Let's jump back to a few years ago (2011):
My friend had been paying the monthly modem rental fee for a very long time.
I said that was silly, and got her a Motorola SB5101 for $25 off eBay.
She returned their rental modem to Charter, and Charter stopped charging her a rental fee.
Now let's jump forward to this year:
Modem rental fees started showing up on her bill again.
She called and complained, but they refused to take them off.
The next month, another modem rental fee. She called and complained again. She said she was using her own modem, and they had no right to charge her a rental fee.
Well, I finally figured out what had happened.
A few months back, the cable service was down at her place. This was a townhouse, so the connection was out for everyone in the building.
Once the connection was working again, a Charter "tech" came in the check her connection.
He disconnected her modem (the one I purchased) and installed some new Cisco-branded modem.
He took the Motorola SB5101 with him.
That's why Charter has been charging her a modem rental fee again, because she is actually using their modem. She isn't very tech-savy. She couldn't tell you the difference between a router or a modem. She had no idea that she had a different modem - it's even out of sight from where she uses her computer, so she wouldn't know if they replaced her old white one with a new black one (which is exactly what happened).
It was only when I came over that I realized she had a totally different modem.
Is Charter allowed to do this? *I* paid for that modem (Motorola SB5101), and they disconnected and took it without asking.
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