Charter must pay $19 million for tricking customers into switching ISPs:
A judge has ordered Charter Communications to pay $19.2 million to Windstream for lying to customers in order to trick them into switching from Windstream to Charter's Spectrum Internet service. Charter also faces a $5,279 penalty for shutting off service to hundreds of Windstream's resale customers.
When Windstream filed for bankruptcy in early 2019, Charter began a "literally false and intentionally misleading advertising campaign intended to create the impression, using mailings designed to seem as if they were coming from the Debtors [Windstream], that the Debtors were going out of business," said an order issued Thursday by Judge Robert Drain of US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Charter's goal with the mailings "was to induce the Debtors' customers to terminate their contracts and switch to Charter by sending them literally false and intentionally misleading information about the Debtors' bankruptcy cases and financial wherewithal," the ruling said. Charter premised its ad campaign "on false assertions regarding the Debtors' bankruptcy cases," the ruling said.
"We are gratified that Judge Drain's ruling means Charter will have to pay a significant price for its egregious false advertising," Windstream General Counsel Kristi Moody said, according to a FierceTelecom article. "Charter knew full well what it was doing when it embarked on a dishonest scare-tactic campaign to lure away our customers. At Windstream, we will always aggressively defend ourselves and our customers against predatory schemes and meritless allegations."
Charter declined to comment on the ruling when contacted by Ars today.
As mentioned in a related Gizmodo article:
Ironically, Charter had filed a lawsuit against DirecTV in 2009 for giving its customers a false impression they would lose their service because of Charter's bankruptcy filing.
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It's no surprise that cable companies charge lower prices for broadband when they face competition from fiber-to-the-home services. But an article yesterday by Stop the Cap provides a good example of how dramatically promotional prices for Charter's Spectrum Internet service can vary from one street to the next.
In this example, Charter charges $20 more per month for slower speeds on the street where it faces no serious competition. When customers in two areas purchase the same speeds, the customer on the street without competition could have to pay $40 more per month and would have their promotional rates expire after only one year instead of two.
Stop the Cap said it examined promotional offers to new customers in the metro Rochester, New York, market, "where Spectrum faces token competition from Frontier's slow speed DSL service" and more robust competition in limited areas from Greenlight Networks' fiber service. Greenlight fiber is available in 23 percent of Rochester, while Charter cable is available to homes throughout the city, according to BroadbandNow. Greenlight prices start at $50 per month for 500Mbps.
"Charter's offers are address-sensitive," Stop the Cap founder Phillip Dampier wrote. "The cable company knows its competition and almost exactly where those competitors offer service. That is why the company asks for your service address before it quotes you pricing."
Am I the only one that's appalled at the Upload speeds? From the linked BroadbandNow page for Spectrum: Speeds up to:1,000 Mbps Download, 35 Mbps Upload
Previously:
Charter Must Pay $19 Million for Tricking Customers Into Switching ISPs
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 21 2021, @12:12AM
Ermagerd
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday May 21 2021, @12:25AM (1 child)
While the editors are working on getting us all back to our own timeline, let's take care not to talk about the future lest someone on the past internet sees it and history is changed irrevocably.
I mean... greetings, internet goers! It's April 14th, and what a nice day it is! How about that Darwin's Arch? Still standing strong as ever, eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 21 2021, @01:48AM
You don't think we should warn then about muskybro?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 21 2021, @12:27AM
* He getting that sweet sweet sugar all up the butt.
* names changed to protect involved parties