Complaint filed at FCC over deceptive AT&T advertising

Bright House Files FCC Complaint Over U-verse DTV Claims [Multichannel News]

Bright House Networks, the nation's sixth largest cable operator, has filed a complaint with the FCC regarding deceptive marketing techniques employed by AT&T in Michigan. Bright House alleges that AT&T is misleading customers in that state by claiming that Bright House customers won't receive broadcast television channels after the digital transition, further claiming that the cable company will have to "rewire" customers homes at a cost of $300 to $400. Finally, AT&T's marketing claims those cable customers can get a real deal and their broadcast channels at no extra cost by signing up for AT&T's U-Verse video product.

For its part, AT&T doesn't deny that these despicable and flat out wrong claims were made to Bright House customers. AT&T blames the activity on "rogue" employees.

For the record, television viewers connected to cable are more than prepared for the digital television transition. When all broadcast stations convert to digital broadcasts on June 12th of this year, cable customers will continue to receive their channels - no "rewiring" necessary.

They might want to blame their employees for this shameful practice but it's really a lack of management  that allows these things to go on long enough for someone to feel compelled to file a formal complaint.  Sure, an occasional mistake can be made, but if AT&T really were interested in clearing up the confusion, they should invest significantly in advertising to clear up the misinformation.  Anything short of that is a passive endorsement of their behavior.

Comments

[Imee]

Wow, that's just wrong. Deception in any form just bugs the hell out of me... The DTV transition is supposed to help people, but the stupid advertising done by AT&T just takes the purpose right away. There's a lot of people who are uninformed and might actually believe that the $300 rewiring thing is mandatory.

[Justin]

Could this also be like the current advertising in the Louisville market by Insight claiming that "Insight provides the fastest internet around.." without mentioning the fact it's a shared connection and you only get the speed they claim at 2:30 in the morning?