[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WZZM Grand Rapids Over 50 seniors displaced by fire at Battle Creek apartment complex 6-20-14.flv[/flv]

WZZM in Grand Rapids covers the fire in an independent living complex that left at least 50 seniors homeless and facing big bills from Comcast. (1:53)

At least 50 seniors residing in an independent living complex in Battle Creek, Mich., were burned out of their apartments after a devastating fire in late June. Some of the fixed income seniors lost everything they owned.

Despite the understanding and patience of credit card companies, banks, insurance companies, AT&T, and the local power utility — all willing to wait for payments or waive billing for those affected, one company stood out for its plan to collect damages from the fire victims: Comcast.

The Area Agency on Aging, working to help the victims, reached out to local Battle Creek media to report Comcast’s local agents were aggressively seeking compensation from the displaced seniors after learning about the fire.

“They want $120 for each cable box, despite the fact these seniors just lost their homes and many are low-income,” Carla Fales, CEO of the agency told WWMT-TV.

Comcast’s response: “Everything destroyed must be paid for.”

As is often the case, once Comcast’s disagreeable behavior becomes a headline on the 6 o’clock local news, public relations damage control begins.

When WWMT called Comcast’s corporate offices, the cable company assured the newsroom Comcast would probably waive the fees, but provided no guarantees.

“I can assure everyone there is a process in place; we are working individually with customers to help them in this difficult time,” offered a Comcast spokesperson.

Monday night, Battle Creek Mayor Dave Walters told WWMT that fire victims will not be held responsible for the cost of the lost equipment.

But some may be mired in paperwork to avoid the lost/damaged equipment fees.

Affected residents who were insured at the time of the fire still have to reimburse Comcast through a damage claim filed with their insurance company. Those uninsured will be asked to submit a fire report which must be requested from the local fire department. In some cases, customers may also asked to offer a notarized statement indicating they were not insured to avoid the $120 charge.

But before any of that happens, Comcast also traditionally requires customers to pay any past due balances on their account before equipment credits can be provided.

Comcast’s zeal for charging penalties for lost or damaged equipment is not limited to Michigan.

In January, a Tennessee woman’s home went up in flames and was quickly declared a total loss. The only company to give the family a hard time was Comcast, who billed them $550 for four used cable boxes and a rented cable modem melted in the fire.

“I thought, ‘What are they trying to do to me?'” Emma Hilton said. “I’ve done went through a fire. I tried to salvage what I can.”

Hilton was unsure what exactly Comcast expected the fire department to do about the cable company’s equipment.

“(Firefighters) couldn’t get the TV’s. They were burning,” she told WJHL-TV.

Despite the fact her landlord leveled the rest of the uninhabitable home, Comcast still wanted to get paid if she could not recover the equipment from the ashes.

“You mean they’re actually going to charge me for those cable boxes and after I told you I had a fire?'” Hilton said of one of her phone conversations with the cable provider.

Comcast told her to read the contract, which leaves responsibility for the cable equipment entirely up to the customer. Comcast includes a strong recommendation to keep up a renter’s or homeowner’s insurance policy. Now customers know why.

In the past six years of covering these stories, Stop the Cap! has found many renters who simply don’t bother with renter’s insurance, mistakenly assuming the landlord’s own insurance policy covers their damages. But it does not. A renter’s insurance policy typically costs about $100 a year and covers the renter’s personal belongings (and cable boxes). Some policies also cover displaced living expenses — food, a hotel room, etc. They also cover liability in the event a guest is injured inside your rental property. Some cable companies demand up to $500 for each lost or damaged piece of equipment — an unnecessary point of stress and expense right after a major negative event. Get insurance. It’s a bargain.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWMT Grand Rapids Seniors Asked to Pay Comcast for Damaged Boxes 6-20-14.flv[/flv]

WWMT in Grand Rapids covers Comcast’s initial resistance to giving seniors a break on fire-damaged cable equipment after their senior living complex was heavily damaged in a fire. (1:38)

Omario Kris Henley Carlyle, 33, was charged with burglary and two counts of battery after kicking in the door of two Florida Comcast customers and attacking them.

