United States Senate 

PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

INVESTIGATIONS 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Rob Portman, Chairman

Claire McCaskill, Ranking Member

SOME CABLE AND SATELLITE 

COMPANIES DO NOT REFUND 

CUSTOMER OVERCHARGES

STAFF REPORT

PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE
i

SENATOR ROB PORTMAN

Chairman

SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL

Ranking Member

PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

BRIAN CALLANAN

Staff Director & General Counsel

MATT OWEN

Chief Counsel

PHILIP ALITO

RACHAEL TUCKER

Counsels

MARGARET DAUM

Staff Director & Chief Counsel to the Minority

JACKSON EATON

Counsel

CRYSTAL HUGGINS

GAO Detailee

KELSEY STROUD

Chief Clerk

ADAM HENDERSON

Professional Staff Member
ii

SOME CABLE AND SATELLITE COMPANIES DO NOT 

REFUND CUSTOMER OVERCHARGES 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 1

DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................ 2

I. Time Warner Cable and Charter Do Not Automatically Refund or 

Credit Overcharged Customers. .............................................................. 3

A. Time Warner Cable’s Policies and Practices. ............................... 3

B. Charter’s Policies and Practices.................................................... 7

II. By Contrast, Comcast, DirecTV, and Dish Automatically Grant 

Credits or Refunds to Overcharged Customers. ..................................... 9

A. Comcast’s Policies and Practices................................................... 9

B. DirecTV’s Policies and Practices................................................. 10

C. Dish’s Policies and Practices....................................................... 11

III. Actions Taken as a Result of the Subcommittee’s Investigation. ........ 13
1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

As part of its investigation of cable and satellite television companies, the 

Subcommittee reviewed how five companies—Charter Communications, Comcast, 

Time Warner Cable,1 DirecTV, and Dish (also known as “multichannel video 

programming distributors” or “MVPDs”)—identify and correct overcharges caused 

by company billing errors.2 

Each MVPD has millions of subscribers and generates millions of bills

annually. Each bill, in turn, contains a number of line items (e.g., a base television 

package, an HBO subscription, a leasing fee for a set-top box), resulting in hundreds 

of millions of line items a year.3 Predictably, customer billing records do not always 

match customer equipment and service records, meaning that some customers are 

billed for items they have not ordered while others erroneously escape being 

charged for services or equipment they use. 

The Subcommittee reviewed how the MVPDs investigate and remedy these 

billing errors, with particular focus on their efforts to make overcharged customers 

whole. We found that the MVPDs vary greatly with respect to how they handle 

billing overcharges. 

First, throughout the time period examined by the Subcommittee, Time 

Warner Cable and Charter made no effort to trace equipment overcharges to their 

origin unless customers specifically asked them to and did not provide notice or 

refunds to customers.

Second, other MVPDs have invested effort and resources to prevent 

overcharges and provide refunds or credits to customers who have overpaid.

Comcast and DirecTV provide automatic refunds or credits to overcharged 

customers, while Dish’s billing system is designed to prevent these types of 

overcharges from occurring in the first place. 

 1 During the course of the investigation, Charter acquired Time Warner Cable. Because it will take 

years to integrate Time Warner Cable’s billing practices into Charter’s, we treat them as separate 

entities for purposes of this report.

2 In this report, we use the term “billing error” to refer to billing errors caused by flaws in MVPDs’ 

billing systems. Similarly, the term “overcharges” refers to an overcharge caused by this type of 

error. These do not constitute the only type of billing error or overcharge a customer may encounter. 

3 See Interview with Ernie Pighini, Comcast Senior Vice President and Controller (June 9, 2016) 

(hereinafter “June 9 Pighini Interview”) (noting that Comcast has approximately 287 million discrete 

“billing events” each year); see Letter from Michael Bopp, Counsel to Time Warner Cable, to 

Senators Rob Portman and Claire McCaskill, at 2 (June 10, 2016) (“Any company that issues 

millions of bills each month (with multiple service elements on each) inevitably will encounter some 

errors....”). 
2

Third, based on data provided by Time Warner Cable and Charter, the 

Subcommittee estimated how much Time Warner Cable and Charter have 

overbilled customers nationwide. 

