State: Time Warner Cable Defrauded Customers By Advertising Internet Speeds It Couldn’t Provide

Back in 2015, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched a statewide effort to measure residents’ broadband speeds to see if they were getting the “blazing fast” internet access that the service providers advertised. Today, Schneiderman announced his office is suing New York City’s biggest broadband provider for not only failing to live up to its promises, but for allegedly knowing that many customers couldn’t possibly see the speeds that TWC promised

“For years, Time Warner Cable promised New York families ‘blazing fast’ and ‘super reliable’ service,” said Schneiderman in a press event announcing the lawsuit. The reality, claims the AG, is that TWC’s service was “neither fast nor reliable.”

According to the complaint [PDF] filed today in a New York state court, Time Warner Cable engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud customers.

The state claims that TWC deliberately neglected its network and didn’t provide upgraded equipment to customers, meaning many broadband subscribers were unable to see the speeds the company marketed to them.

The lawsuit cites an internal company presentation from June 2013, where TWC staff acknowledged that 75% of the modems associated with the 20 Mbps broadband plan could not actually deliver that speed. And yet, that memo notes that this outdated hardware was “still being deployed due to budget restraints,” and “no communications have been sent to the existing customer base” to tell them they should swap out their modems for compliant devices.

At the time, according to the complaint, this presentation recommended against recycling these modems to new customers and for swapping them out with new devices.

In fact, the company even convinced the FCC to not include data from these older modems in its annual report of broadband speeds, based on the promise that they would be replaced.

However, the state contends that only select TWC customers who had volunteered for the FCC’s study received new modems and “VIP treatment,” while the rest of the company’s customer base continued to use antiquated equipment.

Meanwhile, notes the lawsuit, TWC made a sales push in New York City, encouraging customers to upgrade to faster — and more expensive — tiers of service, but “without ever checking whether the modems it leased to subscribers were capable of actually supporting their new speed plans.”

The issue is still a problem in some parts of TWC’s market, says the state, which found that — as of Feb. 2016 — there were still 185,000 TWC customers in New York with deficient modems.

The state also took issue with TWC’s marketing of its WiFi routers, claiming they could not deliver the in-home speeds that the company touted.

In 2014, a TWC Vice President noted that the company-supplied routers were not going to provide the high-speed access promised to the company’s more expensive service tiers, telling his colleagues that “we are going to experience a mismatch between what we sell the customer and what they actually measure on their laptop/tablet/etc.”

“The allegations confirm what millions of New Yorkers have long suspected: Spectrum-Time Warner Cable has been ripping you off,” said Schneiderman, claiming that even after the merger with Charter, “Spectrum-Time Warner Cable continues to offer Internet speeds that we found they cannot reliably deliver.”

In a statement to Consumerist, a rep for Charter says the company is “disappointed” that Schneiderman is suing over broadband speeds that were measured before Charter acquired TWC.

“Charter made significant commitments to New York state as part of our merger with Time Warner Cable in areas of network investment, broadband deployment and offerings, customer service and jobs,” claims the company. “In addition, Charter was among the highest rated broadband providers in the 2016 FCC Broadband Report. Charter has already made substantial investments in the interest of upgrading the Time Warner Cable systems and delivering the best possible experience to customers. We will continue to invest in our business and deliver the highest quality services to our customers while we defend against these allegations involving Time Warner Cable practices.”

Last summer, while the state was still reviewing the data it had collected, internet advocate and special adviser to the AG’s office Tim Wu told Charter that the numbers were “troubling,” and that it looked like TWC had “been failing to take adequate or necessary steps to keep pace with the demand of [their] consumers.”

“It appears that TWC has been advertising its WiFi in ways that defy the technology’s technical capabilities,” wrote Wu at the time, “and has been provisioning some of its customers with equipment that simply cannot achieve the higher bandwidths the company has sold to them.”

