Charter Communications, also known as Spectrum, the brand through which the company offers the United States its telecommunications services, is one of the largest providers of telephone, Internet, and television services in the United States. Just recently, news broke that Charter Communications would, in fact, soon be rolling out a policy change that will ultimately affect how much people are charged for their last month of services.
People who are subscribed to any of Spectrum’s services will, as of June 23, 2019, not be able to receive a prorated credit for services that they haven’t yet been provided at the time of their cancellation.
If this doesn’t make sense, currently, Charter Communications provides its subscribers with a pro-rate credit for services not yet received in their current billing period at the time of their cancellation. For example, for a 30-day period that begins on May 1 and ends on May 31, Bob will just be charged for one-30th of that month’s services if he cancels on May 1. This is under the old rules, however.
Under Charter Communication’s new rules, which will be made available to customers via its automated billing statements and via a one-time notice, will make it so that customers who end their services during the middle of their last billing period will not receive the aforementioned proration for services they didn’t use.
Keep in mind that not all people will actually end up screwed by Charter. Only people who request that their services be canceled in the middle of the current billing period will be taken advantage of.
If you are a customer of Charter Communications’ Spectrum phone, television, or Internet services, you should make sure to only cancel your services on the very last day of the billing period.
Under the new rules rolled out by Charter, the company could technically reap money from two different monthly bill payments coming from two separate consumers who swap a living space with one another.
DirecTV and AT&T, two of the largest competitors of Charter Communications in the United States’ telecommunication industry, cut their existing prorated credit policies earlier this year, in the month of January 2019.
Although Charter’s Spectrum bills had already contained wording that allowed the company to perform the aforementioned keeping of money for services that haven’t been rendered since August 2017 at the earliest, the company seems not to have exercised the right since the change.
Dil Bole Oberoi