• Between January and April 2016, Time Warner Cable overbilled 

customers nationwide an estimated $639,948. The Subcommittee 

projects that, in 2016, Time Warner Cable will overbill customers 

nationwide a total of $1,919,844.

• Charter has not yet completed the underlying work necessary to 

determine how much it has overbilled customers. But it has informed 

the Subcommittee that it overbilled customers by at least $442,691 per 

month.

Fourth, the Subcommittee sought information about the number of customers 

overcharged in Ohio and Missouri. Time Warner Cable estimates that, in 2015, it 

overbilled 40,193 Ohio customers a total of $430,393 and 4,232 Missouri customers 

a total of $44,152. Time Warner Cable also told the Subcommittee that, during the 

first five months of 2016, it overbilled customers in Ohio for 11,049 pieces of 

equipment, totaling $108,221. Charter estimates that it has annually overcharged 

approximately 5,897 Missouri customers a total of $494,000 each year. Charter 

does not provide service in Ohio.

Fifth, as a result of this investigation, both Time Warner Cable and Charter 

have taken steps to address these issues. Each month, Time Warner Cable 

performs an audit comparing its billing records with service records. Going 

forward, the company will provide an automatic one-month credit to anyone who is 

identified in the audit as having been overcharged. Time Warner Cable will not, 

however, investigate when it began overcharging customers unless customers bring 

specific concerns to the company’s attention, nor will it provide a full refund dating 

back to when the overcharge began. Similarly, Charter will provide customers with 

a one-year credit for any equipment overcharges. Charter has also implemented 

systemic controls that it says will prevent equipment overcharges in the future. 

DISCUSSION

During the six and a half year time period covered by the Subcommittee’s 

investigation, Time Warner Cable and Charter did not automatically refund or 

credit customers for equipment overcharges they discovered.4 By contrast, Comcast 

and DirecTV provided full refunds to overcharged customers, and Dish’s 

sophisticated billing system is designed to prevent these types of issues from 

occurring in the first instance. 

 4 All five MVPDs have uniform policies with respect to undercharges. Each MVPD corrects the error 

prospectively and does not attempt to bill customers retrospectively for items the MVPDs 

erroneously left off their bills.
3

I. Time Warner Cable and Charter Do Not Automatically Refund or 

Credit Overcharged Customers.

Two MVPDs—Time Warner Cable and Charter—have procedures for 

identifying overcharges and removing them from customers’ bills prospectively. 

Neither company, however, has automatically provided full retroactive refunds or 

credits for past overcharges. Instead, Time Warner Cable and Charter have 

generally granted refunds or credits only upon customer request. 

A. Time Warner Cable’s Policies and Practices.

To understand Time Warner Cable’s policies, the Subcommittee studied how 

the company identifies billing errors. Each month, Time Warner Cable runs an 

internal audit comparing its billing records to its equipment and programming

records.5 Due to legacy acquisitions, Time Warner Cable has two separate billing 

systems, called ICOMS and CSG, and it performs its monthly audit on both 

systems.6 Using data from the audit, Time Warner Cable’s Revenue Assurance 

Department (a staff of seven people) generates a list of “inconsistencies”—instances 

in which the company’s billing records do not match the company’s equipment or 

programming records.7 

If the audit shows that a customer has not been billed for equipment or 

services that the customer has received, the company treats those inconsistencies as 

undercharges and adds the appropriate charge to the customer’s bill going forward.8 

Time Warner Cable does not attempt to retroactively charge the customer for 

previous months in which that customer was undercharged.9 

If the audit shows that a customer has been billed for equipment or services 

that he or she does not have, the story is more complicated. In some cases, 

customers agree to pay for equipment they do not actually have so that they can 

receive a cheaper package price—for example, a consumer who wants only internet 

 5 Interview with Erik Walder, Time Warner Cable, Senior Director, Accounting Policy and Revenue 

Assurance; Ray Remnarce, Time Warner Cable, Director, Billing Operations; Wendy Rasmussen, 

