Unusually high data usage megathread

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@SarasotaRon123 wrote:

I have been loyal to comcast internet, but the last two month's my data usage has spiked over my limit.  I was never close in the 2 years I have been in Florida.  What has happened in the last two months?  How do you fix it?  No way I am using all the data Comcast is claiming.  How do you fight the overcharge?

thank you

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Apologies for the issue and the experience. I do see a credit recently placed on your account for this. Thanks for your patience. It will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

I have also asked a colleague to review your account and contact you directly for any next steps. Thanks for your patience.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

This is happening in our household as well. We were averaging 500 to 600 GB per month and now this month we're suddenly at the data cap. We aren't doing anything different than we used to. Please fix this.

Same issue here too, averaging 650/m gb usage over the last 6 months but this month im at 1,264 as of today and I still have 3 days left of November. Haven't done anything differently this month but its at double? Makes no sense!

This is happening to us. We average 500 to 700 GBs of data use in my household. The last month they said we used about 900 GB and this month they are saying we have used 1100 GB with three days left. I am monitoring our data through my router and it is saying that we have used 675 GB for the month. Nothing is wired and everything is wireless in my household. They keep telling me there is nothing they can do, but I need to monitor it.  They cannot tell me where this 400 GB of data usage bleed is and do not want to help.

Add me to the list.  My family and I typically use anywhere between 500GB and 700GB a month.  We had one month in the summer we used around 900GB.  Now, somehow for the month of November we have used 1,078GB.  I've tried talking to several Comcast Xfinity Agents/Representatives and I keep getting the runaround.

There was a large scale issue a few months ago  - with corresponding large threads of complaints here that they claim has been found and fixed.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/comcast-incorrectly-charged-2000-customers-for-exceeding-data-cap/

However, there are still some ongoing complaints like yours - many of the others say they also have xfinitiy mobile or their data use changed after signing up for it.  Do you have that in common?

My husband and I suspected long ago that Comcast was not calculating the data usage correctly and today we have kind of a proof: It's December 1st and at 7am he accidentally checked traffic usage because the app was open on his phone, just to find out that we "used" 11GB of traffic in 7 hours at night with 99% of our devices offline (yes our wifi is secure, no neighbors can leech on it).

So he called Comcast and went "up the suppot chain" just to get the last agent hang up on him after they promissed to "investigate" and nobody called back despite they eagerly asked for the call back number earlier. So we had a feeling that they made it look like we hung up just in case the calls are recorded or something.

And of course there was the same speech in the beginning from the initial agent: "You are not using our modem so we can't see which device on your network is using that much traffic".

Well, of course we are not giving comcast the ability to spy on us and we have our own modem and our own router with opensource firmware with an ability to monitor traffic. And guess what? The router shows about 500MB of traffic usage during the last 9 hours at the moment of this writing.

My huband is going to prepare to file a class action lawsuite against comcast so if any of you guys have any more supporting data, please post here. This artificial data cap is absolutely unfair, we believe that Comcast is "cooking up" usage data in their favor to push people to pay $50 for the "unlimted" traffic or pay overages and we intent to bring this practice to the end. Please support us.

Has anyone gotten an answer to the unknown data usage appearing on accounts. I somehow burned through 11gb between midnight and 6am with NOTHING running out of the ordinary. Within that time frame, between 7am and 9am I've burned through 3gb of data, with only my laptop connected.

I know this for a fact because I factory reset my modem and changed my passwords. So basically, using my laptop to reconfigure my modem/route used 3gb of data? Come on Comcast whats REALLY going on? 

@ComcastTeds ,

Thank you for your reply, but now, 6 days later, no one has reached out to me either by email or phone, in spite of your note that you reached out to a colleague to follow up.   In examinig my home network, it appears that at the points in time of the extremely high usage (concentrated over a several day period that seems to coincide with others' experiences), there was SIGNIFICANT data traffic to my inbound gateway (passing through the modem, that did NOT pass through my security gateway, which exists on my side of the modem.  That, to me, seemingly indicates that either the process for monitoring data is somehow causing excess data usage, OR that there are attempts to breach a network that are being stopped by my security gateway, but are not being originated from within my network.

I'd be happy to discuss with someone on the comcast team - but as I mentioned - no one has contacted me.  

Has Comcast looked into whether or not some / all of these massive fluctuations in data usage are something along the lines of DDOS attacks pointed at specific IP addresses / modems?  

Give the massive amounts of data usage being reported in this forum / thread (e.g. - 208 GB in 14 hours in my case - overnight on 11/19 to 11/20, it seems like that could be a cuplrit - as there is no way (to my knoweldge at least) I could have done that overnight.

I am experiencing the terabyte overage/usage spike starting with November usage, and to my knowledge I was not notified about being one of the affected users, so it seems that at least in my case the problem is still not fixed.

We have been long time loyal Xfinity customers over 10 years. 

Our average data use over the last 5 months was 456GB.  This last month Xfinity is showing that we went over 1400GB! 

There is absolutely no way we could have used this much data.  

Xfinity, please reinstate our 'courtesy month' as we have not used this data.

average montly data vs November

@ComcastTeds 

Where are you, can you not help!!!

Since I began this thread, I thought an update was in order.

Every customer here is echoing the exact same problem and yet, Comcast Support acts as if it's a new revelation.  We have a called scheduled for tomorrow morning to update Comcast Security on our usage, and how to procede from here. We have been away for 5 days, no one in the house, all wireless devices with us, and the usage is still unjustified and excessive.

Comcast is very much aware of this problem, but they are banking on customers being desparate and accepting Comcast's recommendation of paying for an Unliminted Plan and using only Comcast equipment. Ironically, while talking with the Comcast Security Rep last week, he slipped up when telling us that using Comcast's equipment was the only way to monitor usage, and then he said that he has our daily usage on this screen.

So what do customers do? Where are we to go from here? Here is a list of what we have uncovered from talking to officials.

1) For some customers there is a "coincidental" relation to using Comcast Internet service (home) and the Xfinity Cellular Service. This needs to be investigated, as well as execessive data usage that is vastly different from monthly use.

2) We have contacted the Better Business Bureau and files a complaint. The BBB has notified us that they have contact edComcast about this issue and asked for their cooperation. No news as yet.

3) We can file a complaint with the FCC and open an investigation. With so many customers experiencing the same issue, and it has not been resolved for any of us, the FCC would find this compelling enough to investigate.

4) We can file a complaint with the Attorney General for the state here you live. He will also investigate.

5)  We can do all the above and copy the news media on these procedures as well. Our research shows that there are tens of thousands of customers who have voiced their experience on this forum, as well as neighborhood forums and in comment sections after articles. Just think how many out there that have not spoken up, thinking they are the only ones?

6)  Or, we can just walk away, and use another service.

That's where we are. Tomorrow telephone call will determine our own next course of action.

Comcast would be best serviced to address the problem and resolve it, rather than hiding behind veiled ignorance.

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@maryrose21 wrote:

This is happening in our household as well. We were averaging 500 to 600 GB per month and now this month we're suddenly at the data cap. We aren't doing anything different than we used to. Please fix this.

---

Apologies for the issue and the experience. I do see a credit recently placed on your account for this. Thanks for your patience. It will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

I have also asked a colleague to review your account and contact you directly for any next steps. Thanks for your patience.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges