The $89.34 That Wasn't: How a Phantom Charge Became a Disabled Veteran's $175 'Past Due'
Follow one charge through Comcast's own statements and a veteran's bank records: billed, rejected twice as 'Not Authorized,' reversed by Comcast - and still demanded.
By Daniel O., New London Media Staff Writer
Follow a single number through the paperwork and you can watch a paid-up account become a "past due" one. The number is $89.34, and according to Comcast's own statements and a customer's bank records reviewed by New London Media, it was never owed.
The customer is a 69-year-old, 100% disabled Army veteran with an internet-only account in the Vancouver, Washington area, paid in advance. Correct monthly charge: $51.34.
April is where it starts. On April 20, an autopay of $51.33 cleared the customer's checking account. The April 24 statement confirms it: "EFT Payment - thank you," balance forward $0.00. The payment, per the bank records, was never returned. Yet on April 30 Comcast added a $25 return fee and a $13 late fee - for a payment that cleared. On Comcast's own retry, the April charge was drafted again on April 27; the customer, told the payment had "returned," paid a third time in May.
Now the $38 in fees rides forward. The May 24 statement bills $89.34 - the $51.34 monthly plus the $38. In June, Comcast tries to collect it: a draft on June 22, a "RETRY PYMT" on June 29. The bank rejects both as "Not Authorized." Then comes the tell: the July 24 statement lists "Echeck/eft Return $89.34." Comcast reversed the charge on its own books - a written admission the money was never collected - and in the same breath added a third late fee and carried $191.68 forward.
From there the balance mutates. An unrequested $64 "Service Adj" credit appears in August. A coerced $50.34 payment, made to restore suspended service, is applied. What is left - $77.34 - is the residue of charges the customer never owed. The August 24 statement dresses it up as $175.68 due by stripping a $10 monthly discount (a rate increase with no change in service) and adding two $12 "reactivation" fees for disconnections the statements never document.
Run the totals and the direction reverses. By Comcast's own transaction history, the company received $713.68 against $420.68 in legitimate charges since December 2025 - about $293 more than it was owed. Even excluding the two $89.34 drafts the bank refused, the customer is left in credit.
So the $89.34 - which began as a fee for a payment that never bounced, which the bank twice refused to pay, which Comcast itself reversed - is the seed of a "past due" notice that got a disabled veteran's medical internet cut off. One number, fully documented, that was never real.
New London Media reviewed the monthly statements, the bank transaction records, and the two Notices of Dispute the customer filed. Comcast had not provided an on-record accounting of the charge by publication.
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