We first started doing business with Comcast in 2004 when AT&T sold their Cable Internet Service customers to Comcast. We had issues with Comcast forcing us to take the $8 Basic Cable TV service along with their Cable Internet service as a package deal in order to save $12 on the Cable Internet service, but Comcast lost over $60 per month from us when we dropped their phone service since they wouldn't offer us a package deal for the local and long distance phone service we were already using at that time.
I bought a Linksys BEFCMU10 cable modem when we signed up for Cable Internet service with AT&T since I wasn't willing to pay them a rental fee per month to rent one of their modems.
Today I receive a letter from Comcast stating that they should be charging us $3 per month rental fee for a modem that belongs to me. I called them at 1-800-266-2278 and spoke with Rachael and informed her that I own my own Linksys modem. She asked for proof, a receipt for the modem I purchased years ago. I told her I'd give her the MAC Address of the modem and she could see for herself that it is indeed a Linksys modem and that it is not one of their Motorola modems. She said she already had access to the MAC address, but that wasn't proof enough to cancel this charge.
She kept putting me on hold saying she was trying to figure out what to do next and after approx. 15 minutes of being put on hold and her coming back every so often to inform me she was still "working on this issue", I informed her I was not willing to keep holding while she tried to figure out how to NOT charge me for my own modem. I asked for an e-mail address and she offered corporate_communications@comcast.com. I then informed her I would be posting this complaint on my web site, here, by this evening and she should direct her supervisor to take a look. I am also e-mailing Comcast at this e-mail address to point out this page to them so they can work on this on their own time and not be wasting mine.
I looked over Comcast's web site and they do not provide any contact e-mail addresses there that I could find. However, they do have a "Contact Rick Germano, Senior Vice President of Customer Operations" feedback form that I used as well as e-mailing them at the previously mentioned corporate communications e-mail address.
The next step will be to contact the BBB, FCC and FTC to report this issue to them if Comcast doesn't respond.
So, what do you say Comcast? You gonna fix this or keep trying to charge me for my own equipment!!??
March 3, 2009: I received a call from Robin in Richmond this morning stating that she fixed this issue by adding a note to my account that I own my own modem and wouldn't be charged a monthly rental fee for it and apologized for the confusion. I asked her how it was possible this could even happen and she explained that Comcast does an audit of accounts and someone saw that there were no notes of me owning my own equipment and added the monthly rental fee to my account. I said I can understand that, but to have a Comcast rep tell me that I had to produce a sales receipt for a modem that I bought about five or six years ago was ridiculous. I stated that the MAC address of the modem should suffice in proving that I own a Linksys modem and that it belongs to me since they use Motorola modems and she corrected me and said they also use Linksys modems today. I then explained that they could easily have asked for and checked the FCC ID Number on this modem and determined from that number that it wasn't one of their modems, but in fact one that I own. She didn't reply directly to that, so I let it go. I did inform her I would update this page to reflect the resolution of this issue, but that the page would stay so that others could know how they could also get a similar resolution for something that they own if they can't find a sales receipt.
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