Here’s the Letter Six U.S. Senators Wrote to Complain About Comcast Bills

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On Wednesday, six U.S. senators sent a letter to the FCC complaining about Comcast‘s billing practices — and about the cable industry generally.

“A lack of competition in the market has left many Americans without robust options when purchasing cable and broadband,” the letter said. “This lack of competition, in our view, has led to some troubling and questionable customer service and payment practices by the few corporations consumers have to choose from.”

One example: Equipment rental charges — Comcast charges a $10 modem rental fee that the senators said generates up to $300 million in revenues for the company. “We are troubled upon hearing complaints of consumers being charged the modem rental fee after they have returned the rented equipment or being charged the rental fee having never rented a modem in the first place,” the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by Sens. Ron Wyden, Al Franken, Bernie Sanders, Edward Markey, Jeffrey A. Merkley and Elizabeth Warren.

Ars Technica reported Comcast’s response:

“Comcast operates in a highly competitive environment across all of our lines of business. Acknowledging some of our issues with customer service, we have undertaken a substantial, multi-year effort to reinvent the customer experience, including improving billing systems, reliability, and all of our interactions with our customers. We are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in this effort and are working hard to improve and we won’t stop until we have made the changes necessary. We take every FCC complaint seriously, and respond to each one on an individualized basis. We are also using the information from complaints in our ongoing efforts to improve the overall customer experience.”

The FCC told Ars that “we’ve received the letter and are reviewing it.”

Here’s the full letter: