Unusually high data usage megathread

We had the same issue.  3 years of consistent monthly averages, maxing around 700 over summer months, then jumping up significantly Oct-Dec of 2020 to the point that we hit over 1.2TB in December.  Amazingly, their reporting said we hit over 75% (921GB) by 12/17, but then still only managed to use 300 more by the end of the month.  We hadn't had any usage changes over the past 6 months that would equate to those sorts of numbers.

Needless to say  I spoke with their techs and anyone who I could within Comcast, 0 help.  I then went onto the nextdoor app and polled locally Xfinity users about their usages, and sure enough there were a significant number of people getting the same trouble. So I followed the advice in this forum and filed an FCC complaint regarding the reporting. Talked with a Comcast tech from corporate who gave me the boiler plate about how everything checked out normal, the spike didn't look like an anomaly, and that they had a good audit recently (May 2020, so not necessarily current).

Funny thing is, since I went through all that trouble, all of the sudden my usgae is back down at my normal level...no activity changes on my end.  So magically my problem went away after calling them out.  Take from that what you will....

We received notification that internet usage has doubled in each of the past two months and we have exceeded our 1.2 TB plan.  I actually was in the hospital for 8 days during that time frame.  Also when I returned home I had forgotten to reconnect my phone to our home wi-fi so my phone was not connected to wi-fi and thus I exceeded the data on my phone plan as well.   So if anything our  data usage should have decreased.  We have checked to see what devices are connected to our wi-fi and there is no unknown devices.  Xfinity data usage graph is not helpful.  Does anyone have any other suggestions?

@nathan200 Thanks so much for taking the time to reach out to us regarding your billing & promotional concerns. I very much appreciate your patience and greatly apologize for the delay in our response. I know how important the services are to your home and we want to do all that we can to assist. We always have offers and options, available for our current customers I would love to get you set up with an account review. Can you please reach out through private message (this link will advise how https://comca.st/3c95hSv) with your first and last name, name on the account if different, service address and account number? If you’re having trouble locating this information, you can also reference our world-class MyAccount app to view all of your account details by the simple touch of your fingertips! Please follow the process here to learn how to obtain that information: https://comca.st/39itrIp;

I too have had abnormal spikes in useage. However when i was getting close to the cap early in the month due to known added traffic i checked and saw that i had 1 Courtesy month avalible. After i hit the max i went and checked on my account and see that the courtesy month has conveniently disapeared and i now have the text "You have been charged $100.00 for the additional data provided over your data usage plan."  I cant seem to get any reps to talk to me about this. 

In the last 6 months, I am averaging 766 GB.  This particular month my usage will be up to almost 1100 GB and I am receiving email warnings about it possibly costing me an extra charge.   Do I get a refund for not using all of my data in the previous months?  Why are you not offering rollover GB for unused bytes? I think it is only fair to offer this enlight that we all are not habitual users of the internet and that there are customers with students needing good WI-Fi for school purposes...

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@logically wrote:

In the last 6 months, I am averaging 766 GB.  This particular month my usage will be up to almost 1100 GB and I am receiving email warnings about it possibly costing me an extra charge.   Do I get a refund for not using all of my data in the previous months?  Why are you not offering rollover GB for unused bytes? I think it is only fair to offer this enlight that we all are not habitual users of the internet and that there are customers with students needing good WI-Fi for school purposes...

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There is no roll over for unused Data at Xfinity.

There should be. It is not right to overcharge when usage is high and not credit when usage is low.  You are a utility company and should adjust billing like the power companies and water companies do. Bill based on usage.  You have a monopoly in this area and are abusing the control.  My daughter has unlimited internet at a much lower cost.  It will not affect your bottom line but gain more respect out of you exisiting customers.   

@logically, it's interesting that you want billing based on usage, because I think more people in this thread want more like the opposite – unlimited with no metering. It think it would be interesting to see how habits would change if your internet bill was for example, $32/month if you used 102GB, or $157 if you used 1.5TB. All totally made-up numbers of course, but yeah, more like the power bill. I'm sure many people would get better at monitoring their data. (But I think a lot of people don’t want to.)

There are data plans that roll-over. However, the ones I've seen give you lower amounts of data per month than comparable plans that don't roll. I think we both know that if Comcast were to start rolling data, they'd likely do the same to make it all work out about the same "on average". Ie: We roll over data now "woo hoo!" Oh and the new cap is 700GB, but thanks to roll-over data, if you're frugal, you could save up enough to use several TB in a month!  (Like the prices above, 700GB is a pure guess.)

Being retired and not a gamer the prices do matter to retirees.  Having grandchildren over to do their online classes since my internet is more reliable than Hughes Net is also a contributing factor;  The price that we would be charged for unlimited internet is obscene to what other companies charge.

Spectrum 49.99 no data cap

My data usage has averaged 70G to 250G since January 2020.  In November and December, this started to increase for no apparent reason even when i had less devices on my network.  On 1/15/21, i received notification that i was at 75% of 1.2TB.  Realizing that was impossible, I began to call xFinity for days.  I have kept a diary/log of my calls with screen shots and am frustrated that no one can tell me why my data usage is showing so high.  Today's usuage with a few more days left in January is 1826GB.  On 1/22/21,  have filed a complaint with the FCC.   I will not be paying additional money to xFinity for data usage that no one can explain.   Anyone have any other ideas?

@logically, keep in mind that the $49.99* with Spectrum is their new customer promotional price.  If you follow the asterisk to the bottom of the page, it tells you that after 12 months, "standard rates" apply, but doesn't say what those rates are. I didn't follow it any further since they don't serve my area anyway.

Just for comparison, my new customer promotional price with Xfinity was 29.95 for 24 months.