Time Warner Cable, Vice President, Marketing Operations; David Baran, Time Warner Cable, 

Group Vice President, Pricing and Promotion; Jeff Zimmerman, Time Warner Cable, Senior Vice 

President and Deputy General Counsel; Mike Quinn, Time Warner Cable, Group Vice President and 

Chief Counsel, Regulatory (May 11, 2016) (hereinafter “Time Warner Cable Refund Briefing”). Time 

Warner Cable further explained that, until 2013, its “review process occurred at a regional level” but 

that, “[i]n 2013, as part of an internal restructuring, the process was centralized and placed in the 

Corporate Controller’s organization.” Letter from Michael Bopp, Counsel to Time Warner Cable, to 

Senators Rob Portman and Claire McCaskill, at 3 (June 10, 2016).

6 See TWC 17,668 (showing billing errors for ICOMs and CSG customers).

7 Time Warner Cable Refund Briefing.

8 Id.

9 Id.
4

service might decide her cheapest option is a promotional package including both 

internet and cable television. By participating in the promotion, the customer

agrees to pay a monthly rental fee for a set-top box but may instruct the company 

not to provide her with that set-top box.10 In such a case, the customer’s billing 

records will show a charge for a set-top box, but the customer’s equipment records 

will show that he or she does not physically have a set-top box.11 Nevertheless the 

charge is correct. 

To weed out such examples from the audit results, Time Warner Cable 

investigates each potential overcharge. In the example at hand, Time Warner

Cable’s subsequent investigation will show that removing the set-top box charge 

would void the customer’s promotional offer and increase her total price—which the 

company presumes the customer does not want.12 In such cases, the company will 

conclude that the customer is being appropriately charged and will not adjust the 

customer’s bill.13 Time Warner Cable performs this type of investigation for all 

potential overcharges. In April 2016, for example, Time Warner Cable identified 

49,132 pieces of equipment associated with overcharges; of those 49,132 pieces of 

equipment, 37,653 (approximately 77 percent) were not “correctable” overcharges 

because they were associated with accounts participating in promotional offers.14 

Time Warner Cable told the Subcommittee that its billing-error rate for video 

equipment is 0.07 percent.15

Once Time Warner Cable identifies bona fide billing errors, it attempts to 

correct them prospectively. It does so using a software program that enables mass 

additions or deletions of charges from a large number of customer bills; the 

company refers to the program as a “macro.”16 That macro, however, is prone to 

errors. In some months, such as May 2016, the program crashes, and Time Warner 

Cable is unable to correct any billing errors.17 When that occurs, depending on how 

quickly the macro can be corrected, the company may wait until the next month to 

run the program again.18 And even when the program does not crash, Time Warner 

 10 FCC regulations long-required cable companies to provide cable service using set-top boxes 

equipped with CableCARDS and, even under recent regulatory reforms, cable operators have a 

limited ability to provide television service without providing and charging customers for a set-top 

box. Time Warner Cable informed the Subcommittee that it has invested in, and has begun rolling 

out, technology that will enable it to provide television service without providing a set-top box. 

11 See, e.g., TWC 17,678.

12 Time Warner Cable Refund Briefing.

13 Id.

14 TWC 17,668.

15 Time Warner Cable Refunds Briefing.

16 Id.

17 Id.

18 Id.

6

Month Actual 

Undercharges

Potential 

Overcharges

Estimated 

Correctable 

Overcharges

Jan. 2016 $909,157 $742,746 $170,832

Feb. 2016 $959,564 $707,036 $162,618

Mar. 2016 $852,784 $736,501 $169,395

Apr. 2016 $873,993 $596,098 $137,103

Total $3,595,498 $2,782,381 $639,948

 Sources: TWC 17,686, 17,687.

The Subcommittee also requested information about overcharges to Ohio and 

Missouri customers. In response, Time Warner Cable produced data from 2015 and 

2016. Time Warner Cable estimates that, in 2015, it overbilled 40,193 Ohio 

customers for a total of $430,393.22 It estimates that it overbilled 4,232 Missouri 

customers for a total of $44,152.23 As shown below, the company also provided data 

showing Ohio overcharges in the first five months of 2016. Those figures show that 

Time Warner Cable overbilled for 11,049 pieces of equipment, at a total of $108,221.

