Cox is committing fraud against me to overcharge me for data usage - options?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So Cox has a data cap on their internet connection of 1280GB per month, after which you are charged $10 per 50gb exceeding it. I’ve been approaching the cap over the last year but never exceeded it mostly because of increased time at home, increased streaming, and games being ridiculously huge now.

This month I noticed that I used too much too soon, and that I was going to exceed the cap if I wasn’t careful. So I’ve dialed back my usage significantly over the last week. The period my data usage is recorded/charged for ends on the 6th. It looks like I exceeded the data cap by a bit on the 3rd. Okay, I’ll eat that $10 charge, fine.

Then, suddenly, on the 4th, despite averaging about 9GB per day for the last week, my data usage shot up to 240GB. For one day. This number is far out of the norm. I have probably never used 240gb in one day before. I did not use the internet very much on the 4th. There is no reason for there to be such a huge use in data.

Something on my network must’ve gone rogue or malfunctioned or pulled a lot of data, you’re thinking. Aha, but my router keeps logs of all the internet usage on my network. The log was reset on 12/21, so it does not cover the entire billing period, but because Cox’s website gives me a daily breakdown on my usage, I can compare.

Between 12/21 and 1/5 (inclusive), my entire network including all devices used 485GB of internet data, recorded at my router.

Cox says that for the period between 12/21 and 1/03, I used, adding up daily totals, 517GB. That’s close enough to 485 that I’m willing to write off the difference. Maybe my router modem log reset at a different time of day than the cox daily data usage window on the 21st, and that explains the difference.

But that number, 517gb, does not include the 240GB they claim that I used on 1/04. When you add that together, they are claiming that I used 757GB of data since 12/21, where my router, which records all devices on my network, says I only used 485.

That is a discrepancy that is very difficult to explain. It is implausible that is legitimate. I was aware of how close I was coming to the data cap, I was using about 9GB per day, and then suddenly I use 237GB - the most I’ve ever used on any day ever - all on the day that I just happened to go over their data cap, where they can start charging me for every bit of extra data I can use? I hardly used any data that day. Maybe 8-12GB from streaming TV shows. I didn’t download anything or do anything unusual.

This seems like a clear case of fraud. I went over the limit, they started charging me $10 per 50GB, and then they just invented 200-250gb worth of data that I didn’t use so they could charge me for it. They’re scamming me.

What can I do about this? Who do I call? Is there some sort of consumer protection violation I can threaten them with, and if they don’t do something about this, actually report them? What are my options for fighting this?

2

Did you call them?
Did they offer any assistance to review the traffic?
They they offer to waive some or all of the changes?

I don’t work for Cox but I do work for an ISP, and I’d clear the charges if this was a one-off situation.

3

No, I just noticed it tonight, I’ll have to call them tomorrow, but I wanted to be prepared and know any options I have or anything else I can check before I contact them.

The fine print on their data overage charges does say if it’s your first time going over, a credit equal to the fees will be applied to your bill, but I’m not sure they’d actually live up to that. Cable companies are famously bad to their customers.

4

[Moderating]

The fact that you’re alleging fraud is enough, I think, to move this into th realm of legal advice, which means it needs to be moved to IMHO.

5

The only thing that ever works for me to get a credit with my cable company is to ask for a higher up and then threaten to cancel.

My granddaughter got ahold of my remote a few weeks back and ordered a $35.00 movie. I immediately did everything I could to cancel it, but it was like my remote was doing its own thing to insure I continue to the final purchase screen. I turned the tv off and called AT&T, but after 20 minutes, I had to leave to take the baby home. Then I forgot about it until my bill came and so I called again. We never watched the movie and I assume their equipment would confirm that, but they were not giving me a credit.

So I ask to cancel, which gets me the manager who gives me the credit, but not without more arguing. Every single time I have any issue with them, they make you jump through these hoops.

I wish you luck.

