This all started with Earthlink Business acquiring me from their reseller. I was a customer of toast.net for 16 years. They resold me Earthlink iDSL.
On October 3rd, I was contacted by Bruce Smith of Earthlink Business. He promised me a seamless transition from toast billing to being directly billed for my iDSL from Earthlink. One hour later my Internet went out.
Long story short, they got my Internet up 1 week later. It stayed up for less than a week, and went down hard. Explanation to be was that the local loop circuit had been turned off, and they had to order a new one.in the meantime, I was totally without service. I spoke with David Hayes, the boss of Bruce Smith. He send me an email that said he would look into the issue and get back to me. He never sent another email on that issue.
I called and emailed frequently, and each time it took 2 or 3 days for a reply.
Today, 7 weeks after this all started, Mr. Hayes tells me by email that Earthlink is "no longer provisioning a 144K IDSL loop in the core of our network. Which means that upon submitting your order to our provisioning team it has been rejected." He goes on to recommend a $310/mth T1 service to replace the service I was paying $120/mth for, with a 1 month in the future, install date.
This is how they treated me after 16 years of being their customer.
I run a small business as a software developer. This interruption in my Internet service has caused me endless problems taking care of my customers. I live out of town, so now I drive into town every day, and use wireless at McDonalds or a coffee shop. I wish I could sue them for the business loss they have caused.
So, to sum up this report: Beware of Earthlink Business. Their business customer reps are non-responsive, and unhelpful in the extreme. David Hayes is the Regional Manager of Business Development. He is just as bad as his underling, Bruce Smith, who told me "I have bigger customers to worry about", in our last phone conversation.
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