Charter sued by New York Attorney General over fraudulent internet speed claims

[William Gayde]

In a news conference this morning, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he was filing a lawsuit against Charter Communications over slower than advertised speeds. The suit seeks compensation for Charter customers, starting in 2012, that received speeds slower than what they paid for.

Charter Communications is the parent company of Spectrum, the former Time Warner Cable. Schneiderman was very upfront in his criticism of Charter saying customers have "long suspected" the fraud and that had been indeed been ripped off.

Schneiderman's report culminates a 16-month investigation in which the office determined that customers on the 300Mbps plan received only 85Mbps on average. In the lawsuit, he claims Charter employees knew network issues would cause slow speeds, but they continued to falsely advertise the higher speed plans. Wi-Fi speeds were found to be up to 80% deficient as well.

My suit seeks compensation for the millions of subscribers who Spectrum-TWC knowingly defrauded: https://t.co/qdscWE5ymu pic.twitter.com/9dgvNICx2H

— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) February 1, 2017

An internal email revealed sales personnel routinely installed out-of-date modems that weren't even physically capable of speeds above 100Mbps, and that Spectrum planned to continue this practice. Spectrum also ignored complaints from its own engineers over the technical limitations of the hardware.

The investigation was started when Charter bought Time Warner Cable, then renamed to Spectrum. Slower than advertised speeds were found right away and the attorney general's office issued a warning in June 2016, but it appears nothing was done about it. Charter claims they are "disappointed" in the lawsuit since it covers speeds from before the acquisition.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/67994-charter-sued-new-york-attorney-general-over-fraudulent.html

 

[Uncle Al]

BRAVO!!!!! Charter has been scamming people around my area for years and when you show them the speed documents, they claim that only theirs are correct ......

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Sheisters. I hope Charter pay through the nose and their top brass hung out to dry.

 

[Kibaruk]

This looks like a massive and deserved shut storm. Kudos general attorney!

 

[EEatGDL]

BRAVO!!!!! Charter has been scamming people around my area for years and when you show them the speed documents, they claim that only theirs are correct ......

I usually arrive skeptic to these kind of articles thinking about someone trying to get easy money because the provided service only deliver on 95% of what it promises. But after reading all the details this is no doubt some sh**y behavior from an abusive company; cheers for everyone who benefits from this outcome.

 

[gusticles41]

His graphs are targeting "wifi speeds", which are impacted by router location/performance, building structure and interference. The only thing that really matters is performance off of the modem. I'm curious what percentage of these customers were on outdated modems, and how much of it was poor network infrastructure in NYC.

 

[EClyde]

This is GREAT. There is not one vendor that does not lie about their product

 

[Uncle Al]

His graphs are targeting "wifi speeds", which are impacted by router location/performance, building structure and interference. The only thing that really matters is performance off of the modem. I'm curious what percentage of these customers were on outdated modems, and how much of it was poor network infrastructure in NYC.

Spectrum provides ALL their cable modems and actually insists you use theirs rather than your own ..... which might explain how they were able to hide it for so long!

 

[wiyosaya]

BRAVO!!!!! Charter has been scamming people around my area for years and when you show them the speed documents, they claim that only theirs are correct ......

From my experience with TWC, that is not the only way that they scam their customers.

His graphs are targeting "wifi speeds", which are impacted by router location/performance, building structure and interference. The only thing that really matters is performance off of the modem. I'm curious what percentage of these customers were on outdated modems, and how much of it was poor network infrastructure in NYC.

Spectrum provides ALL their cable modems and actually insists you use theirs rather than your own ..... which might explain how they were able to hide it for so long!

Interesting. I've been on TWC for quite some time, and have had my own modem for over three years now. So far, I have not been notified that I need to use one of their modems.

However, if you have phone service, they do require that you use their modem for whatever reason. I will assume, given past experiences with TWC, that there would be no problem with a phone service user having their own modem.

 

[gusticles41]

From my experience with TWC, that is not the only way that they scam their customers.
Interesting. I've been on TWC for quite some time, and have had my own modem for over three years now. So far, I have not been notified that I need to use one of their modems.

However, if you have phone service, they do require that you use their modem for whatever reason. I will assume, given past experiences with TWC, that there would be no problem with a phone service user having their own modem.

I have Spectrum, too. They do include the modem with setup, but you're welcome to use your own. I'm not charged anything extra to use theirs, nor does it have an impact on my 60 down 5 up speeds, so...meh.

 

[Mogymog]

I have Charter Spectrum internet, have had it for over a year. Other then the occasional outage, I actually get MORE then the speeds they say I should get... I live in a tiny middle of no where town, and I get better speeds then advertised.. So, I don't complain. But hard to imagine all these big cities getting crap on their end.