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A Time Warner class action lawsuit filed against parent company Charter Communications and Spectrum (formerly Time Warner) has been filed by consumers alleging the company falsely advertised Internet speeds to its customers that were faster than it could possibly deliver. Another lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General has echoed the same allegations.
Time Warner Class Action Lawsuit Claims
The Time Warner class action lawsuit accuses the company of failing to provide the Internet speeds that were advertised to consumers. The plaintiffs claim that their individual modems, routers and the infrastructure system as a whole were not able to support the high speeds that the company had advertised.
“Defendants’ structural limitations caused consumers to be unable to achieve the ‘fast reliable Internet speeds’ Defendants emphasized in their advertising campaigns,” the Time Warner class-action lawsuit reads. The lawsuit claims that the company knew these speeds were not possible, yet they continued their advertising and sales of high-speed Internet service anyway.
The plaintiffs state that the Internet equipment that they were given, including modems and routers, was not capable of reaching speeds that the customers had paid for. They state that this was due to the company’s mismanagement of their network that did not allow the infrastructure to support the high Internet speeds that customers were promised and subsequently paid for.
In addition to failing to provide the Internet speeds promised, the Time Warner class action lawsuit states that the company also added on inappropriate fees from price increases for customers who were used an auto-pay service for their billing.
The lawsuit stated that adding additional charges and fee increases was a common practice that occurs “regularly without proper notice to consumers, without obtaining explicit and affirmative consent to such material changes to the original terms, and without providing all necessary information in a manner that is capable of being retained by the consumer.”
The Time Warner class action lawsuit was filed in California and alleged violations of the federal Lanham Act, California’s False Advertising Law, California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act, California’s Unfair Competition Law, and California’s Automatic Purchase Renewals Law.
New York Attorney General Files Legal Action against Time Warner
On behalf of the State of New York, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a similar lawsuit against Charter Communications stating that the Internet service provider promised much faster Internet speeds than it ever delivered. According to the lawsuit, customers who opted for the premium plan offered by Charter experienced Internet speeds that were up to 70% slower than what was promised in advertisements.
The lawsuit goes on to state that customers were being short-changed with respect to Internet speed and reliability, and that high-level executives knew about these failures in service yet continued to make promises about Internet speed that it could not deliver.
24 thoughts onTime Warner Class Action Lawsuit Alleges False Advertising
I want to file a claim! I cancelled their service over this lie. I called out spectrum and had them run a speed test themselves as I was paying $100 a month for 100mbs and it never reached 40mbs. I returned all equipment and found a new service provider after 6 years of loyalty. I want a cash settlement as I will NEVER do business with these phonies again.
They sent me equipment that was incompatible with my plan. I never hooked it up or even took it out of the box until the one box I did use stopped working. At that point I took it out and hooked it up and it didnt’ work. Took my old box and this one just out of the box to their store and they replaced them both with another box identical to one I had just taken out of the box that morning. Got home, this box wouldn’t work. Call after call to them and runaround, finally was told I had been given a box that wasn’t compatible with my plan! I had no idea, they had my account information so they KNEW. They told me there was no charge for this box YET they billed me an extra $27.45 for it for nine months claiming the charge was for “access.” Access to what? I could never use it for anything past a dust collector as my plan I paid for each month required DIFFERENT equipment and they KNEW this when they gave them to me, not once but twice. They refuse to refund any money as claim I paid for access which would mean I had activated and been using and there was no way I could if I wanted to do that!
This is a horrible company, i constantly have new charges and rising rates on my bills for no reason. They put you through telephone hell to remove them, and even then, after a few months, additional fees are re-added. This company has scamming customers down to an absolute science. Its mindblowing they are allowed to do this, they hold a true monopoly in our cities with these noncompetitive agreements and its insane.
