Although it seems all hope is lost for fairness when dealing with a cable company, a group of 23 people tried to level the playing field by scamming Comcast out of $2.4 million when they (illegally) offered some customers premium packages at reduced rates for a fee of $150. The scam signed up nearly 6,000 customers, according to The Inquirer, and the main perps pocketed a few hundred grand each in the process. The scammers recruited people in bars, beauty parlors, and on the street, and offered them a chance to, “have promotional discounts applied to their cable accounts, giving them premium channels and lower rates they weren’t entitled to.” The Robin-Hoods-of-premium-cable would access the Comcast system by “using the computer identification of a worker on disability, one who had been discharged, and others who were taking days off.”

And Comcast … didn’t even seem to notice. The scam was found out when the people behind it offered the deal to a Comcast employee while she sat in a beauty shop, which then launched an undercover operation. The operation led to the arrest of the alleged ringleader, and a search of his home uncovered $100,000 in an attache case and “the scheme’s records, written in longhand in ringed notebooks.” So, Robin Hood? Maybe. Criminal mastermind? Not exactly. Five of the scammers have been arrested, and 18 remain at large. As for the people who just wanted some special channels for a lower rate from the random dude who stopped them in the bar they were in? Comcast will reportedly work to put them on actual authorized packages and will not ask them for retroactive payments, which is great, because having to watch The Hangover Part 2 as it endlessly repeats on HBO is punishment enough.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012 at 12:15 pm.