Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Joint Staff Report: Some Cable and Satellite Companies Do Not Refund Customer Overcharges

As part of its investigation of cable and satellite television companies, the Subcommittee reviewed how five companies—Charter Communications, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, and Dish (also known as “multichannel video programming distributors” or “MVPDs”)—identify and correct overcharges caused by company billing errors. The Subcommittee reviewed how the MVPDs investigate and remedy these billing errors, with particular focus on their efforts to make overcharged customers whole. We found that the MVPDs vary greatly with respect to how they handle billing overcharges.

First, throughout the time period examined by the Subcommittee, Time Warner Cable and Charter made no effort to trace equipment overcharges to their origin unless customers specifically asked them to and did not provide notice or refunds to customers.
Second, other MVPDs have invested effort and resources to prevent overcharges and provide refunds or credits to customers who have overpaid. Comcast and DirecTV provide automatic refunds or credits to overcharged customers, while Dish’s billing system is designed to prevent these types of overcharges from occurring in the first place.
Third, based on data provided by Time Warner Cable and Charter, the Subcommittee estimated how much Time Warner Cable and Charter have overbilled customers nationwide.