Month Pieces of Equipment Total Overcharge 

Amount

January 2016 2,526 $24,087

February 2016 1,998 $19,711

March 2016 2,460 $24,489

April 2016 2,110 $20,757

May 2016 1,955 $19,177

Total 11,049 $108,221

Source: Letter from Michael Bopp, Counsel to Time Warner Cable, to Senators Rob 

Portman and Claire McCaskill, at 2 (June 16, 2016).

Time Warner Cable defends its policy on the ground that it is efficient. Going 

through months of customer bills to identify overcharges would be costly and time 

consuming, the company argues. The company also claims that the customer is best 

positioned to notice an overcharge and bring it to Time Warner Cable’s attention.24 

The Subcommittee’s industry-wide review, however, casts considerable doubt 

on Time Warner Cable’s belief that remedying past overcharges is infeasible. As 

described below, Comcast’s method of identifying overcharges is substantially 

 22 Letter from Michael Bopp, Counsel to Time Warner Cable, to Senators Rob Portman and Claire 

McCaskill, at 2 (June 20, 2016).

23 Id.

24 Time Warner Cable Refunds Briefing.
7

similar to Time Warner Cable’s—but unlike Time Warner Cable, Comcast takes the 

additional step of determining how long a customer has been overcharged and uses 

that information to grant automatic refunds or credits to customers.

In short, during the time covered by the Subcommittee’s investigation, Time 

Warner Cable made no effort to trace the billing error to its origin; did not notify 

customers of identified overcharges so that customers might determine when they 

began and request a refund; and did not provide a full refund for the month in 

which the overcharge was detected. 

B. Charter’s Policies and Practices.

The Subcommittee also discovered that Charter’s practices for identifying 

and correcting overcharges have been substandard. According to Charter, prior to 

August 2015, the company did not run any systematic audits to reconcile its billing 

records with equipment records. Charter’s failure to perform regular audits means

that overcharged customers could not even receive a prospective correction of their 

bill unless they noticed the problem themselves and contacted Charter. Beginning 

in August 2015, however, Charter began taking steps to identify equipment 

overcharges currently on its system. Charter will complete that process in June 

2016.25 

Charter informed the Subcommittee that it utilizes several procedures to 

ensure that customers are properly billed, including for equipment. First, Charter 

has implemented systemic controls to ensure that employees do not add or delete 

services or equipment from a customer’s account without triggering a corresponding 

change to the customer’s billing record.26 Charter developed these controls to 

minimize human error during the order entry process. The Subcommittee 

discovered that Dish has used a comprehensive set of similar controls since it was 

launched in 1996.27

Second, Charter’s Billing Quality Assurance team, which comprises 21 

employees, samples bills to ensure accuracy.28 As explained to the Subcommittee, 

Charter sometimes changes its bill (e.g., in how it groups charges), and the Billing 

Quality Assurance team is tasked with reviewing applicable bills to ensure that a 

billing change has not introduced mass errors into customer bills.29 The Billing 

 25 To be clear, Charter has identified certain service overcharges and corrected those overcharges 

retroactively. For example, in October 2015, Charter identified a systemic issue with certain digital 

receivers which caused approximately 50,000 subscribers to be charged for Video-On-Demand 

content that they may not have purchased. Charter notified the affected customers and credited 

their accounts.

26 Interview with Mike Ciszek, Charter Vice President, Billing (May 25, 2016).

27 See infra Part II.C.

28 Interview with Mike Ciszek, Charter Vice President, Billing (May 25, 2016).

29 Id.
8

Quality Assurance team also reviews a random sample of bills to check for 

additional systemic errors that should be corrected.30 The team is unlikely, 

however, to detect one-off errors, including when customers are overcharged for 

equipment or programming.

