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Two RCN Telecom Services LLC customers have hit their broadband provider with a class action lawsuit challenging the company’s alleged practice of charging fees beyond the advertised price of service.
The RCN Telecom Services fees class action lawsuit was filed by Katherine Grillo and Christian Reed, who say that they were lured in by the company’s low advertised rates for broadband service. However, they claim that the advertised prices were not the full picture, as the company makes a practice of tacking on a bogus fee onto each monthly statement and disguising it as a tax.
According to Grillo and Reed, they were advertised a flat rate for their service and were told that the only other costs they would incur would be taxes and government-related fees that the company would pass on to the customers. However, this was not the case, they argue.
The RCN class action lawsuit states that a “Network Access and Maintenance Fee” from RCN was not disclosed to them before they signed on as RCN Telecom customers. Allegedly, the first they heard of the “fee” was when looking at their monthly statements that provided an itemized list of the cost of service and other fees.
In this piece of consumer legal news, Grillo and Reed assert that the company attempts to disguise the Network Access and Maintenance Fee as a tax or charge imposed by the government, but this is not the case. Allegedly, it goes directly into the pocket of RCN instead of paying for any government charge.
The customers assert that this deceiving fee allows the company to reap more profit than their low monthly rate would otherwise allow, while getting the benefit of attracting customers in with a low monthly rate.
To make matters worse, the fee has increased steadily over the last couple of years, recount Grillo and Reed. The plaintiffs state that the company began imposing the fee in January 2018, charging $1.97 per month. By January 2020, the charge was allegedly $4.37 per month, representing a notable increase to what customers are charged overall.
Grillos says that she was charged $61.68 in total for these fees while she was a RCN customer. Reed says he was charged a total of $87.90 for the fees.
The RCN false ad pricing class action lawsuit notes that the company includes a disclosure in small print on a customer’s statement informing them that they can get more information about the charges on the company’s website. If a customer does follow this instruction, they can only access stated information about the fees buried under a number of pages, state Grillo and Reed.
After navigating through multiple pages, a customer can then access a description of the fee that calls the Network Access and Maintenance Fee a fee that accounts for “costs associated with building and maintaining RCN’s fiber rich broadband network, as well as the costs of expanding network capacity to support the continued increase in customers’ average bandwidth consumption.”
The customers go on to interpret this charge, noting that it is not a governmental fee or charge – one of the types of fees disclosed to consumers at the outset of their contract.
Instead, this fee goes to the basic operations of the company, assert the customers. They argue that these costs should be covered by the flat service rate charged by the company and not by an additional charge.
In the view of Grillo and Reed, the company’s choice to charge this fee violates the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act. The customers also assert that the company breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in charging this fee, as well as implied warranty.
The plaintiffs say that they and many others were financially injured by the company’s deception and choice to charge this fee. They say that had the fee been included in the advertised cost of service, they might not have agreed to pay for the service, and might have sought out another broadband provider. They seek damages on behalf of themselves and all other customers who were charged the Network Access and Maintenance Fee by RCN since Jan. 1, 2018.
Have you been hit with an unexpected fee? Tell us about it in the comments below.
Grillo and Reed are represented by Stephen P. DeNittis, Jospeh A. Osefchen and Shane T. Prince of DeNittis Osefchen Prince PC and Daniel M. Hattis and Paul Karl Kukacs of Hattis & Lukacs.
The RCN Telecom Bogus Fees Class Action Lawsuit is Katherine Grillo, et al. v. RCN Telecom Services LLC, et al., Case No. 3:20-cv-08609, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
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9 thoughts onRCN Class Action Lawsuit Alleges ‘Bait-and-Switch’ Pricing Scheme
RCN is a nightmare. They increase my bill with no warning before a year contract is over at least few times in that year. I call them, they change it back and few month later increae it again. First my bill is increased by 1$. If i don’t call an say nothing, it will be an exr=tr 54 few month later. Relentless crooks!
I too have been victim of this fee scheme. Which has increased yet again in November to $6.97, with the notice of the increase in the October bill buried in a 8 page bill, with the size of my normal bill being 4 pages for one service. When they first instituted this fee, I called customer service and was told by the representative it was a Governmental Tax. As I have seen this fee increase multiple times, I feel like this price increase scheme seems to be instituted purely for the purpose of getting a price increase without going through the channels that might allow for disputing such increase in charges. I sincerely hope that the court allows for a class action that will allow all subscribers to receive the ill gotten fees back
I experienced the similar thing as M. in Chicago, IL. Internet services were advertised as a set price, and only after service had been set up was I informed that there would be $15+ of additional fees tagged on each month. Two months after starting service, they increased the monthly “network and maintenance fees”. Customer service is almost always a crapshoot. Extremely deceptive marketing. I never had any issues like this with Comcast/Xfinity despite people’s tendency to complain more about them than RCN.
in Chicago market as of Nov 2021 they advertise $19.99 internet service for 50 Mbps. when you try to sign up, the review page lists the hidden fees ($10 something in total). the total is just a little over $31. that’s literally 30% in hidden “Network Access” yada yada fees. Now I remember why I left RCN. They operate on deception. they call themselves “local” yet they are owned by a Texas based company.
I have been a customer of rcn since 2019. This company is atrocious. They have been steadily increasing my bill, under the guise of fees, I’m paying over 150 a month now. To hey first tried to give me an Industrial Gateway device- designed for limited, one way traffic for a BUSINESS. This was for a home network, that was specifically for gaming, as I am a gamer. They said that was normal equipment for home networking. Really. On top of this, they’ve had several techs out to my building. They know that the tangled jumbled mess that is the network access for the building is causing massive bandwidth loss, which in turn only gets me about 10% of what’s supposed to be 1 Gigabit connection. I literally had to fight to get someone out- they wanted to charge me. Then I had to fight to get the proper equipment installed in my home. RCN is aware that they need to fix the mess on the building, and that it is the problem. But for over a year and a half, they’ve given me excuses and said it was issues on our end. I no longer want to pay these people, but I am on contract. I feel however that they have broken the contract. I want help. I need help. I cannot afford to pay for a broken contract, and I want to see these people in court.
I”ve been a customer with RCN for over 4 years, against my will, as it is the only provider my building will allow.
I have autopay, and have an excellent payment record.
Every year, for about two months, I will not notice they will increase charges an average of $20. I then have to call them and somehow they can miraculously lower my charges back to original charges.
I am livid. I am unemployed, during a pandemic.
I’ve been a customer since 3/2018. They have been cheating me also I only have internet but the charge is well over the price if I had cable I cant take it anymore
RCN is notorious for cheating bogus fees and when questioned, they have standard playbook responses that make even less sense than the fees. The bill increases on a regular basis and they blame geez they can’t control. Additionally, the service goes out for hours or days at a time and they refuse to credit for services not received during the outages. They are a monopoly in my area and they laugh about their bad business practices because they know there’s no where else for people to get internet in my area. Disgraceful company and downright criminal.
I am also being charge $4.37 now, I have been a customer since Oct 2016.