Cut the cord with Optimum? NJ customers could have a refund coming
💵 Eligible Optimum customers will receive $37 refunds after an eight-year fight over final cable bills.
📺 NJ regulators say customers were improperly charged for cable service after they had canceled.
🌐 The settlement also expands $15-a-month Optimum internet and provides some customers six months free.
If you cut the cord with Optimum in New Jersey, there may finally be a little money coming back your way.
After an eight-year battle over how the cable company billed customers who canceled service, New Jersey regulators have reached a settlement with Optimum that includes refunds for customers who were improperly charged.
And while $37 isn't exactly a financial windfall, the settlement closes the book on a fight that went all the way through New Jersey's courts.
The fight over Optimum cable bills
The dispute dates back to 2018, when more than 100 customers complained that Optimum continued charging them through the end of their billing cycle even after they canceled cable service.
New Jersey Board of Public Utilities rules require cable companies to prorate bills when customers begin or cancel service. In other words, if you cancel halfway through the month, you're supposed to pay only for the days you actually had service.
The BPU ordered Optimum to stop the practice and issue refunds in 2019.
Optimum fought that order in court. In 2023, the New Jersey Supreme Court and Appellate Division upheld the BPU's authority to enforce its prorating rules. Optimum subsequently changed its billing practices.
Who gets the $37 Optimum refund?
Under the new settlement, customers affected by Optimum's billing practices between Dec. 18, 2018, and May 5, 2023, are eligible for a $37 refund.
An independent audit was unable to determine exactly how many customers were affected or precisely how much each customer had overpaid, according to the Asbury Park Press.
Optimum says eligible customers will be able to seek refunds through a claims process and that it plans an outreach campaign to alert customers.
Settlement also includes cheaper internet
The agreement goes beyond refunds.
Optimum must make its $15-per-month Optimum Advantage Internet service available to any new or existing New Jersey customer for at least four years, regardless of income.
Customers receiving service through the low-income broadband program will also get six months of free service spread over two years.
The BPU also imposed additional reporting requirements to monitor Optimum's compliance with state customer-service regulations.
Customers with questions about refund eligibility can contact the BPU's Division of Customer Assistance at 1-800-624-0241.
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