Third, beginning in August 2015, Charter undertook what it calls a 

“controller reconciliation,” in which the company has begun to reconcile its billing 

records with equipment data from its 35 “controllers” throughout the country.31 

Controllers are pieces of equipment that communicate with set-top boxes to support 

the delivery of video services by activating or deactivating the set-top box. They 

hold equipment information at a single point in time but are not designed to be a 

reporting tool and do not store historical data. As a result, account history and 

reporting information is unavailable through the controller. Despite these 

limitations, Charter can send a signal from its billing system to its controllers and 

identify each set-top box operating on a customer’s account and the associated 

authorized services. Charter treats that data as the definitive source of what 

hardware is actually in use by each account and what services are authorized.32

To date, Charter has completed its controller reconciliation for 27 of its 35 

controllers.33 Charter will finish that process for the remaining eight controllers in 

June 2016.34 So far, Charter has identified approximately 11 million set-top boxes

in use.35 Charter told the Subcommittee that the dollar amount associated with 

overcharges was $442,691 per month.36 Moreover, Charter told the Subcommittee 

that its controller reconciliation had identified 5,897 Missouri customers who were 

overcharged,37 for an annual value of approximately $494,000.38 But because the 

controllers do not store historical data, Charter says it is unable to estimate the 

total amount of revenue it has generated from equipment overcharges. 

Fourth, Charter has instituted a daily systemic reconciliation of equipment 

charges with equipment in use. That daily reconciliation identifies all customers 

whose equipment charges exceed the number of pieces of equipment on the 

customer’s account. The company then removes any excess set-top box charges from 

 30 Id.

31 Each of Charter’s 35 controllers correspond to a particular coverage area. For example, Charter 

has a St. Louis controller that is used to communicate with customers’ set-top boxes located in 20 

Missouri municipalities. Charter 40,187.

32 Interview with Mike Ciszek, Charter Communications, Vice President, Billing (May 25, 2016).

33 Email from Brian Benczkowski, Counsel to Charter Communications, to PSI (June 8, 2016).

34 Id.

35 Interview with Mike Ciszek, Charter Communications, Vice President, Billing (May 25, 2016).

36 Letter from Brian Benczkowski, Counsel to Charter Communications, to Senators Rob Portman

and Claire McCaskill, at 2 (June 10, 2016).

37 Id.

38 Id.
9

the customer’s account via an automated process. According to the company, that 

process should prevent all equipment overcharges in the future.

Charter explains that it was not able to conduct further investigation into 

how long customers had been overcharged because its controllers do not 

automatically and continuously log the equipment in use.39 Nonetheless, the limits 

of the controller data do not mean that Charter is powerless to identify how long a 

customer has been overcharged and nothing prevents Charter from reviewing 

affected customers’ bills and equipment records to identify when a charge appears.

* * *

It is possible for both Time Warner Cable and Charter to do better by their 

customers. As discussed below, other MVPDs have implemented practices that 

either (1) use brute manpower to identify how long a customer has been 

overcharged and automatically grant a refund or credit or (2) do more to minimize 

mismatches between billing records on one hand and equipment and programming 

records on the other.

II. By Contrast, Comcast, DirecTV, and Dish Automatically Grant 

Credits or Refunds to Overcharged Customers.

By contrast to Time Warner Cable and Charter, Comcast and DirecTV

provide automatic refunds or credits to customers who have been overcharged by 

their billing systems, while Dish’s billing system is designed to prevent these types 

of overcharges from occurring in the first place. 

A. Comcast’s Policies and Practices.

During the course of a year, Comcast processes approximately 35 million 

“transactions,” constituting approximately 287 million “billing interactions”40—the 

total number of line items billed to Comcast customers. 

Comcast informed the Subcommittee that it has never relied solely on 

customers to detect system overcharges and trigger the need for refunds or 

credits.41 Instead, Comcast uses an audit process similar to Time Warner Cable’s—

except that, once Comcast identifies an overcharged customer, it takes steps to 

identify how long the customer has been overcharged, notify the customer, and 

automatically apply a credit or provide a refund to the customer’s account. Using a 

program calling Lavastorm CPE, Comcast compares its billing records to its 

 39 Id.

40 Letter from Reginald Brown, Counsel for Comcast Corporation, to Senators Rob Portman and 

Claire McCaskill, at 1 (June 21, 2016).