At the recent Public Service Commission hearing held in Buffalo, I promised the commissioners a comparison of the type of service Comcast customers have gotten in the past vs. what Time Warner Cable customers have received. Neither company is a prize by any means, but at least with Time Warner Cable, your chances of surviving a service call unscathed are far better than being robbed, raped, or murdered by one of Comcast’s sketchy sub-contractors.

There are too many examples to bring to light in just one article so we’re launching a regular series of reports, illustrating these are not isolated problems and are unlikely to go away anytime soon.

In today’s edition, Comcast’s image isn’t helped hiring a homeless man who defecated in a customer’s yard, Comcast sub-contractor rapists run amuck, and why you should never leave a Comcast worker alone in your home:

The Chicagoist: “When he cut my throat I thought I was going to be dead,” said Natasha Saine. Saine was attacked in 1996 in Little Rock, Arkansas by Ceotis Franks, an independent contractor paid by Comcast to install their cable service. Franks also, “…raped her, threw her in a bathtub and tried electrocuting her. He even set her bedroom on fire.”

Boston Globe: Braintree Town Council reprimanded Comcast this week after one (homeless) worker for a subcontractor it hired to hand out flyers door-to-door allegedly defecated in a resident’s yard, and two others were arrested by police on outstanding warrants.

XFINITY Wi-Fi may be here, but good customer service sure isn’t as these Walden residents wait in line over an hour for assistance.

Gloucester Times: A cable television salesman and installer admitted yesterday to swiping jewelry from two apartments in a Route 1 complex where he was working last month. But Brian Kuschner, 37, of Manchester, N.H., is only serving time for one of those thefts, after making an unusual deal with Danvers police. Kuschner was part of a crew of workers hired by a subcontractor for Comcast selling cable packages and upgrading cable service at the upscale Endicott Green Apartments on Route 1 on the evening of Nov. 23 when he was sent to apartment 1303. The resident told police that when she went into the bedroom after Kuschner left she realized that a Rolex watch was missing from a dresser. She immediately called police, who rounded up all the Comcast workers at the complex’s clubhouse.

TCPalm: Comcast cable installer accused of attacking customers in their home in Indian River County – A cable service contractor kicked in the door of a home and attacked two customers at their home Saturday, according to an Indian River County Sheriff’s Office affidavit.

J.R. Roberts Security Strategies/Sacramento Bee: A former cable television installer with a history of sex crimes was sentenced to 37 years in prison Friday for raping a developmentally disabled Carmichael, California woman while working in her neighborhood. Judge Michael T. Garcia sentenced Luis Jeovanny Saravia, 31, in Sacramento Superior Court, closing the criminal prosecution for the 20-year-old woman and her family. Luis Saravia had worked for Links Communication, a Sacramento-based firm contracted by Comcast.

Semmes, Attorneys At Law: How Comcast legally washes its hands of any responsibility for the conduct of their subcontractor installers.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Worst ever customer service from Comcast.mp4[/flv]

In this lighter moment, Comcast kept these customers in Malden, Mass. waiting more than one hour at their customer service center with just one employee barely interacting with customers while the other three service windows remained closed and the line stretched out the door. Finally, someone offering worse service than the DMV! (1:44)

The same Audi ad shown 16 times during one Comcast TV Everywhere On-Demand show.

What would you think about the cable company that offered you on-demand viewing of your favorite shows interrupted repeatedly by the same commercial shown over and over? What would you think of the company whose product appeared 16 times in one hour, filibustering your viewing experience without any ability to fast forward.

Welcome to Comcast’s TV Everywhere, America’s most annoying on-demand video experience.

