Complaint Review: Earthlink - Atlanta Georgia

This is what I had sent to Earthlink in response to them forwarding me to a clollection agency for early cancellation.

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Dear Mr. Betty,

I have written this in response to various charges I have incurred and overall dissatisfaction I have experienced trying to establish residential DSL service through

Earthlink.

Let me begin by telling you that on the 20th of February 2003, I called to request a DSL service change over from my current provider, Verizon. The sales rep I spoke with that day assured me I would be very happy with Earthlink; and the problems I had in the past with technical support & accounting, would not be an issue. I also told the rep that I wished to pay by check, as I am trying to limit my credit card usage. The rep stated this would be fine, only the initial set up package would be charged to my credit card. I was told to wait a few weeks for the equipment to arrive, after that Earthlink would take care of the change over from my current DSL provider.

Sometime around the beginning on March, I suddenly lost my Verizon DSL service. I called their technical support to see what had occurred, & I was told that my line had been slammed by Covad. I asked what that meant, & they stated it was when a carrier grabs the line from a customer without notice. This was corrected for me & I had my service restored.

A few days later, my initial package arrived from Earthlink. I called and stated I was ready to have my service started, as I had just received my equipment. This was the start of approximately 2 months of headaches for me.

After connecting the equipment up, there was no service for a while, then Earthlink DSL service seemed to work for maybe 1-2 hours. After getting back in touch with technical support, I was told they would check into it. I later learned Verizon had taken the line back & Earthlink would take care of this. A few days later I was told, that I would need to call Verizon and have them cancel my service. I explained that initially when I spoke with the sales rep, that Earthlink would handle the switch. I later agreed to call Verizon and take care of the cancellation.

I have to tell you that Verizon technical support is very hard to get a hold of. I tried various calls and had to hang up after being on hold for extended periods of time. I contacted Earthlink back by e-mail & after a day or 2; I was told I would need to call the technical support group. I finally got through after many calling attempts as well. I was told they would see what they could do, but more than likely I would still need to contact Verizon before they could proceed with my hook up. Once again I explained this was not what the sales rep promised.

This went on for on and on between e-mail & calling back for technical support, explaining having no luck getting through to Verizon. During this time period, I was also charged on my credit card for three months of service. Now I had to go back and forth with billing explaining that my service is not established and that I did not want automatic billing on my credit card as well. Once again, I could not get this cleared up.

I finally got frustrated with the whole process and time I had lost trying to work the issues. I told Earthlink to close my account, I figured my 3 months of billing was lost as well, but I could not take it anymore. Now I received a bill for $149.95 for early cancellation. I could see this if I actually had received service and cancelled before the required time.

I just wished to bring this to your attention. Do you believe your company operates at much higher standards than this? I would think your expectations would be much more in this day and age.

Please let me know if you believe I still owe the charges after reading this. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my concerns.

Russ

Allentown, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.

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