A few things are certain in life: Death, taxes and monthly cable bills that keep going up. However, Ars Technica has found that filing formal complaints about cable prices with the Federal Communications Commission is a surprisingly effective way to get your bill slashed.
BACKGROUND: Major FCC study finds cable bills have been rising at over triple the rate of inflation
“Two customers, one of Comcast and one of Time Warner Cable, told Ars that the cable providers gave them price breaks last week shortly after they complained to the FCC about what they claim are unfair billing practices,” the publication writes. “The FCC’s net neutrality order also reclassified broadband providers as common carriers, allowing for penalties if their billing practices are ‘unjust’ or ‘unreasonable.'”
What’s interesting is that the FCC specifically says that it doesn’t handle cases like this individually at all and only says that “the collective data we receive helps us keep a pulse on what consumers are experiencing, may lead to investigations and serves as a deterrent to the companies we regulate.” In other words, simply filing a complaint against your cable company with the FCC isn’t enough to get the commission to take up your specific case.
That said, it does seem like the cable companies themselves are paying attention to these complaints because they don’t want any additional government scrutiny. To file a complaint with the FCC, you should visit this website that includes different pages for filing complaints about TV services, Internet services, phone services and more. There’s no guarantee that your complaint will be fully resolved, of course, but it never hurts to try.
Read more about the specific complaints that cable customers filed with the FCC to get their bills lowered by clicking here.
