Here’s an interesting story from the tornado-ravaged southern U.S. Stop the Cap!, a consumer-run website that tracks broadband and cable issues, reports that Charter Cable made this demand of one of its customers whose home was destroyed by a tornado:
If your house was destroyed, and you have looked around the neighborhood for our cable box and cannot find it, you owe us $212 and you need to either pay us or make an insurance claim on our behalf.
Taken by itself, I’d be inclined to think this is a hoax, one of those stories invented to satisfy our cultural need to see corporations as evil, greedy and uncaring. However, the story above is not the only one about Charter Cable making demands of storm victims. A Fox affiliate in Alabama reported on the same thing happening to another man who lost his home in the storm.
Anyone out there know what our local cable companies do about equipment lost in natural disasters or fires?