City rips Altice cash grab
Even the city is complaining about cable bills.
The city Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications is accusing cable giant Altice USA of overcharging customers for services the company did not provide — including billing customers who canceled subscriptions for an entire month instead of prorating their bills.
The agency claims Altice is in default of its franchise agreement with the city for violating its consumer protection provision and is planning to launch an audit of the company to determine the breadth of the overbilling.
DOITT spokeswoman Robin Levine called the company’s billing practices “indefensible.”
“Altice’s brazen attempt to unfairly nickel and dime consumers for cable service they’ve already canceled is a deceptive, greedy money grab by a company that clearly doesn’t have New Yorkers best interests at heart,” she said.
Altice Europe is owned by French-Isreaeli billionaire Patrick Drahi. The company bought Cablevision from the Dolan family, the much-maligned Knicks’ owners, in 2016 for $17.7 billion. Altice USA spun off from Altice Europe last year.
William Harris, DOITT’s franchise audit and revenues director, put Altice on notice about the audit Friday in a letter to its vice president of government affairs, Craig Johnson.
In it, Harris requests that Altice, which has offices in Long Island City, provide “detailed information” so the city can evaluate whether the company complied with its franchise agreement.
Included in the demands for information are dates of cancellation, billing period start and end dates, credits provided to bills and details about how credits were calculated when awarded to customers.
“We are in compliance with our franchise obligations in New York City and will respond to DoITT’s letter accordingly,” Altice USA spokeswoman Lisa Anselmo said.