Skoal, Copenhagen & Other Smokeless Tobaccos Recalled For Containing Metal Fragments

Putting smokeless tobacco in your mouth is one thing, putting smokeless tobacco containing metal fragments in your mouth is another. After receiving several reports of customers finding metal objects in their tobacco cans, tobacco giant Altria is recalling several of its most popular brands.

Altria Group’s U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. unit announced this week the recall of an unspecified number of cans of dozens of brands, including Copenhagen, Cope, and Skoal.

The recall was initiated after USSTC received eight complaints from customers from Indiana, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Ohio that cans of the tobacco included visible, sharp fragments of metal.

None of the complaints included reports of injuries, Altria says in a statement.

The affected products were manufactured at USSTC’s Franklin Park, IL, facility and shipped to retailers nationally.

USSTC urged wholesalers and retailers to remove the affected products from their inventories. Customers who have purchased the affected products should not open or use them, Altria says, noting that the cans can be returned for a full refund by calling 1-866-201-9136.

Affected products include:

Looking For “Facebook Customer Service” Online? Don’t Call This Scammy Number

When it comes to customer service, Facebook is notoriously difficult deal with, which is why people go searching on Google and elsewhere for any sort of reliable contact information for the site. But beware: There’s a scammy phone number lurking on the internet, passing itself off as “Facebook customer service.”

NPR’s All Tech Considered says plugging that phrase into a search engine brought up a top search with a phone number suggested: 844-735-4595. If you call it, you may get a human being on the line — but not anyone affiliated with Facebook.

When NPR gave the phone number to a company called Pindrop, which specializes in phone fraud, a researcher called the number and was connected to a call center operator named “Steven” in India, who was posing as a Facebook employee.

The researcher played along and said he was locked out of his Facebook account and needs help getting back in, so “Steven” tells him to go to Walmart or Target.

Wait, what?

“Just walk up over there and tell them to provide you an iTunes card,” Steven told the researcher. “OK? And on the backside of that iTunes card there would be a 16-digit security code.”

He then directed the researcher to call back on the same phone number and hand over the 16-digit security code in order to get a new password for the account.

If alarm bells aren’t ringing in your head yet, they should be: Facebook will never ask you to buy an iTunes gift card to regain access to your account — no le imitate social media company would do this, either.

As the Federal Trade Commission puts it, “If you’re not shopping at the iTunes store, you shouldn’t be paying with an iTunes gift card.” The same goes for Amazon gift cards, PayPal, reloadable cards like MoneyPak, Reloadit, or Vanilla, or by wiring money through services like Western Union or MoneyGram.

(If you spot a scam like this, you can file a complaint with the FTC.)

Facebook tells NPR that it’s been investigating the group associated with this toll-free number for some time and that it’s been targeting many platforms, not just Facebook, but that it’ up to search engines like Google to decide which search results to display.

To that end, a Google spokesperson said in a statement to NPR that the company has taken steps to remove the fraudulent number. Indeed, when we tried performing the same search, the scammy number wasn’t included in the results.

Need to contact Facebook for real? The only way is to go through the company’s online help portal.

VW To Pay $1.25B To Buy Back, Fix Cars With Emissions-Cheating ‘Defeat Devices’

And just like that, Volkswagen’s years-long “Dieselgate” scandal is nearing a conclusion as the carmaker has finally reached an agreement with federal regulators to fix and compensate owners of 78,000 3-liter diesel engine vehicles equipped with so-called defeat devices. 

The Federal Trade Commission announced the settlement that will see Volkswagen and defeat device supplier Bosch return more than $1.25 billion (in the form of repairs and buybacks) to owners of affected 3-liter diesels.

Wednesday’s settlement [PDF] resolves the FTC’s March lawsuit that accused the carmaker of deceiving consumers with its advertising camping used to promote supposedly “clean diesel” vehicles.

Under the settlement – just the latest on VW’s tab that already includes a $15 billion agreement – owners of nearly 20,000 VW, Audi, and Porsche from model year 2009 to 2012 will be able to sell their car back to the automaker for between $26,000 and $58,000 depending on model, mileage, and trim.

