Cox Communications will pay more than $13 million to resolve an investigation and lawsuit alleging the telecommunications company failed to disclose adequately additional fees to customers, state officials said this week.

Attorney General Kris Mayes announced the settlement Thursday. It includes a $10 million payment to the state and $3,042,494 distributed by Cox to current and former customers who signed up for television services between January 2017 and March 2021.  

The state’s lawsuit alleged that Cox deceived Arizonans who purchased television services to enter long-term contracts through promises of a “price lock guarantee” and other fixed-pricing “deals,” according to a release from Mayes’ office. 

“Between January 2014 and March 2021, Cox reserved the ability to regularly raise the bills of price-locked customers through increases in company-imposed fees. The telecommunications company allegedly failed to fully explain these fees, known as the Broadcast Surcharge Fee and Regional Sports Surcharge as well as its telephone-related Carrier Cost Recovery Fee to Arizonans.”

By disguising price increases as fees,  Cox routinely raised the bills of customers who thought they had secured a locked-in price, the release stated.   

The lawsuit also alleged that Cox’s advertising, billing statements and representations relating to CCRF charges associated with its long-distance telephone services deceived Arizonans because Cox falsely implied that the CCRF charge was a tax or government fee by listing the fee alongside government taxes, fees and surcharges.  

Cox will distribute the payments required by the settlement as account credits to eligible customers who still have active Cox accounts at the time the credit is issued and electronic funds transfers to eligible consumers who no longer have active Cox accounts.  

"We’ll begin issuing credits to eligible current Arizona customers, via account credit, as soon as possible," Cox officials said on the company website.

"Before offering refunds to eligible former Arizona customers, we’ll attempt to verify contact information.

"We expect to complete credits and refunds to all eligible customers by September 2024."

All eligible Cox customers will be directly contacted by and paid by Cox, so there is no need for consumers to take further action, according to the Arizona Attorney Generals's Office.

For more information about consumer eligibility for payments, consumers may visit cox.com/azrefund  

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