Comcast Stealth charges appear on your bills Atlanta Georgia

COMCAST cable and Internet

The BBB rates this firm at a C+, it should be a D- as it has 16,036 complaints closed with BBB in last 3 years and of that there were 9,023 closed in last 12 months, so you can see that it is getting A LOT worse this past year.

The BBB now had one more complaint, mine. 

FYI they now have decided to charge you an additional $2.99 for any change of service.  Of course they don't tell you about this when you are making a change, it just appears on your next bill.

I added $25 worth of programing to my bill last month only to find that they had also charged me $2.99 in order for me to spend more money with them. 

Comcast is a total rip off of consumers, soon I will be moving on to another service.

Here is a copy of my BBB complaint FYI:

Primary Nature of your Complaint:

Comcast is a customer unfriendly business and I regret having started an account with them.

I have a TV and Internet account with Comcast for my residence in Kennesaw, Ga.

Three weeks ago I approved additional programing from them which added to my $112.46 monthly billing for a Double Play Bundle with Showtime and HBO.

Tell Us About Your Problem:

On 6/29/13 their bill covering the new and updated service arrived and it was for $140.81 and included a charge of $2.99 for 'Change of Service'.

I was never informed of any such $2.99 charge and called their customer non-service number 404 266 2278 to protest the charge.  I spoke initially to a Joseph, he could not comprehend my inquiry and switched me to representative Erica.

I was told that this was a 'standard' charge for ANY change of service and it was compared by Erica to those charges by airlines when you change your travel plans.

This representative was adamant that they would not change the charge.  I told her to cancel my account. 

I was transferred to a second Erica in the Retention Dept.  I repeated yet again my annoyance with finding this stealth charge on my account.  I was never told that there would be a charge to upgrade my service.  If I had been told it would cost me additional money to increase my bill with Comcast I would have told them to forget it.

Less that $2.99 my bill went up by $25.36 and I told the retention dept employee that I was not about to be billed an additional $2.99 to change my service to spend an additional $25 with them and I told Erica #2 to close my Comcast account and that I objected to how they did business by adding these charges without disclosing them to the customers.

Erica #2 told me that there was no absolute requirement to make any such charge and that it was entirely up to the original representative if the charge was made.  It seems that the original customer service representative and also Erica #1 thought that I was just another dumb customer who they could get away with fleecing for an additional three bucks.  Probably they do this with all customers and just hope no one notices and probably most people do NOT notice.  I am one of those customers who actually reads their bills and I noticed it at once.

Erica #2 told me the charge would be reversed and a credit issued.  Based on that I continued my Comcast service but I am not pleased with how this firm tries to fleece their customers.

I doubt that I will remain with them much longer.

Desired Outcome:

Comcast should be required to disclose such stealth charges in advance so that customers can make an informed decision as to agreeing to make a change in service.  If I had known of the $2.99 charge I would NOT have added an additional $25 worth of service and would have simply remained at the prior $112 level of service.