Comcast (Xfinity) Sued For $100 Million by WA State Attorney General

The telecommunications giant has been hit with a whopper of a lawsuit, claiming a variety of violations of the Consumer Protection Act.

Monday Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the company has defrauded most of it's 1.6 plus million customers in Washington state by way of a variety of offenses.

The biggest part of the suit concerns what Ferguson says is misleading and "near-worthless" consumer protection plan. For $4.99 Comcast subscribers purchased what they thought was an insurance plan that they though would cover the cost if a technician had to visit to fix anything covered by the plan.

The AG's office said in a release:

"Comcast routinely claimed that the “comprehensive” plan covered the cost of all service calls, including those related to inside wiring, customer-owned equipment connected to Comcast services and on-site education about products. However, Comcast did not appropriately disclose that the plan does not cover repairs to any “wall-fished” wiring — wiring inside a wall — which constitutes the vast majority of wiring inside homes."

A number of other Consumer protection violation accusations were also made in the suit. Ferguson is seeking at least $73 million dollars of the $100 to go towards consumers as refunds for the deceptive business practices. He said Comcast also charged consumers for many internet and TV cable maintenance services that should have been done for free, based upon the language and terms of the contracts.

The company is also accused of running improper or unnecessary credit checks on over 6,000 consumers. Comcast said they were not aware of the investigation, but at a press conference in Seattle Monday, Ferguson said they knew, because they had been working with his office for over a year to resolve these issues, to possibly avoid legal action.

But Ferguson was not satisfied with their progress, and apparently these deceptive practices continued, resulting in the suit. Consumers in Yakima and Tri-Cities will likely receive some sort of reimbursement as a result.