I am a resident of Ohio in Mansfield they have double billed me many of times and when I complain about service not working for weeks at a time I still have to pay for service that was not provided correctly right now they put me in collections for a bill I do not owe them or feel I need to pay them
Hello,
My questions is: 1) How do i file against TW/SPECR? i had a lots of trouble with then
2) What docs i will need?
P.S: We are from San Antonio TX.
They gave us a “special deal” because we are disabled and on a fixed income (and over 55). It’s been crap and they didn’t give us what they said they would. Also, just to say here..I did a long complaint on this website (TopClassActions) but it just went away. I have to go through my charter-spectrum account to write here. Anyone have their complaint just go away after they wrote it? Just curious.
I was reading back on here and it seems some people are having problem with the internet speeds…I’m sure I do too. What I was to say to whoever is thinking about doing a class action against Spectrum…It’s so much more than that. It’s lying to customers about what they will have to pay. It’s about them changing products and services without telling you and then charging more for the lesser thing you’re getting! It’s about them not keeping us safe when we have opted for their phone service! All of that and then some. Whoever is looking into doing a class action on Spectrum is missing most of what they are doing wrong and have been doing wrong for years. Check into that, please?
I’m in Oregon and have the same problems. When we moved here we signed on for the bundled package (internet, phone and T.V.) at a certain price. ($29.00 each) It went well at first except Spectrum added a full month to our bill the first month we were charged (one month into our service). In other words..they wanted us to pay double the amount that we were supposed to be charged. I called them and they said it’s because they charge for the “month ahead”..In other words..service we hadn’t even used yet! So from the first month on we have been running in arrears on payment even though we have always paid each bill (that we owed) every month without fail. They wanted to charge us a “late payment charge” every month even though we weren’t late! That’s still going on.
When we first got the phone service with our “bundle” I started receiving “spam” phone calls as soon as the phone was connected. I got 5 the first day! They continued for two years that way. That didn’t get fixed until I changed our “home” phone number. They obviously sold our number to nefarious entities. What’s that about? Okay so..T.V.?? That’s the worst of all. Slowly over two to three years channels started going away. Also, the “On Demand” that we pay for started going away. Even channels we still had started not being available in the On Demand feature. This is not even mentioning how much the price went up every chance they had to do that…Even though when we bought their service they didn’t tell us the price was going to go up every year. I’m not at all happy with their service but I live in an area where the only other choice for any of this is satellite…and they are probably worse. I’m interested in joining a class action lawsuit about this company because they need to do what they say and stop pulling punches. I don’t know what’s going on with them but it’s not good.
We live in an area in NC where Time Warner/Spectrum admits it is not set up for the high speeds and we still have to pay the same price for the 100 mbp speeds. Our entire neighborhood has service outages when kids are on school breaks or summer breaks. Customer service admitted over the phone the neighborhood was not set up to handle this kind of activity. We also deal with billing issues where money is taken from our bank account and put on another account. We are fought by Time Warner/Spectrum to either get our money back or credited to our account, not another person’s account. They claim they can’t tell us anything about the account the money was credited to but, will also refuse to reverse the charges that were placed on our bank account we did not authorize to be taken and put on another person’s account. We were outed $1600 and had to move to a new residence the last bill that was put into my husband’s account in order to not keep having Time Warner take payments we made on our account and being put on another account that were not authorized nor our account at our residence.
I am having the exact same issue in Ohio. The speeds are advertised as 100 mps at minimum, but when you get a person on the phone they say there is no guarantee above 25 in “your” area. Then they promise “no contracts” as well as a certain “non-introductory” price. Then the last bill suddenly becomes an introductory price which is then raised to 3 time what it was.
This is a travesty to the general consumer.
I am also in Ohio.. my bills are 459.00 a month then 350.00 a month for basic cable and internet.. this is so crazy I can’t deal with them anymore.. Days and hours on the phone.. Chat.. Payment center for zero results every month it’s a huge situation.. Prices aren’t what they say.. it’s terrible they are getting away with this