Charter admits that it accidentally charged a "Wi-Fi Activation" fee to some customers, and the company is now facing a lawsuit over the charges.

The wrongful charges hit customers of Bright House Networks, a company that Charter purchased last year. A complaint filed on January 31 in the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida by customer Sharon Memmer seeks class-action status for all customers who were charged the "Illegitimate Wi-Fi Activation Fee."

Charter offered no comment on the lawsuit but acknowledged the mistake and says it intends to make things right.

"Some former Bright House Networks Internet customers were inadvertently charged the Wi-Fi Activation fee when they transitioned to a [Charter] Spectrum package, due to a billing-code error," Charter told Ars. "We apologized for the inconvenience and are proactively and automatically crediting any customer who was incorrectly charged and are communicating that to those customers on an upcoming statement."

The $10 fee is actually much less than the fee listed on Charter's website, which describes a "One-time Wi-Fi Activation Fee" of $39.99 and a "One-time Professional Installation Fee" of $49.99. (These fees are waived if you sign up for a special offer.)

The Wi-Fi activation fee seems to be intended only for new customers or current customers who lease a new wireless router from Charter and want a technician to install it. It's not clear why an additional fee is necessary to connect a router for brand new customers, particularly given that there's a separate fee for equipment installation.

The complaint accuses Charter of "knowingly attempting to collect an illegitimate debt," saying that it was not accidental as Charter claims. The complaint seeks the maximum statutory damages (which is capped at $500,000 or 1 percent of the defendant's net worth under Florida law), plus actual damages and attorney's fees. The lawsuit claims that "hundreds if not thousands" of people would be members of the proposed class.

The lawsuit may not go very far given Charter's apparent willingness to fix the problem. But it's just one example of the frustration felt by former customers of Bright House, which was purchased in the same deal that merged Time Warner Cable with Charter. The Tampa Bay Times heard from five customers who were charged the fee despite having already activated their service years ago.

"The erroneous Wi-Fi activation fees are just one of numerous widespread complaints involving billing by Spectrum customers," the Tampa Bay Times wrote in an article on the lawsuit. "Many former Bright House customers have complained that the company is breaking a promise not to raise their rates by falsely claiming their 'promotional plans' are expiring. A majority of former Bright House customers, Spectrum says, were under such plans, even in cases in which customers had received Bright House service for a decade or more."

Additionally, "numerous snowbirds" who disconnect their service for part of the year while they live up north "complain that Spectrum turned on their service without authorization and then started billing them," the article said.

Former Time Warner Cable (TWC) customers have been complaining about post-merger problems in a DSLReports forum thread, and Charter has lost tens of thousands of TWC video subscribers since implementing new pricing.

Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns about 13 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications owns Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica.