of the law. Why might that work? Because the arbitration clause in the TWC residential user agreement also states that “Only claims for money damages may be submitted to arbitration; claims for injunctive orders or similar relief must be brought in a court.”
 
So much like, hopefully this will be precedent setting to screw the cable companies for once.
 
Agreed, this kind of crap is what finally put me over the edge and drop cable tv, sadly still need to use twc for internet. Every month my bill seemed to go up a dollar or so.
 
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the cable company is fucked, they should lose badly.
assholes are just passing the rate hikes due to renegotiation immediately by using these fees, instead of eating a little less profit while the contracts on the customers are up, and they can do a proper rate hike.
that is painfully obvious.
can't see then 'winning', its too obvious to me at least.
 
At worst the cable companies will settle, admit no wrong doing and change nothing.
 
I don't have a problem with it because it cost money to get the network connection up and to get all the channels into their lineup. The content is free, the technology is not. There's still going to be a cost.
 
I was intrigued as to why it labeled "Public Access Fee" as garbage and made up and I just assumed some guy on a forum made this picture. But then I saw that it was actually one of the intellectual "journalists" at Huffington Post and realized the problem. I expect the commoners to say things off the cuff, but for publications to treat their readers with such contempt is inexcusable. Makes you wonder what else they just slip by you. It doesn't make me wonder, but hopefully it makes you wonder.

 
I was intrigued as to why it labeled "Public Access Fee" as garbage and made up and I just assumed some guy on a forum made this picture. But then I saw that it was actually one of the intellectual "journalists" at Huffington Post and realized the problem. I expect the commoners to say things off the cuff, but for publications to treat their readers with such contempt is inexcusable. Makes you wonder what else they just slip by you. It doesn't make me wonder, but hopefully it makes you wonder.
Not sure what you mean... Huffinglue Post is absolute garbage for sure in my view.. however I believe the picture is correct.. anything that says 'fee' , even if official-sounding, still is garbage.. what they can't probably write is 'tax', as most likely there is laws against that, and anything with Tax, has to be a Tax.
Again Verizon did that a lot, with shit like, 'Local County Recovery FEE' and shit like that.. 'TAX' was actually very little and didn't really change money wise.
 
Isn't it fascinating how it's some guys job to just toil away all day thinking of ways to fuck people on their bills. Like "hey guys, check out this idea I came up with, if we put Synergestic e-service differentiation fee we can tack on 2 bucks to every single bill in our entire customer inventory!" How the fuck do these people sleep at night?
 
Isn't it fascinating how it's some guys job to just toil away all day thinking of ways to fuck people on their bills. Like "hey guys, check out this idea I came up with, if we put Synergestic e-service differentiation fee we can tack on 2 bucks to every single bill in our entire customer inventory!" How the fuck do these people sleep at night?
In mattresses stuffed with 100 dollar bills.
 
The law almost always sides with greed.

If you don't like the charges they tack on then don't get the service. Just because they advertised some price never means that is what you will pay. The utility companies have been doing this for decades. That is the privilege of being a utility.

Pretty sure since they are federally regulated that this practice is AOK.

But that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
 
The minute SlingTV gets local channels is the minute I sign back up. I really only watch live sports (mainly the NFL) on TV so it's not a viable option. :(

That's why I have an HD Antenna. But they recently added our FOX5 (Atlanta) to our line up. Selection is quite impressive and icing on the cakes that the ROKU 4 scales it up to 4K.
 
After seeing an article on this, checked my Cox bill. Sure enough, is a $3.00 Broadcast Surcharge Fee.
 
That's why I have an HD Antenna. But they recently added our FOX5 (Atlanta) to our line up. Selection is quite impressive and icing on the cakes that the ROKU 4 scales it up to 4K.

Yea I tried the HD antenna thing with no luck. Went through 3 different models, but never went as far as installing one on my roof or in the attic, though according to the maps I looked at, they wouldn't get me much in my area either.
 
Companies should be held accountable when they claim a fee is "required" when it's not by law.
 

In order to make prices look pretty people do always post it as something like $89.99 plus taxes and fees. I will give the person that much. Outside of that most of the stuff marked on there is complete bullshit. 97% profit margin on internet and 74% profit margin on phone. Where is that at? I guess we are doing something very wrong as our margins are nowhere near that. I wish it was, I could afford to spend a lot more on deploying new services then. FUSC, excise and that rest are valid taxes and fees, those are things that are to be paid by the customer not the service provider. There is even a thing were you have to pay tax on what you pay on taxes. We are having fun right now of trying to figure out which tax we are supposed to be retaxing our customer on and which tax is exempt. Regulatory recovery fee is a fee that everyone charges to cover charges by the FCC and state. Same areas require that a tv service provider collects money for public broadcast stations. And the broadcast tv fee covers the cost of them being allowed to rebroadcast off air stations. This is going to differ by region based on rates and which stations they are rebroadcasting in that area. All those charges and fees might look like bullshit but are all 100% valid charges. you also always pay for tv service a month in advance. So you pay Oct 1st for tv service for the month of Oct, you pay Nov 1st for tv service for the month of Nov... phone service is the same way, you pay in advance for the month, toll (if you pay for long distance per minute) is the only thing charged after the fact.

After seeing an article on this, checked my Cox bill. Sure enough, is a $3.00 Broadcast Surcharge Fee.

That is what they pay the local stations to be able to rebroadcast local stations. They are just passing that onto you. Some places just charge everyone the same price and roll it into the cost of service. Others have decided to start to pull it out like this as different places are charged different rates. Remember off air is free for you to watch, but a tv service provider has to pay to rebroadcast the signal. That was the issue with that company that was letting you pull off air stations from anywhere around the USA. they were not paying the rebroadcast fees which are those fees right there.

Companies should be held accountable when they claim a fee is "required" when it's not by law.

I am required to pay my electric bill or my power gets turned off. that isn't by law but just as a requirement of the power company. Some of those things there are true also. They have to pay a franchise fee, which is some crazy fucked up fee. We were just working on that a few weeks ago at work as we are getting ready to start offering tv service and are going through the phone of all this crap. I want to say if you live within the limits of a town or city the city gets the fee. if you live inside of an incorporated township the county gets the money, and if outside of either of those I think the state gets the money. I remember there being 3 buckets of who gets the fee base on where you live. But that is required to be paid. Public access fees are required in some areas also to help support the public broadcast stations. I guess their 24 hour marathon PBS normally does every other month doesn't bring them enough money so this helps to support your local station to keep PBS on the air. Broadcast fees are what they pay the local tv stations to rebroadcast their stations. So that one isn't a legal requirement but is a requirement to be able to provide stations.
 
I have to rent their equipment (because broadcast TV is encrypted on cable) to get broadcast TV and pay a broadcast fee. What pisses me off even more is that most cable companies are now implementing copy-protect flags on broadcast channels so I was stuck with WMC7. It's so ridiculous that I got a couple of TV antennas (for SD and LA) and some HDHomeRun Extends. Luckily I'm on TW that has no data caps. I feel sorry for those of us who can't get broadcast channels due to terrain.
 
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I'm a Docsis engineer so I work strictly on the technology side but I can confirm we pay a bunch of fees & taxes for franchise costs and content. I doubt this person will get any where as the fees do have a paper trail. Should they just give subscribers a blank bill at xcost rather than breaking it down? I don't know I suspect they can't due to certain archaic laws. I won't defend TWCs record, but hopefully things will get better once all the price plans between regions under Charter get cleaned up.
 
I'm a Docsis engineer so I work strictly on the technology side but I can confirm we pay a bunch of fees & taxes for franchise costs and content. I doubt this person will get any where as the fees do have a paper trail. Should they just give subscribers a blank bill at xcost rather than breaking it down? I don't know I suspect they can't due to certain archaic laws. I won't defend TWCs record, but hopefully things will get better once all the price plans between regions under Charter get cleaned up.

Archaic laws aren't the issue. Marketing and pricing is the issue. all telephone and tv providers are guilty of the same thing. You are looking / dealing with two different issues here. One is that taxes and fees are different so you can't have a single price plan for everyone. Taxes different from state to state, county to county, and city by city. So I might have one tax on my bill and you are going to have something different. FUSC is going to be the same as that is federal. but the state fund is going to different state by state. So you can't have a $145.95 everywhere price that includes all taxes and fees. You could say if you live in city A your price is $145.95, if you live in city B it is $142.83, if you live in C it is $152.12... Which makes that harder to sell if you have different prices like that. You also are stuck with following suit of everyone else. If you are promoting your package as $85.95 + taxes and fees. I can't say that my package is $135.83 final price. As the average person will look at that and say that your package is much cheaper than mine. Even if I the end your package comes out to $157.35 after you add everything people don't look at that. They only look at marketing price. So as long as you promote with a base price + taxes and fees, I have to follow and also market that way to avoid you taking all the customer.

