[joshamania]

What's the possibility of using the RICO statutes against these companies? I'm thinking of Comcast in particular. Recently they made a "mistake" by adding services to my cable bill that I had not ordered. They very quickly erased the charges when I complained, but if their excuse for why they were there in the first place was valid, they should have fought to keep the money if they were in the right. I believe this was done to keep anyone from complaining too vociferously. I believe this behavior is consistent and intentional.

Their behavior and attitude towards employees (anecdotal, I'll admit) seems very much like that of Bank of America concerning their recent accounts fraud scandal. I believe that Comcast either intentionally puts these charges on customers bills hoping they will not notice, especially on autopayment enabled accounts, or they pressure their employees so greatly that the employees are doing this themselves, like Bank of American claimed their employees did.

I think this type of pressure put on employees is known to Comcast executives to cause fraudulent charges and is the desired result of said pressure. The executives can then claim they knew nothing of said behavior and deny any wrongdoing. I understand such a case would be difficult to make, but I think many companies behave in this way and we need to start using bigger hammers to bring them back within the law.

I think RICO should also be applied to banks that repeatedly break the law, but that's perhaps another story.

Thoughts?

[___ab___]

https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-...

[joshamania]

I think the link would be more useful if it weren't done in an explain-like-i'm-five manner. Some of it does seem to apply, especially if you look at the things on the list:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1961

section 1343 (relating to wire fraud)

section 1028 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents)

...and I could go on but meh. I believe that the link started out with "complicated conspiracy" law to describe what RICO is...isn't that exactly what I was accusing Comcast of?

I understand that RICO is an extremely difficult case to make, and it probably should be so, so that the law isn't used flippantly. But I also think we need much more powerful tools to control these corrupt monopolies that control large parts of this country's infrastructure, especially as they seem hell bent on controlling even more of it. IF Verizon is found to have controlled a massive identity theft racket to bombard the FCC with fake comments, it seems to me that RICO is the exact tool to use.