Spectrum retroactively billing an Early Termination fee 6 months later

Location: California

Hey all, I’ll try to describe this situation to the best of my ability without revealing personal or business info. I will delete this post in 1-2 days.

My S-Corp entered into a 3-year contract with Spectrum Enterprise for dedicated fiber internet in 2023. In 2024 we were faced with relocating our operations to another state. We tried for weeks to reach an agreement with spectrum to move services, having been assured during the sales phase that all service moves would be covered by spectrum.

We were unable to reach an agreement on the service move, due to surprise exorbitant install charges and potentially moving out of their serviceable area. After back and forth phone calls for weeks and talking to 10-15 customer support people, they finally waived the early termination fee verbally and sent a written confirmation of the service disconnect as a pdf through docusign that clearly states “Early termination fee $0.00”

This was in October. We moved forward with the disconnect, they picked up their equipment and we assumed the matter was settled.

Now, over 6 months later, they emailed us saying there was an error in our final bill and added a ~27 thousand dollar early termination fee to our account.

We have since moved on to another service obviously, and I was shocked to receive this notice. I called them promptly, assuming it was a clerical error, and forwarded them the disconnect notice. After much back and forth and getting sent around the office on hold, they claimed the disconnect notice was sent to us in error and the fee was valid.

They would not waive the fee and gave us the address to begin arbitration proceedings.

I’m very uncertain of how to proceed. Has anyone been in a similar situation? I’ll take any advice at all, thank you!