Additionally, owners of approximately 58,000 model year 2013 to 2016 VW, Audi, and Porsche V6 vehicles will have their cars repaired to being them into compliance with emissions standards. These owners will also receive monetary compensation, ranging from $8,500 to $17,600 depending on vehicle.

However, the unspecified modification must first be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. If a fix is not approved, the company will buyback the vehicles, bringing the total value of the settlement to $4 billion.

People who leased an affected vehicle are also eligible for compensation and modifications or repairs, the FTC says. Additionally, certain owners who sold their TDI vehicles after the Volkswagen defeat device issue became public are also eligible for compensation.

With the new settlement, VW says that all U.S.-based owners of vehicles with defeat devices will have a resolution.

“We will continue to work to earn back the trust of all our stakeholders and thank our customers and dealers for their continued patience as this process moves forward,” Hinrich J. Woebcken, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., said in a statement.

ALERT: U.S. Bacon Reserves Hit 50-Year Low Because We Just Can’t Stop Eating Bacon

Crispy, crunchy, fragrant, savory — it’s no mystery that Americans love our bacon. But we’re eating so much of it lately that our nation’s bacon reserves — yes, that exists — are at their lowest levels in 50 years.

According to the Ohio Pork Council, a non-profit out of Columbus, the demand for frozen pork belly, which is often made into bacon, is outstripping supply because pig farmers just can’t keep up.

“Today’s pig farmers are setting historic records by producing more pigs than ever,” Rich Deaton, president of the organization, tells USA Today. “Yet our reserves are still depleting.”

As USA Today puts it, “There are literally not enough little piggies going to market.” In Dec. 2016, America’s frozen pork belly inventory stood at 17.8 million pounds, which is the lowest it’s been since 1957 according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This means when we go to the market, prices might be a bit higher: Pork belly prices spiked 20% in January, the council reports. Increased demand from overseas may have also contributed to the dip in inventory.

Despite the low inventory, there will be enough bacon to satisfy our country.

“While bacon may become more expensive for consumers, rest assured pork industry will not run out of supply,” said Deaton.

Univision Pulls Channels From Charter-Spectrum Lineup

A nasty battle between the nation’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster and the second-largest cable company has resulted in Univision pulling its channels from millions of Charter-Spectrum customers.

This dispute involves Charter’s recent merger with Time Warner Cable, which propelled the formerly mid-tier pay-TV/broadband provider into the rarified air of industry giants like Comcast and DirecTV.

Even though the merged company retained the “Charter” name, Univision says the cable provider insists on paying a carriage rate negotiated for the much larger Time Warner Cable.

TWC’s size allowed it to negotiate better carriage deals with broadcasters, but Univision and others have alleged that Charter is illegally seeking to pay that lower rate.

Unable to reach a deal, Univision ordered Charter to pull its channels — including UniMas, Galavision, Univision Deportes, and its flagship namesake network — from all Charter customers’ cable listings nationwide.

Charter obliged this request, and these stations went dark overnight, but in a statement to Consumerist, Charter maintains that, “We have a contract with Univision and we expect them to honor it.”

Univision, in a separate statement, argues that Charter has “continually rejected all of Univision’s repeated, good-faith efforts to reach an agreement. As a result, Charter has decided to deny its subscribers continued access to Hispanic America’s most popular entertainment and sports, and most trusted news content.”

With the Time Warner Cable acquisition, Charter is now the largest cable-TV provider in Los Angeles and New York City.

[via L.A. Times]

Company Demands Thousands Of Dollars Over Negative Yelp Reviews, Despite Federal Law

In December, after an inexplicably long trip through the legislative process, President Obama signed the Consumer Review Fairness Act, making it illegal for companies to demand that consumers sign away their right to speak honestly. However, not everyone seems to have gotten this message.

The Fairness Act (also referred to as the Consumer Review Freedom Act, an identical version originally passed by the Senate) effectively voids any retail customer agreement clause that seeks to penalize the customer for publishing — or speaking — honest feedback. It also allows the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to go after companies that continue to try to quiet or punish customers with these sorts of clauses.

