Comcast sued for $100 million by Washington state

KOMO

 Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a $100 million consumer lawsuit against Comcast.

The lawsuit accuses Comcast of "engaging in a pattern of deceptive practices." It asserts that the company’s own documents reveal a pattern of illegally deceiving its customers to pad its bottom line by tens of millions of dollars.

Comcast said in a statement that it intends to fight the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges more than 1.8 million individual violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act. The Attorney General's Office says 500,000 Washington consumers were affected.

The lawsuit accuses Comcast of misleading Washington consumers and deceiving them into paying at least $73 million in subscription fees over the last five years for what the attorney general says is a a near-worthless protection plan. Customers who sign up for Comcast’s Service Protection Plan pay a $4.99 monthly fee to avoid being charged if a Comcast technician visits their home.

But the plan did not cover wiring inside a wall, the lawsuit says.

The Attorney General Office says 75 percent of the time, customers who contacted Comcast were told the plan covered inside wiring. Customer service scripts, which the Attorney General's Office said it obtained during its investigation, told Comcast representatives to say that the plan covers calls "related to inside wiring" and "wiring inside your home."

The Attorney General's Office says that Comcast misrepresents the limitations of several other elements of the plan, including its coverage of service calls related to consumer-owned equipment and the repair of cable jumpers, connectors and splitters.