Rich Greenfield from BTIG Research, a Wall Street analyst firm, sat through a single Audi ad — during a pre-roll and then three times in a row during five commercial breaks, while watching FX’s Americans over Comcast’s TV Everywhere.

“You almost can’t make this up, it is such a horrible viewing experience,” Greenfield said. “I’m starting to hate Audi at this point.”

Other cable companies like Time Warner also show ads during on-demand programming, but most can be fast-forwarded and a typical ad break consists of just one or two short commercials.

With Comcast, “you get the exact same Audi ad all three times during this commercial break as well as every other commercial break during this programming and we tried multiple different episodes. […] The only ad that was running incessantly was this Audi commercial to the point where I’d like to never see this advertisement again.”

With a viewing experience like this, Greenfield speculates the result will be to increasingly drive viewers to Netflix and Amazon Prime for commercial-free viewing instead of suffering through more than eight minutes of Audi advertising.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/BTIG The Ad Problems Within TV Everywhere 7-2-14.mp4[/flv]

BTIG Research’s Rich Greenfield shows off the endemic problems of Comcast’s TV Everywhere on-demand viewing: Advertising torture hell for customers. (4:08)

Bad enough

A big company needs a big name, and so what if you can’t say it out loud, so long as your check reaches the cable cartel on time to avoid those inconvenient late fees.

The shock waves of the $45 billion dollar proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable (not to mention AT&T and DirecTV) have reached as far as Great Britain where appalled editorial writers in the British press are pondering whether Washington has lost its mind or just its integrity… or a combination of both, by actually contemplating the unthinkable rebirth of the American Robber Baron.

Only instead of railroads powering America’s early 20th century economy, today its broadband. Overseas, broadband is plentiful, fast, and cheap. Back home, cable operators are hard at work in a comfortable monopoly/duopoly working on excuses to justify Internet rationing with usage caps, outrageous equipment rental fees, rate hikes, and usage billing for a product about as cheap to offer as a phone call on one of those unlimited calling plans you probably already have.

From The Economist:

“On “OUTLAW”, a drama that aired on NBC, a Supreme Court justice leaves the bench to join a law firm. In real life he might have begun working for Comcast, America’s largest cable company, which owns NBC. Many of Washington’s top brass are on Comcast’s payroll, including Margaret Attwell Baker, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), America’s telecoms regulator, who in government had helped approve Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal in 2011. Even Barack Obama has Comcast ties. “I have been here so much, the only thing I haven’t done in this house is have seder dinner,” he quipped at a fundraiser hosted last year at the home of David Cohen, Comcast’s chief lobbyist.

“It helps to have influential friends, especially if you are seeking to expand your grip on America’s pay-TV and broadband markets.

“[…] The deal would create a Goliath far more fearsome than the latest ride at the Universal Studios theme park (also Comcast-owned). Comcast has said it would forfeit 3m subscribers, but even with that concession the combination of the two firms would have around 30m—more than 30% of all TV subscribers and around 33% of broadband customers. In the cable market alone (ie, not counting suppliers of satellite services such as DirecTV), Comcast has as much as 55% of all TV and broadband subscribers.

Worse

“Comcast will argue that its share of customers in any individual market is not increasing. That is true only because cable companies decided years ago not to compete head-to-head, and divided the country among themselves. More than three-quarters of households have no choice other than their local cable monopoly for high-speed, high-capacity internet.

“For consumers the deal would mean the union of two companies that are already reviled for their poor customer service and high prices. Greater size will fix neither problem. Mr Cohen has said, “We’re certainly not promising that customer bills are going to go down or even that they’re going to increase less rapidly.” Between 1995 and 2012 the average price of a cable subscription increased at a compound annual rate of more than 6%.”

