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Comcast accused of illegally pulling credit reports despite being explicitly told ‘no’

Published Jan 15th, 2015 11:46AM EST
Why Is Comcast So Bad

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Another day, another unhappy Comcast customer. The International Business Times reports that Chicago resident and Comcast subscriber Keith Santangelo has filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that it ran an unauthorized credit check on him despite the fact that he paid the company a $50 fee to waive the check and that he explicitly told the company he didn’t want them to pull his credit report.

RELATED: Man spends 4 hours on the phone trying to get his Comcast service fixed… and it still didn’t work

The lawsuit says that Santangelo isn’t alone either as it alleges that “numerous reports of customers experiencing a credit inquiry from Comcast after deposit to avoid said inquiry.” To back up its claim, the lawsuit points to several customers on Comcast customer support forums who have complained about having their credit reports pulled despite paying $50 to have the check waived. IBT notes that some customers on the forums “accused Comcast of initiating a so-called hard pull, which can downgrade credit scores and remain on a person’s score for two years.”

We reached out to Comcast but the company says it’s not commenting on this particular lawsuit. Given what we’ve seen about how insanely fragmented and disjointed the company’s customer service operation is, however, we wouldn’t be surprised if these credit reports were pulled entirely by accident and with no company records of them having been pulled.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.