So in my ongoing search to get the most bang for my buck, last month I decide to say goodbye to SBC Yahoo and contract with earthlink for dsl and voip.
The sales rep outlines the plans and I decide on one that will give me dsl, voip w/long distance for what I am paying now for dsl and home phone service.
After being assured that the only charges I will be debited for the first 30 days will be a twenty dollar s/h fee, I give up my debit card number.
Now being the victim of a recent trip to bankcard hell, I have gotten smart. I got myself a prepaid card and no longer use my personal bankcard online for anything. I deposit a certain amount to the prepaid and any online transactions are done with that.
The modem comes a week later and I am up and running. I have the service for two weeks and all is fine. Then I check my card and find out that I have been debitted $161.81 for two weeks of service not the original $20 as I had been told.
Incensed I contact earthlink and am told that I am being billed for a partial month and the coming month in advance. That really pissed me off. First because I was told something completely different and also because I had not even recieved a bill from them as of yet and they were two weeks early on on taking the payment in any event.
So I cancelled the service on the spot. Here come the good part. When I demanded my money back I was told that since there was a contract, there was an eearly cancellation fee. When I informed them that according to their agreement I had 30 days to cancel with no penalty, my cust serv rep got pissed. After conferring with god knows who, I am on hold for twenty mins. I am then informed that yes I can get a refund but only after their punk ass modem is returned and that it can only be returned by using their UPS prepaid shipping label. As soon as I hung up they cut off my phone service. All this occured on Oct. 5, on the 10th I got their label which came with a letter saying I had 30 days to return my equipment for my refund. I called them again that day to find out when to expect my refund and guess what? The rep who was the only helpful and polite person I talked with told me that according to her records I had 10 days to get the modem to them or they were charging me $150 for the equipment, not the 30 days as their letter said when I got their shipping label. I got the package off to them on the 10th the day I reiceved their label.
I am waiting to see what other bs they will concoct in order not to refund my money next. It is impossible to get anyon above the first level of customer service contact. I called their corporate HQ in Atlanta and here in Pasadena, all that happens is that you get routed back to the cutomer service line. I realize someone must be getting decent service from them but wonder if anyone else has had problems.
Oh and by the way I still have no home phone until my Time Warner installation at the end of this coming week, so dont call me, ok?
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