Learn what Charter Spectrum lawsuits are out there, and how to take action…
But with this success can also come problems, as big companies can sometimes take advantage of their power.
If you haven’t heard of Spectrum, you may have heard of it under its corporate name Charter Communications, or former names including Time Warner Cable & Bright House Networks. These companies have had dozens of legal proceedings lobbied against them, including Spectrum lawsuits, over the past decade. It’s important to know about these, especially if you are one of their customers because and you could be one of those winners of financial awards if your case is strong.
Like many legal questions, the answer is “it’s complicated.”
As with many other internet service providers, Spectrum tries their best to ensure that their best interests are considered. Your Spectrum subscriber agreement will often include language saying that you cannot file Spectrum lawsuits in most types of legal courts. However, consumers will always have the option to either take Spectrum to a small claims court, or to file a consumer arbitration claim against them.
Consumer arbitration is often the better option. It’s also the one we can help with!
Class Action lawsuits are designed to bring together a class of individuals with the same complaint. So, in theory, this is a Spectrum lawsuit that is accepted. However, if you’re a Spectrum customer, you often won’t have the option to file or join a class action.
Because of your Spectrum contract, there will often be specific wording that prevents you from jumping into any Class Action that you find. This has not always been the case, and the story of why can be an interesting read.
The following Spectrum lawsuits are usually lawsuits against Spectrum filed by a government entity (which have more legal options than consumers). Others involve long-running older lawsuits, or corporate disputes involving Spectrum.
At FairShake, we’re reinventing the Spectrum lawsuit process. Spectrum complaints are common, and many consumers often have the same questions regarding their legal rights with the company. Rather than going after a Spectrum Class Action suit — which is usually not even possible — we’ll file a personalized legal document with the company, and guide you through the legal process.
There are a bunch of ways to make a claim against Spectrum, including with the FCC or your credit card provider.
But your legal options typically involve one of two paths:
You can sue Spectrum in Small Claims Court, and be asked to attend a court hearing and pay legal fees.
Or, you can do everything from your home. Consumer Arbitration is the process laid out by Spectrum’s contract in place of a lawsuit. It lets you argue your case before an independent arbitrator (like a judge) who can force them to fix the problem and to compensate you. We at FairShake help make this process easy and convenient. Find out how.
Spectrum Lawsuit by State of New York
ALBANY N.Y. — Spectrum custumers in New York are starting to receive or will soon receive $62.5 million in bill credits and some free services from the cable company as part of a lawsuit settlement.
Charter Spectrum settled the lawsuit in December that alleged “the company failed to deliver customers the reliable and fast internet service it had promised. “As part of that settlement, the cable company agreed to issue refunds and offer streaming services for free to the affected customers. Customers who are eligible are being notified in their March statements.
“We are issuing credits to certain eligible customers in New York state, in accordance with our agreement with the New York Attorney General regarding the former Time Warner Cable,” said Lara Pritchard, a spokesperson for the company.
Spectrum Lawsuit from Fired Whistleblower
The San Antonio Express-News has this story:
(Source)
A former Spectrum sales executive in San Antonio says in a federal lawsuit that she was fired in retaliation for reporting alleged securities fraud to her bosses.
Hether McCullar alleges her firing was a violation of whistleblower protections provided under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
McCullar is suing Spectrum parent Charter Communications Inc. to get her job back and for unspecified lost wages and punitive damages. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Antonio.
[…]
According to her lawsuit, McCullar notified her supervisors that other Spectrum employees were misclassifying accounts as “new revenue that should have been reported as renewals with a downgrade in revenue.”
Spectrum Lawsuit on Age and Gender Discrimination
Charter Spectrum is the parent company of many small news stations, and some anchors of a New York City station felt discriminated against, per CBS News: (Source)
Five newscasters at NY1, a New York City news station, are suing parent company Charter Communications over age and gender discrimination. In a lawsuit obtained by the Associated Press, the anchors allege NY1 “blatantly marginalized them and cast them aside in favor of younger women and men.”
Emmy-winning anchor Roma Torre and her co-plaintiffs say Charter Communications, which acquired NY1 in 2016, altered their career trajectories. They say they would like return to the positions they occupied before Charter took control of NY1, and are seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit.
[…]
In a news release, the five anchors said women on television “should accurately reflect women in society and be celebrated at every age, not treated like decoration that can be disposed and replaced with a newer version.”
Spectrum Lawsuit for Music Copyrights
More than 50 leading record labels and publishers have filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications, Inc. for contributing and profiting off its internet subscribers’ copyright infringement.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Colorado, accuses internet service provider Charter — which conducts business under the name Spectrum — of deliberately refusing to “take reasonable measures to curb customers from using its Internet services to infringe on others’ copyrights, including Plaintiffs’ copyrights — even after Charter became aware of particular customers engaging in specific, repeated acts of infringement.”
The music companies continue to state they sent hundreds of thousands of statutory infringement notices to Charter that went mostly ignored.
“Rather than working with Plaintiffs to curb this massive infringement, Charter did nothing, choosing to prioritize its own profits over its legal obligations,” reads the suit.
Spectrum Lawsuit from Rival Windstream
Windstream Holdings is accusing telecommunications rival Charter Communications of launching an all-out “scare-tactic campaign” and using “bait and switch” efforts to attract Windstream’s customers to Charter’s Spectrum brand, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.
Windstream filed its lawsuit against Charter, the third-largest cable provider in the country, with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.
“Charter through its brand Spectrum, commenced a scare-tactic campaign to mislead, deceive, and confuse consumers regarding the reason, status, and consequences of Windstream’s Chapter 11 cases,” the complaint states. “Charter disseminated false advertisements, directly targeting Windstream’s strongest customer bases in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Nebraska, and North Carolina. With a clear intent to deceive, Charter’s advertisements were sent to Windstream’s customers in a manner designed to make customers believe that the communication was from Windstream.”
Spectrum Lawsuit on Disability Discrimination
HONOLULU, Hawaii – Oceanic Time Warner Cable LLC, doing business as Spectrum, violated federal law when it denied leave as an accommodation to a class of customer service representatives at its headquarters in Mililani, Hawaii, the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.
The EEOC contends that Spectrum maintained inflexible leave and attendance policies that did not allow additional leave as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. Upon the exhaustion of FMLA leave, Spectrum failed to engage in the interactive process to determine if reasonable accommodations could be provided, and simply notified employees that if they could not return to full duty, they would be discharged. The EEOC further charged that Spectrum denied reasonable accommodations to probationary employees because its policy only allowed for two unpaid absences during the six-month probationary period. For employees who have exhausted their earned sick hours and two unpaid absences, the company did not engage in the interactive process to determine if reasonable accommodations could be provided, and instead terminated their employment.
Spectrum Lawsuit by Los Angeles District Attorney
From Syracuse.com:
Spectrum has agreed to pay $18.8 million to settle allegations its predecessor, Time Warner Cable, used misleading advertising to lure California consumers into paying for high-speed internet services the company could not deliver.
[…]
Under the settlement with the Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office, the company will pay $16.9 million in restitution directly to eligible customers based on the type of service they purchased from Time Warner Cable. It also agreed to pay $1.9 million to the three prosecuting agencies in the case to cover costs associated with the investigation and prosecution.
The agreement covers more than 170,000 California consumers who did not get the internet speeds they paid for.