Sadly the current method really is the best method. As you have to start with something. My taxes and fees are different than your taxes and fees. Especially once you start adding in all the extra stuff which is then going to change your taxes. You have the price that won't change + the parts that do. it is really no different than going to the store and buying something. The sticker states it is $99.95 but then you have tax to add onto that. Which is going to differ everywhere. Then if you have a coupon that changes what you pay in tax, if you have a prepaid card that tax was paid on when you got the card that makes it tax free. About the only thing I can think that is close to this is buying a car. you pay sales tax, then you have to pay to get plates, then pay for title work... so that $9,999 car really being a few thousand more before you are done. Somehow you need to educate the customer better, but there really is no good way to do that. What do you do have something like "starting at $85.95 + taxes and fees (customer average is $123.72 after taxes and fees)". There is no good way to solve this issue because you are looking at too many extras. Unless everyone standardized rates. Have all areas charge the same for 911. Have them all charge the same for state fees... Now that still leaves stuff like the equipment rental which could be rolled into the base price, but again if everyone doesn't do that then you are making your price look higher. Which then hurts you for trying to have a price that is X and in the background includes all the random misc charges. instead of having Y + misc charges
 
This is great. Those of you saying he doesn't have a case are missing the point: His complaint is because those hidden surcharges should just be included in the advertised price. I would be willing to bet this guy is active in a union somewhere.
 
the arbitration clause is actually not enforceable if you try arbitration and it fails, because arbitration is actually moderation. It is practice not to waste the courts time with cases that can be solved by having the two parties work the issue out between them. If you seek a court order neither moderation nor binding arbitration which is the same thing can actually even sit the case because it is not a court of law. The only question is if technically they should be pressing charges not filing suit. If someone breaks the law, you can not in any court in the United States of America and most biased the British system we based our system on, bring a private prosecutor into a criminal court, that person will get disbarred. You can file civic suit for fraud committed against your person. So likely it is going to be interesting.
 
It's like Vegas hotels with their advertised prices and then you get there to check in and the bill is literally 30% more cause of "resort" fees.
 
I know these cable companies are completely out of control. Comcast pulls the same shit.

My comcast bill for the past year has been $250/mo. Yes $250, but I had every channel. it includes the internet phone. Hell I don't even use the phone. And all those channels there's is NOTHING everr on. All the movie channels, they reply the same shit over and over and over and over.

Finally got sick of it and only have the basic 40 channels now. I still need the sports channels and local tv.
 
It's like Vegas hotels with their advertised prices and then you get there to check in and the bill is literally 30% more cause of "resort" fees.

Thats bullshit! Wow I remember the days where staying in Vegas was cheap as hell. Because the casinos make all their money from gambling, not hotel fees.
 
Thats bullshit! Wow I remember the days where staying in Vegas was cheap as hell. Because the casinos make all their money from gambling, not hotel fees.

Yep, that's how it used to be, not anymore though.
http://www.lasvegasjaunt.com/las-vegas-resort-fees-2016-guide/

Happened in the past few years, expect to pay 30 bucks or more for most hotels, and you don't even know about it until you go to "check out" as its not the advertised price even when you go to check in, you think "sweet, a 80 dollar hotel room, then go to check out and they hit you with an extra 30 dollar fee or so.
 
Is that a $30/night increase? If so... fucking wow.

Reading the article, and a couple others, some of that is including shuttle bus service, which if it's a single fee could easily be worth it instead of taking taxi cabs
 
That is what they pay the local stations to be able to rebroadcast local stations. They are just passing that onto you. Some places just charge everyone the same price and roll it into the cost of service. Others have decided to start to pull it out like this as different places are charged different rates. Remember off air is free for you to watch, but a tv service provider has to pay to rebroadcast the signal. That was the issue with that company that was letting you pull off air stations from anywhere around the USA. they were not paying the rebroadcast fees which are those fees right there.

In my location we are already charged for local stations. $18 to be exact. So adding another rebroadcast charge on top of being charged for broadcasting it seems like you are screwing your customers. Same with franchise fee.
 
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