Happy holidays everyone. I'm hoping someone can shed light on this Comcast billing practice I keep seeing. Business clients here in Boise are getting billed "Professional Installation" fees of $199.99 every 3-4 months on their internet accounts. When I call Comcast, they claim it's for "service optimization visits" or "network maintenance upgrades." But my clients say no technician ever shows up. One client has paid $1,600 in these phantom installation fees over the past two years. Is this a regional scam or are others seeing this nationwide?
Comcast Business "Installation" fees that never end
Alice, I've seen similar issues with Comcast Business in Kansas. They bill "Professional Installation" for things like modem firmware updates that happen automatically. In one case, a client was charged $199 for an "installation" that consisted of a remote configuration change that took Comcast 5 minutes. The rep told me it was legitimate because a "technician performed work on the account" - even though it was done from their network operations center.
This is exactly why I hate dealing with Comcast. Here in Mississippi they pulled the same stunt with a restaurant client - charged $199 for "Professional Installation" when all they did was increase the client's bandwidth from 50Mbps to 100Mbps. No truck roll, no technician visit, just a configuration change. When I complained, they said it was a "professional service upgrade installation" and refused to refund it. Pure theft.
I'm new to telecom auditing but this sounds familiar. Here in Arizona, Cox Communications does something similar with their business accounts. They call them "Service Enhancement Installations" and charge $149.99 each time they make any change to the account - even changes the customer requests online through their portal. It's like they're charging installation fees for clicking buttons on their website.
Thanks for confirming this isn't just a Boise thing. Rachel, that Cox practice sounds identical to what Comcast is doing. Brenda, I bet if we dug deeper we'd find all the major cable companies are using similar billing schemes. The frustrating part is their customer service reps are trained to defend these charges as legitimate when they're clearly bogus. Has anyone had success getting these fees reversed?
Alice, I've had some success with Comcast but you have to escalate beyond the regular customer service reps. File a formal complaint with your state's public utilities commission and copy Comcast's executive customer relations team. In Memphis, I got a client a $2,400 refund for phantom installation fees by documenting that no actual installation work was performed. The key is proving no technician visited the premises and no equipment was installed or changed.