The law came about after a growing number of businesses — particularly smaller operations — attempted to use so-called “non-disparagement” clauses in their contracts and customer agreements. These clauses generally barred the customer from saying anything negative about their experience with the company, even if it was true.

We brought you a number of extreme examples, like the sketchy website with terms that imposed a financial penalty for customers who merely threatened to share their experience online, or to seek a chargeback from their credit card company. Then there was the wedding contractor who prohibited customers from encouraging others to say negative things about the company.

These were supposed to end with the Fairness Act, but some folks either don’t know about this law or are ignoring it.

We point you to this story from the Public Citizen Consumer Law & Policy Blog, about a Texas tech service company that has been going after some of its customers for thousands of dollars for violating a clause that appears to violate the new law.

The company’s “Customer Satisfaction Policies” include something dubbed a “Social Media & Arbitration Addendum” that declares, “Customers agree not to attack/criticize/disparage/defame” the company or any of its employees publicly, which it describes as “on public forums, blogs, social networks etc.”

Additionally, this lengthy addendum forbids customers from seeking advice on search engine optimization (SEO), “in a way which brings bad name to [the company] or any of its employees, associates or partners.”

That one is a first for us. Not only are you allowed to not say something negative about the company, but you can’t even research how to effectively spread that forbidden message online.

Violating this clause will result in a “flat fee of $2500.00 per instance,” which the company claims will cover the cost associated with restoring its good name, reputation, and “any and all business losses as directly related to your actions or actions of those directly or indirectly influenced by your prohibited action.”

Public Citizen’s Paul Alan Levy — who has been heavily involved in a number of high-profile gag clause cases, including the recent Texas petsitter debacle — tried to find out why this company was still sending out invoices for thousands of dollars after that law was in place.

Levy points to two invoices, both sent out on Dec. 19, seeking huge payouts for violations of this Social Media Addendum. One invoice is for $2,500, because a customer dared to write something on Yelp. The other is for $5,250 — one charge of $2,500 for a Yelp review; another $2,500 for a Google review; and then $250 for “attorneys fees”.

A third invoice — sent a full two weeks after the Fairness Act was in effect — tries to charge the customer $2,975: the $2,500 for the violation of the clause; $250 for the lawyer; a $150 “Chargeback Research Fee” (whatever that is); and then another $75 fee related to the chargeback attempt.

After these invoices, a lawyer representing the company sent retraction demands to the customers, alleging defamation, but without providing concrete examples of defamatory statements, notes Levy.

“Generally speaking when lawyers send demand letters that throw around the word ‘false’ but give no examples, that tends to suggest that they have no sound claims of falsity,” writes Levy. “And besides, having been in touch with three recipients of the letters, and having looked at some of the consumers’ documentation, it appeared to me that there is some justification for a complaint common to many of the Yelp reviews, that the company does not respond promptly to inquiries from customers.”

Even if what the customers had written were defamatory, some of the customers being hit with these invoices and demand letters had published their allegedly offending reviews as far back as 2013. As Levy notes, under the state defamation laws on both California (where these former customers live) and Texas (where the company is based), the statute of limitations had already lapsed.

Neither Levy nor Consumerist has had any luck getting a response from this company about its non-disparagement clause. However, Levy did speak to the lawyer representing the business.

According to Levy, the attorney could not say if this clause was on the company’s website in 2013, or even 2015.

That’s when Levy brought up the question of the Consumer Review Fairness Act, noting that the attorney’s demand letters had been sent out weeks after the law went into effect.

“When I asked him whether he knew about this federal law, he politely terminated the conversation,” says Levy.

This example demonstrates that companies — and perhaps some of their attorneys — are either unaware of the Fairness Act or they are choosing to ignore it.

The law allows both the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to bring claims against companies that continue to try to shut customers up with punitive non-disparagement clauses. The FTC accepts a variety of complaints directly through its website. Check with your state’s attorney general’s office to find out how to make them aware of businesses that are trying to prevent consumers from speaking freely.