41 Interview with Ernie Pighini, Comcast Corporation, Senior Vice President and Controller (May 10, 

2016) (hereinafter “May 10 Pighini Interview”).
10

equipment and programming records to identify mismatches.42 Historically, 

Comcast performed these checks on a monthly basis, but starting in late 2015, it 

began to perform these checks on a weekly basis, in order to maintain more 

accurate billing records.43 Comcast believes that its billing-error rate is 0.3

percent.44 Once Comcast has identified mismatches between billing and equipment 

records, it investigates each individual mismatch to determine if the customer has 

been improperly billed.45 Comcast has several groups of employees responsible for 

conducting those investigations, including a team of 20 employees who work in 

Revenue Assurance at Comcast’s Philadelphia headquarters and additional 

employees scattered across the country who perform similar functions.46 In 

addition, Comcast’s West Region has approximately 40 employees dedicated to 

investigating instances of undercharging and overcharging.47

After weeding through the list of billing mismatches, Comcast then corrects 

customers’ bills. Like the other MVPDs, Comcast corrects undercharges 

prospectively but does not impose retroactive charges on customers.48 In the case of 

overcharges, Comcast takes an additional, resource-intensive step that Comcast 

described as a “challenge.”49 For each overcharge, groups of Comcast employees use 

customer billing, service, and equipment records to determine how long the 

customer has been overbilled.50 Once it has that information, Comcast 

automatically applies a credit to the affected customers’ accounts.

B. DirecTV’s Policies and Practices.

DirecTV uses a substantially different method of identifying and correcting 

billing errors than its competitors. Instead of conducting regular audits, employees 

in DirecTV’s Revenue Assurance Department use a commercial off-the-shelf 

software product called SAS Enterprise Miner to develop and implement businessanalytics tools that continuously search for billing errors.51 DirecTV says its 

ultimate goal is to identify and correct errors before bills are sent out, obviating the 

 42 June 9 Pighini Interview.

43 Id.

44 Letter from Reginald Brown, Counsel for Comcast Corporation, to Senators Rob Portman and 

Claire McCaskill, at 1 (May 2, 2016).

45 May 10 Pighini Interview.

46 Id.; June 9 Pighini Interview.

47 May 10 Pighini Interview.

48 Id.

49 June 9 Pighini Interview.

50 Id.

51 Interview with Kent Mader, AT&T, Inc., Vice President, Customer Risk Management (June 10, 

2016).
11

need for it to take further action, but it also uses these tools to identify and correct 

errors on past bills.52 

When DirecTV identifies past billing errors, it uses a macro to fix the error. 

Like the other MVPDs, DirecTV corrects undercharges prospectively only.53 When 

DirecTV identifies an overcharge, it uses a macro to correct the error prospectively 

and then uses its business-analytics tools to determine how long customers have 

been overcharged.54 DirecTV told the Subcommittee that it goes as far back as 

necessary to determine how long the customer has been overcharged.55 In some 

cases, DirecTV has granted credits worth thousands of dollars.56

DirecTV’s Revenue Assurance Department consists of 12 employees, who are 

tasked with detecting flaws in the logic of DirecTV’s billing system that can lead to 

billing errors and implementing business-analytics tools to detect those flaws.57 

According to DirecTV, Revenue Assurance employees accomplish this task using

several techniques: When DirecTV rolls-out new offers for customers or otherwise 

changes a billing practice, Revenue Assurance employees study the changes being 

made, anticipate what could go wrong, and implement analytics tools to detect 

potential problems.58 The Revenue Assurance Department also notifies the division 

of DirecTV responsible for fixing the problem.59 In addition, Revenue Assurance 

employees interact with employees from all over the company regarding billing 

errors and implement analytics tools to identify those problems.60 

C. Dish’s Policies and Practices. 

Like DirecTV, Dish does not rely on regular audits to identify and remedy 

billing errors.61 Instead, Dish’s billing and provisioning systems (which Dish 

employees use to add or remove equipment and programming from an account) are 

linked, meaning that any changes to a customer’s equipment or programming are 

 52 Id.

53 Id.

54 Id.

55 Id.

56 DirecTV 94,676.

57 Interview with Kent Mader, AT&T, Inc., Vice President, Customer Risk Management (June 10, 

2016).

