this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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Comcast blasted for seeking "loopholes" in rule requiring disclosure of all fees.

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[–] fubo@lemmy.world 61 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If your billing is too complicated to be accurately described to your customers, then you may have put yourself in a situation where you are incapable of being honest with your customers. That's on you.

It's the job of regulators to ensure that you are honest with your customers; therefore, they can reasonably forbid you from having billing so complicated that it cannot be described accurately.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 28 points 2 years ago (4 children)

It's funny, my local ISP tells me I owe X dollars a month and that's what I pay. How on earth do they do that? Comcast is telling us it can't possibly be that simple

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The airlines managed to figure it out, weirdly enough. Calculating the price of an airline seat is Turing-complete, and at least one airline software service, ITA, needed the runtime compilation feature of Common Lisp to do it efficiently. Yes, when a user asked for a ticket price, their systems wrote and compiled a piece of code to determine the answer.

[–] transgwender@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 years ago

Oml thats actually insane and incredible. My goodness wow

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Many companies, specially telcos, have a complex scheme of paid plans to confuse the users so that they become fed up and say "ok, so how much do I have to pay". This is their exact objective.

My local ISP (not a part of some huge elite ISP) is similar to yours. Pay X and you get unlimited internet for a month at Y Mbps uplink/downlink. Somehow it's too complex for Comcast.

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[–] keeb420@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

mine even manages to do it for the price they advertise. and without a data cap. and without having to have a comcrap router in order to pay more to not have a data cap. i had my own router i didnt want to use theirs mine was better. but the only way i could find to pay to not deal with the cap was to have their router. fuck that.

[–] psudo@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, but are they making their faceless shareholders insane profits? I say this as a joke, but I do feel like that's a large reason why Comcast and the like are so terrible to their customers.

[–] misguidedfunk@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago

I’d love to have a local option. We get spectrum or wind stream, which means spectrum. They charge whatever they want because they have a pseudo monopoly.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 34 points 2 years ago

"We don't know what they are until we charge you."

[–] hexachrome@monero.town 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Boohoo Comcast. Hopefully the FCC tells them to get wrecked.

[–] ptsdstillinmymind@lemmy.studio 5 points 2 years ago

If the FCC is anything like the SEC/DOJ I wouldn't hold my breath. All of these regulatory agencies are regulatory captured via the revolving door.

[–] Casmael@u.fail 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Man do I ever get sick of corpo bullshit

[–] c2h6@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Too hard to disclose fees but easy to charge them huh

[–] GreenPlasticSushiGrass@kbin.social 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Comcast: "But I am le tired."
(This reference goes back a few years, kids!)

[–] ASK_ME_ABOUT_LOOM@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Then have a nap... AND THEN POST ZE FEES!

[–] Death2lois@lemmy.one 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

F$cking Kangaroos!! ...can we curse on here??

[–] ASK_ME_ABOUT_LOOM@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is the internet, you can say whatever the fuck you want.

[–] Death2lois@lemmy.one 2 points 2 years ago
[–] c2h6@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Oh god now I feel both nostalgic and old at the same time.

I thought the end of the world and "I JUST WANT BANG BANG BANG" was the funniest shit ever back then.

[–] reric88@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

Blast from the past woooow

[–] Rentlar@beehaw.org 12 points 2 years ago

It's a simple solution, Comcast. Don't charge any fee you aren't willing to spend the effort to disclose.

[–] BackOnMyBS@kbin.social 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's some straight up gaslighting shit. If they can figure out to charge it, they can print it on a bill.

[–] CrimsonOnoscopy@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years ago

Typical corporate lawyer speak.

[–] smolgumball@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can't wait to try this during tax season next year

[–] debounced@kbin.run 2 points 2 years ago

lol, my thoughts exactly

[–] falsem@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago

broadband facts

FCC stahp, I can only get so hard.

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 10 points 2 years ago

Funny, it was never too hard when they billed me.

[–] k32481@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago

If it is too hard/difficult for a company to itemize all their fees, they are charging way too many fees.

[–] dan@upvote.au 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I'm so glad I don't have to use Comcast any more. A small local ISP (Sonic) expanded to cover my area last year and offers 10Gbps symmetric fiber for $40/month - half the price I was paying Comcast for 1.2Gbps down / 35Mbps up.

[–] frostycakes@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I'm super jealous. At least I'm moving to a new apartment with fiber from CenturyLink at it, but even they are running $70/mo for gigabit. I'm living the T-Mobile 5G home internet life right now because CL only has DSL at my current place, and fuck Comcast in general.

Even worse is, the new place has honest-to-God fiber from Comcast to the unit--sadly paired with an RFoG converter, so despite it being more than capable of symmetrical gigabit, they still only offer 35Mbps up there. Leave it to Comcast to make FTTP suck.

[–] dan@upvote.au 2 points 2 years ago

Leave it to Comcast to make FTTP suck.

Wow, that's bad. I didn't know they did that.

Comcast have a legit fiber network where I live (San Francisco Bay Area). It's not even GPON or XGS-PON or anything like that where multiple houses share bandwidth; with Comcast's version you get a dedicated fiber run from your house all the way to the headend, no multiplexing.

You do pay a premium for it though. It was originally 2Gbps symmetric for $300/month, now it's 6Gbps for the same price (with 10Gbps coming soon).

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Jeez, and I thought I was getting a good deal with Ziply Fiber. 30/30 for $50/month. Jealous!

[–] dan@upvote.au 4 points 2 years ago

They're also pro net neutrality, anti-throttling and anti-blocking (https://www.sonic.com/transparency). A perfect ISP :)

[–] worfamerryman@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They need to do a reset of their pricing them. Figure it out again from the ground up.

I pay exactly what my isp advertises never a cent more.

I live in a third world country.

[–] jherazob@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago
[–] Helium@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Comcast is a truly rotten company. Like without fail they continue to impress me on their new clever ways of misleading customers. Like remember "10G" from earlier this year...?

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[–] Prevailing@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

That headline is some NotTheOnion material.

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[–] SomeGuyNamedPaul@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

There's an easy fix, just don't allow charging any fees that aren't listed along with the advertised price. See? Very simple. They'll figure out how to list them thereafter, believe in them.

[–] c2h6@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Nonono it's easy to charge you, it's just hard to disclose it. Duh

[–] Grimpen@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] c2h6@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Nonono it's simple when we bill you, just too hard to list it upfront.

[–] Pluto_Is_A_Planet@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

poor comcast. gotta feel so sorry for them /s

[–] miroppb@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago
[–] psysok@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

They will just have to create a fee to "cover the costs" of having to tell you what they are going to charge you.

[–] chriskoss@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

I think comcast getting fucked by regulators forcing fee disclosure has the potential to make a lot of people 'too hard'

[–] Spaceman2901@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

Have they tried…not being corpo sleaze?

[–] Mydispo@midwest.social 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes." Is anyone surprised? I'm not a huge fan of Google's privacy practices, but their Fiber service is outstandingly easy to use and fast. I'm lucky to live in Kansas City though...

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