Summary:
The quality of service ACN's representatives has been horrible. ACN locks you in with ridiculous up-front costs and EXORBITANT cancellation fees. Through ACN's bumbling, they stole another person's phone number, cancelled my parents previous phone service, and disconnected their DSL. Now they have neither phone service nor internet service.
Details:
My parents signed up for ACN in late April of this year. They were attempting to transfer their existing phone service (AT&T) over to ACN's new videophone service. ACN informed them they would have to change their satellite TV provider, Dish Network, as that was bundled with their phone service.
Unfortunately, ACN made a mistake on the application form - the data entry person screwed up the phone #, so the phone # that ACN activated wasn't my parents current number. ACN actually stole somebody else's phone number, which cancelled that person's service. That person had had this number for over 20 years and used it as a FAX for a home-based business. She called my parents and was terribly unhappy at what had occurred. This was ACN's fault.
My parent weren't aware of the problem until late May. They received their phone and were ready to get going, but it didn't work because the phone number they input wasn't accepted. After multiple calls to ACN technical support, the phone number error was finally discovered. The rep told my parents that it would take up to 45 DAYS to correct the error.
In late June, ACN was finally ready to remedy this. My parents authorized ACN to terminate their local phone service (AT&T) and switch over to ACN, with the correct phone number this time. They were sent instructions on how to activate their phone with the new phone number. This required a firmware upgrade, a terribly convoluted process.
My parents were unable to complete this process and called ACN technical support YET AGAIN. Turns out that when ACN cancelled my parents AT&T service, AT&T also cancelled their DSL. The ACN rep didn't inform my parents that this might happen. The technical support person told my parents that they would have to restore DSL before they could activate their videophone (obviously).
Also, at this same time, my parents discovered that ACN had sent them the WRONG INSTRUCTIONS for performing the videophone firmware upgrade - they received the instructions for an earlier version of the phone. Yet another example of ACN's bumbling incompetence.
My parents decided that they didn't want to stay with a company that had failed miserably for TWO MONTHS to get their service running. Then the ACN contract hammer came down - they would be forced to pay $200 dollars to terminate their contract early. And this is after my parents have gotten NO SERVICE WHATSOEVER.
My parents FAXed the ACN termination group with their displeasure. A deadline passed yesterday for ACN to respond, so I am helping my parents advertize the fact that ACN permits such shoddy work and incompetent technical support to occur in their name. Shame on ACN!
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