(credit: Mike Mozart)

The Washington state attorney general’s $100 million lawsuit against Comcast, filed yesterday, uses a sales script and transcripts of chats with customers to make the case that Comcast deceived subscribers when marketing what the state calls “near-worthless” service plans.

Since January 2011, Comcast made $73 million selling Service Protection Plans (SPP) for up to $5 a month to 500,000 customers in Washington. But the service plans were sold to customers under false pretenses, with Comcast describing the plans as being far more comprehensive and useful than they were, Attorney General Bob Ferguson alleged.

Comcast’s service plan revenue was mostly profit. Between January 2013 and July 2015, Washington customers paid Comcast $41.6 million for service plans that helped them avoid only about $5 million in service call charges. That’s a $36.6 million profit gained largely because of deceptive advertising, the lawsuit said.