Charter Cable: Using Customer Theft Allegations As A Sales Opportunity?

Charter Cable "Cable Theft" Door Tag

The Savvy Consumer, a blog run by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, today shared the story of one customer who contacted the paper to say he found a doorknob hanging flier on his front door that accused him of what the paper called “cable theft”:

During a check of our cable television lines, we discovered your residence is receiving services that are not in your current subscription plan. Based on this information all unauthorized services have been disconnected. If there is an error in our records, please call the number below and we will correct the matter immediately.

The customer called Charter Cable, his local cable operator to protest the flier and claim innocence.

When he reached a representative from the cable company, [he/she] “quickly launched into sales mode and gave him the hard sell on a bundled cable-Internet-phone package.”

“The accused thinks the fliers are just a gimmick to generate sales leads,” The Savvy Consumer writes.

Most cable operators perform regular “system audits” of their service areas, looking for services still activated for customers that operators forgot to disconnect, active cable theft by customers hooking into cable lines themselves, or customers using modified equipment to steal scrambled/encrypted channels.

Many operators do approach customers they feel may be receiving services to which they are not entitled by inviting them to “get legal” and sign up for an authorized package of services, often at the same promotional rates given to new customers.  Many also run “amnesty programs” to let customers get legitimate service without fear of legal penalties for turning themselves in.

Egregious theft of service is prosecuted by the industry, but most have traditionally first tried persuasion to sign up customers before getting law enforcement involved.  They are far less charitable dealing with those who modify and sell equipment to others designed to steal service.

The Savvy Consumer asks any St. Louis-area customers who have received one of these Charter fliers, or otherwise been falsely accused of stealing cable to contact mhathaway@post-dispatch.com with your story.