Hi, I am so frustrated with this company and the fact that they tried to rip me off twice after assuring me that it would not happen again that I thought it best to report this online.
I ordered sbc yahoo dsl in march and told them that the 12 month contract was not a good option for me as I would be ending my lease in june and spending 3 months abroad. The customer representative assured me that I would not be charged an early cancellation fee of 250 in the event that I moved overseas. Their clause states that if you move to a location where sbc yahoo dsl is not available, you are not charged this fee.
However, I was met with this charge when I got back to the US. It took lengthy negotiations and talking to 4 or 5 different customer reps before they waived my fee. The fact that I had been overseas did not apply, however and I was only able to get this fee recredited to my account when I decided to reorder sbc yahoo dsl.
They again assured me that this would not happen again.
I used the service for exactly 12 months. I had started on August 20/03 but had to end the service on the 10th of august/04 as my lease ended and I moved to a different state - (NC) where their services are not available. Meanwhile, I had set up automatic payment from my checking account. Again, they charged me the early cancellation fee on the grounds that I had cancelled 10 days earlier. I argued with them that had I known, I would have opted to pay for 10 more days rather than pay a penalty of 250$.
Worse was the fact that they debited from a local account I was intending to close off. The account went under zero and I ended up paying penalties for that. Add to that the shock of getting this penalty fee. I also stated that NC was not a state where their services were available. They argued with me on this as well. Again, it took several customer reps for me to get my point across, after which they consented to send me a check for this fee. That does not however solve the problem that my account went under zero. Moreover, this all happened at a time when I am not getting payed for 2 months. Even if they recredit the account, it will take them up to a month to recredit my account.
Nobody warned me about this penalty fee. On the contrary, when I asked them several times to make sure that my account would be closed and that I would not be paying any more fees, there was no mention of this fee.
It is obvious to me that they were hoping that I would somehow make the mistake of cancelling just 10 days ahead of time and that they would end up charging me the penalty fee-which is worth another 8 months of dsl services!!! For this purpose, they consciously witheld info from me. Moreover, had I not pointed out the clause that states that a customer is not liable for this fee if she or he moves to a state where their services are not available, I would have ended up paying this fee. Not only did they NOT inform me about this clause but they also argued with me on this account, stating that their services were available in SOME parts of NC (though not in Durham-which is where I am located).
I am apalled at this systematic procedure of ripping people off. As a statistics major and phd student, it does not take much intellect to figure out that they are hoping to gain extra profit through people's lack of information and their mistakes (as cancelling 10 days ahead of time). Witholding info and purposefully misleading are all against free market economy which is what a company like sbc is supposed to uphold.
Customers beware-DO NOT FALL INTO THE SAME TRAP.in FACT I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO CHOOSE SBC YAHOO DSL!!!
Nazli
durham, North Carolina
U.S.A.
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