Comcast customers in Washington state should check their bills for unwanted charges, State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a consumer alert issued this week.

Ferguson filed a $100 million lawsuit against Comcast in August 2016, accusing the nation's largest ISP of misleading customers in order to tack $5 onto their monthly bills for an unnecessary Service Protection Plan (SPP). (Comcast has since raised the fee to $6 a month.)

With that lawsuit still pending, Ferguson says his office has received new complaints.

"Dozens of Comcast customers filed complaints with the Attorney General’s Office in the last six weeks, claiming that the company’s Service Protection Plan (SPP) appeared on their bill when they did not consent to paying for the service," the consumer alert says.

When the lawsuit was filed in 2016, Ferguson accused Comcast of "misleading 500,000 Washington consumers and deceiving them into paying at least $73 million in subscription fees over the last five years for a near-worthless 'protection plan' without disclosing its significant limitations."

Comcast said in 2016 that it had "worked with the Attorney General’s office to address every issue they raised, and we made several improvements based on their input."

But Ferguson alleges that Comcast may still be misleading customers about the SPP. Ferguson amended his lawsuit against Comcast last month "to include new evidence revealing even more deceptive conduct than previously alleged."

Since Washington amended the lawsuit, 74 Comcast customers have filed new complaints about the SPP with Ferguson's office. "Of those, more than 50 claim Comcast added the plan to their account without their consent," the consumer alert says.

While consumer complaints "are not necessarily evidence of wrongdoing," they do "help inform the Attorney General's Office about potential unfair or deceptive business practices and allow the office [to] understand the scope of unlawful practices," the alert says.

Ferguson thus urged Comcast customers to check their bills.

"If you believe you're being charged for the SPP without your consent, file a complaint with the Attorney General's Office," the alert said.

Comcast defends service plans

According to Ferguson's lawsuit, Comcast led customers to believe that they needed to buy service protection plans to get services that were actually covered for free by the company's "Customer Guarantee." Some customers were told that the plans cover work outside their homes, even though repairs to Comcast equipment or outside wiring "are already covered [for free] by Comcast's Customer Guarantee promises," the lawsuit said.

Comcast told customers that the plan covered the cost of all service calls, but "did not appropriately disclose that the plan does not cover repairs to any 'wall-fished' wiring—wiring inside a wall—which constitutes the vast majority of wiring inside homes," the AG's office said when the lawsuit was filed.

An analysis of recorded calls between subscribers and Comcast reps "reveal[ed] that Comcast may have signed up more than half of all SPP subscribers without their consent," Ferguson's office said last month.

Comcast is defending itself against the lawsuit and last month said that it "strongly disagree[s]" with the amended complaint's new claims.

"The Service Protection Plan gives those consumers who choose to purchase it great value by covering virtually all service charges over 99 percent of the time," Comcast said at the time. The new allegations in the amended complaint "are largely based on a flawed methodology and assumptions," Comcast said.

We contacted Comcast today to see if it has any further comment and will update this story if we get a response.

UPDATE: Comcast got back to us with this response: "Our Service Protection Plan is a great value. To ensure the best possible customer experience, we confirm each sale with a full record of the details via email, text and other electronic means."