Before blaming it all on President Obama’s close relationship with Comcast’s top executives, it was the Republicans in Washington that set this tragic monopolistic farce into motion. Michael Powell, President George W. Bush’s idea of the best man in America to protect the public interest at the FCC, represented the American people about as well as ‘Heckuva Job Brownie.’ Instead of promoting competition, Powell used his time to beef-up his résumé for a very cushy post-government job heading America’s top cable lobby – the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. Attwell-Baker was even more shameless, departing the FCC for her sweet new executive digs at Comcast just a short time after enthusiastically voting in favor of its NBCUniversal merger deal.

Powell and others made certain that Internet Service Providers would not be classified as “common carriers,” which would require them to rent their broadband pipes at a reasonable wholesale rate to competitors. The industry and their well-compensated friends in the House and Senate argued such a status would destroy investment in broadband expansion and innovation. Instead it destroyed the family budget as prices for mediocre service in uncompetitive markets soared. Today, consumers in common carrier countries including France and Britain pay a fraction of what Americans do for Internet access, and get faster speeds as well.

Letting Comcast grow even larger, The Economist argues, will allow one company to dominate not just your Internet experience, but also the content consumers access and at what speed.

“There is plenty for Mr Obama and Mr Cohen to discuss at their next dinner,” concludes the magazine. “But better yet, officials could keep their distance from Comcast, and reject a merger that would reduce competition, provide no benefit to consumers and sap the incentive to innovate.”

Considering the enormous sums of money Comcast has shown a willingness to spend on winning over supporters for its business agenda, restraint on the part of Washington will need voter vigilance, much the same way calling out non-profits who gush over Comcast while quietly cashing their contribution checks must also be fully exposed to regulators who will ultimately decide the fate of the merger.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Antitrust Us.mp4[/flv]

Antitrust Us: Cartoonist Mark Fiore takes on the corporate idea that merging cable companies together creates more competition. (1:50)

Nearly 2,000 New York residents and counting have urged the state Public Service Commission to reject the proposed merger of Time Warner Cable and Comcast.

A review of the comments finds little interest in compromise and setting conditions in return for merger approval. Those commenting overwhelmingly want nothing to do with Comcast even if the company agrees to broaden its Internet Essentials program for the poor or agrees to continue voluntarily supporting Net Neutrality principles.

Consumers Union stormed the streets of Philadelphia during Comcast’s annual shareholder meeting to protest its merger deal with Time Warner Cable.

“There are ample examples of the rottenness of Comcast,” wrote I. VanKeuren from Wallkill. “It seems to me that instead of holding hearings on a possible merger of these two bad companies, the PSC should be investigating why Comcast has been so bad for so long.”

VanKeuren is hardly alone in his thinking.

A new survey from the Consumer Reports National Research Center found scant support for the merger among Americans.

The survey found 56% of Americans oppose the merger, and only 11% of respondents were in favor of it, with the rest either undecided or resigned to the belief it is out of their hands.

Cable companies rank among the least trusted organizations that most Americans do business with, so it’s not surprising that the people are concerned. Seventy-four percent of the public says they believe that prices will rise if the merger goes through, and two-thirds say that Comcast will have less incentive to improve customer service. The study, which drew on a nationally representative pool of 1,573 people, was conducted on behalf of the Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.

“Most Americans don’t have time to follow complicated corporate mergers but this deal has definitely captured the public’s attention,” Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union, said. “Consumers are tired of rising monthly bills and lousy customer service for cable and Internet and have little faith that this mega merger will make things any better.”  The new Comcast would control more than two-thirds of all cable television subscribers in the country, and nearly 40 percent of the high-speed Internet market.

Those statistics and past experiences dealing with Comcast have New York consumers like VanKeuren concerned.

“If […] the PSC approves this merger, then the PSC itself should [itself] be investigated with a complete reorganization as its goal,” said VanKeuren.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/No ComcastTime Warner Mega Merger 5-23-14.mp4[/flv]

Consumers Union protested outside of Comcast’s annual meeting in Philadelphia in opposition to its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. (1:48)