58 Id.

59 Id.

60 Id.

61 Interview with Shannon Picchione, Dish Network, Vice President, Billing and Credit Operations

(June 9, 2016). One possible exception is that Dish regularly monitors customers’ credit balances to 

determine if a customer is accruing a large positive balance. When Dish identifies a customer with a 

large credit balance, it credits the customer’s account and contacts the customer to inform him or her 

of the situation.
12

automatically reflected on the customer’s bill.62 According to Dish, it is impossible 

to add or remove equipment without altering the customer’s billing records.63 

Dish provides each customer with one free “receiver”—Dish’s term for the 

equivalent of a set-top box—and charges $7.00 to $15.00 per month for each 

additional receiver a customer has.64 That is the only equipment charge. Dish’s 

system will only send a television signal to receivers that have been “activated,” 

which happens as part of the installation process.65 Once a receiver has been 

activated, the customer’s billing information is automatically updated to reflect that 

addition.66 That system ensures that no receiver is added to a customer’s account 

unless it has been activated. 

Dish customers return their receivers by mail. Dish provides a packaging 

label so that it can track the receiver once it has been mailed. When the receiver 

returns to the Dish warehouse, an employee scans the barcode on the receiver, 

which removes the receiver from the customer’s provisioning records and, in turn, 

from the customer’s bill.67 

Dish informed the Subcommittee that its billing and provisioning systems 

have been linked in this way since the company was launched in 1996.68 As a

relatively new market entrant—at least compared to the incumbent cable 

companies—Dish has enjoyed the benefit of more advanced billing and provisioning 

software throughout its history, enabling it to create a billing system that simply 

avoids many of the billing errors some of its competitors must confront on a regular 

basis. But Dish has also invested substantial resources in keeping its systems upto-date: It spent many millions between 2009 and 2011 to upgrade its billing 

system.69

* * *

All MVPDs make billing errors, but unlike Comcast, DirecTV and Dish, Time 

Warner Cable and Charter have failed to provide refunds or notice to overcharged 

customers. Although both Time Warner Cable and Charter point to technical 

limitations that make it difficult to determine how long a customer has been 

 62 Id.

63 Id.

64 Dish 6,596.

65 There are two ways to activate the receiver. First, a Dish technician can scan a barcode on the 

receiver. Second, the customer can provide the receiver’s serial number to a customer service agent, 

who enters the serial number into Dish’s provisioning system. 

66 Interview with Shannon Picchione, Dish Network, Vice President, Billing and Credit Operations 

(June 9, 2016). 

67 Id.

68 Id.

69 Id.
13

overcharged, their competitors’ systems demonstrate that it is possible to 

implement more effective policies. 

III. Actions Taken as a Result of the Subcommittee’s Investigation.

As a result of the Subcommittee’s work, both Time Warner Cable and 

Charter have changed some of their policies for handling overcharges. 

As explained above, each month Time Warner Cable performs an audit to 

find overcharges. Going forward, the company will provide an automatic one-month 

credit to all customers for each piece of overbilled equipment or service. Time 

Warner will not investigate when it began overcharging those customers unless 

customers bring specific concerns to the company’s attention. Nor will the company 

automatically provide a full refund dating to when the overcharge began. But the 

company’s new policy will at least provide customers with notice that they have 

been overcharged, making it easier for overcharged customers to determine whether 

they should request a larger credit or refund. 

Charter has decided to give its customers a one-year credit for any equipment 

overcharges. In addition, Charter has implemented systemic controls that it claims 

will prevent equipment overcharges in the future. Although neither Time Warner 

Cable nor Charter’s new policies represent complete solutions to the problems 

highlighted during the Subcommittee’s investigation, they are a first step toward 

ensuring that they credit or refund customer overcharges.