6

If I were you, I’d call them and calmly explain what you’ve said here about monitoring the traffic on your router. But I’d leave off the bit where you accuse them of fraud. (That seems unlikely to me. My guess is their systems are operating much as your router is (or like how an electric meter works), keeping a running log of usage.)

7

Yeah, IMHO I’d suspect something else, like an equipment malfunction or clerical error or the nefarious actions of a third party, before I’d suspect fraud on Cox’s part. My naive, trusting side says that a big company wouldn’t just randomly defraud one of its customers, while my cyncial side says they’d pick a less blatant and obvious way of doing so.

8

It’s also possible that @SenorBeef is incorrect and he did in fact use as much data as they say he did.

9

I can’t find a plausible explanation for that. I’m okay with admitting error and I’m not trying to pass the blame, which is why I tried to figure out where I might’ve done it first. There are two PCs on my network, a smart TV, a smart TV stick (firestick), a tablet, and a phone. My PC uses more than half the data used on the network, with one of the smart TVs the second biggest user.

Both PCs have windows 10, which has an internal data usage monitor. The monitor on both Windows 10 data usage logs agrees with the router data usage logs, definitely no massive spike from the 4th. WIth the smart TVs - even if one of them was left on for 24 hours streaming 4K video, that’s only about 4GB/hr, which would only account for around 50gb (1/5th of the use).

250GB in one day is a lot, but not… absurd. Like you could download 3-4 huge games and get that number. But I didn’t do anything like that, I’ve specifically been avoiding using data because I knew I was up against the cap. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I accidentally used pretty much twice as much data in one day as I’ve ever used before. I have no particular reason to think there was a device malfunction, but even if there was, it seems implausible that some malfunction/malware caused one of my devices to pull a lot of data and yet my router did not record it. There’s no other way to get through to my internet connection than the router. I just don’t see how I could’ve used that data, even with malfunction/malware in the picture.

There is one other explanation I thought up. People that use the ISP’s wifi routers generate wifi stations for other Cox users, which you can log into using your cox credentials. If that data is also metered on your account, it’s possible that someone stole my cox account info, logged in as me, and then used a lot of data on a CoxWifi node somewhere. I changed my password just in case to protect against that. If that’s what’s happening… well… that would be a big coincidence that it happened after the first time I exceeded my data cap.

I’ll be calling them soon but I don’t think they’ll be able to give me much information about this. Obviously I want to figure out what’s happening here so I can prevent it in the future. I’ll be calling cox soon to find out what I can.

10

I am a Comcast customer, and Comcast also sets up guest WiFi on its customers’ routers (although you can disable that, and I think I did). I’m pretty sure most cable companies do it, and it’s an attractive benefit for their customers, since they can get free WiFi all over the place.

But I very much doubt that this guest WiFi counts against the customer’s data cap. (And there’s almost certainly no connection between the two WiFi networks.)

11

Cox does do that, but only if you own the router/modem combo they give you. I have a modem (only) unit and an independent router, so I am not the source of their wifi.

But if my cox credentials were stolen, I suppose it’s possible that someone went on a public cox wifi node somewhere else, used a ton of data, and it counted against me because they logged in with my account.

For this to suddenly happen after the first time I exceed my data cap would be a very big coincidence, but I did change my password just in case.

I called Cox, but the person I talked to was not very helpful at all, basically telling me that there’s no way to dispute data usage. She also said that since it’s my first month exceeding it, the bill should be forgiven this time. So I may just let it go (if it actually is forgiven) and monitor it more closely in the future.

12

Comcast’s policy is that they forgive the first two times you exceed the data caps and I only did so once.

13

Change your password. A neighbor may be hitching a ride on your wi-fi. Happened to me once and I caught it just in time.*

14

If someone else got onto my wifi it would be on the router log. It’ll tell me what IPs have connected to the router, whether wired or wireless, and how much data they used. I’ve identified all the devices that have been connected to my router in this time period (they are all authorized, and none of them used the 250gb).