A proposed class action lawsuit against Charter Communications Inc. alleging the cable telecommunications company sold subscribers’ personal information to third parties without their knowledge or consent was removed from a state court in Missouri last week.
St. Louis-based Charter Communication sells Internet, television, and phone services along with leases of physical equipment such as cable boxes, cable cards, modems and routers throughout the city and state.
Plaintiffs Reno Cova, Logan O’Connor, and Zach Splaingard brought forth the civil action in April, claiming that as of January 2013, Charter Communications sold its services on a monthly itemized contract basis (depending on the services purchased and goods leased), but knew that its products and services were not being offered for the total dollar rates marketed.
Instead, the complaint states that the company sold its consumers’ personally identifiable information, specifically the names, addresses, and retail subscription packages/channels of its subscribers to third parties.
“Plaintiffs relied on defendant’s representation to plaintiffs’ detriment and suffered damages as a direct and proximate a violation of their right to privacy, a violation of their right to publicity, unjust enrichment by defendant,” the consumers said in their complaint. “Defendant’s conduct was intentional, wrongful and malicious.”
According to the proposed class action lawsuit, by intentionally disseminating this information to third parties without their subscribers’ consent, Charter violated customers’ privacy rights. The lawsuit also claims violations of Missouri’s Merchandising Practices Act and therefore warrants an award for punitive damages.
In last week’s notice to remove the suit, Charter Communications stated that the plaintiffs simultaneously filed the complaint in both state court and in a Missouri district court “with nearly identical factual allegations and asserting claims under federal law.”
The district case is currently pending in the same court where the state suit was removed and according to Charter Communications, the move to file the lawsuits at the same time constitutes “improper claim-splitting.” However, the cable provider contends that for the justification of the removal, the case poses questions concerning federal claims and laws.
Charter Communications argued that the consumers’ removed state lawsuit fails to cite specific allegations of actual damages but asserts the amount of damages is in excess of the $5 million federal court requisite.
The company denies all liability and further challenges the amount in controversy, noting that with nearly 530,400 residential customers in Missouri, damages of approximately $9.43 per subscriber does surpasses $5 million.
Charter Communications has been at the center of controversy these past weeks, and not just from its subscribers.
Federal regulators moved last week to approve the company’s $88 billion acquisition (with set conditions) of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
The Department of Justice said they would allow the deal to proceed, offering a proposed settlement that restricts the cable company from encroaching on online video distributers such as Netflix and Hulu.
The deal makes Charter Communications the second largest Internet and cable TV provider in the country with 17 million subscribers.
The plaintiffs are represented by SWMK Law LLC.
The Charter Communications Class Action Lawsuit is Cova, et al. v. Charter Communications Inc., Case No. 4:16-cv-00675, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
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2 thoughts onCharter Class Action Says Cable Company Sells Subscribers’ Info
Yes yes yes finally I have spent two years on the phone nearly daily with Time Warner/charter I get messages from charter that my account has been changed yet I am no longer with charter charter was bought by Time Warner I called Time Warner they say no changes have been made I called the number in the email from charter and they say no changes have been made yet all my email passwords are changing someone has access my sprint account someone has access to my Time Warner cable has created cable emails for me is having my emails forwarded And has basically taken over my life and my children’s lives in my household with my husband now that they have control of our cell phone account and our Internet account and everything seems to be stemming back from charter charter charter charter that’s all I hear is charter yet my bill comes from spectrum my phone calls when my bill is late comes from spectrum yet when you call all they do is blame each other in every department I have a open port IP address attached to my set top box it doesn’t matter how many times I change the set box and bring it in and get new ones something is running through my modem and my router or my set-top box and is watching my Netflix in Texas and in Colorado And has basically taken over my life and my children’s lives in my household with my husband now that they have control of our cell phone account and our Internet account and everything seems to be stemming back from charter charter charter charter that’s all I hear is charter yet my bill comes from spectrum my phone calls when my bill is late comes from spectrum yet when you call all they do is blame each other in every department I have a open port IP address attached to my set top box it doesn’t matter how many times I change the set box and bring it in and get new ones something is running through my modem and my router or my set-top box and is watching my Netflix in Texas and in ColoradoChanging my passwords and requesting my parental code pen and my username and my four digit code all day long every day, in the last four weeks they have gained control of our sprint account and the cell phones in our house and are manipulating our data plans and hotspots This has cost us for computers which one of those computers Time Warner cable’s supervisor to the technicians came out to my house and hit a button on the laptop and it blue screened my computer and nobody seems to care about it and won’t even acknowledge the fact that it happened but it’s cost me for computers 9 iPhones And three android phones and two tablets all in the last two years they completely will not boot anymore and have been taken over by something yet I’m nonstop had Time Warner/charter whoever they are’s security downloaded to all my devices and should’ve been protected other than the fact that someone was gaining access to my account over and over and over and just removing my security I have no idea what’s going on but literally spending days and days and days on the phone out of every week and having 2 to 3 technicians come to your house every week For basically the first three months of just this yearAnd I still sit here with open ports attached to my set top box that the technicians they are not supposed to be there yet the people when I call can’t see them on their computer therefore I just have to live with it and pay the bill I tried to switch to DIRECTV AT&T and apparently now I can just still see all the routers I’ve ever had at Time Warner cable and all the routers I’ve ever had at att How it’s possible that every router and modem that we have owned with the Mac numbers in the last two years that I have wrote down in these books we can still see you when we pull up our Internet discovery to see what we can connect two they should not still be existing when I log into my current account it should not tell me this router is not connected to this Internet when I go into the router settings and hit troubleshoot I should be able to go to the spectrum.net and pay my bill yet I can’t not without 1 million redirects! how it’s possible that every router and modem that we have owned with the Mac numbers in the last two years that I have wrote down in these books we can still see you when we pull up our Internet discovery to see what we can connect to they should all still be existing when I log into my current account it should not tell me this router is not connected to this Internet when I go into the router settings and hit troubleshoot I should be able to go to spectrum.net and pay my bill yet I can’t not without 1 million redirects.
amber rivers [email protected] i thank they are doing it to me