Complaint Review: ACN

ACN's customer service is pathetic and that is being nice! I too joined ACN and busted my buns and made several thousand in a few weeks. Note, that was based on signing up a lot of new IBO's (business partners). Also, note that I basically broke even, because like many others I chased the points and spent almost as much as I had earned in buying video phones (worthless by the way), etc. What really TURNED me off about ACN is their Customer Service and the nightmare in dealing with customer problems. I for one have to believe in a service or product that I am going to promote. After personally dealing with them as both a business customer (phone service for my offices), a residential customer and one of their so called business partners, I soon discovered some reality. Believe me you are better off dealing witth Century Link, Cox, Sprint, DIrect TV, etc., DIRECTLEY for they Understand Customer Service and Satisfaction. ACN is only concerned about BILLING YOU, regardless of any valid problems, mistakes or other service related issues. GOOD luck getting hold of a person and one that knows what they are doing and best of luck obtaining a satisfactory outcome or solution! After personally dealing with them on behalf of customer's that I signed up as one of their business partners and as one of their customers I got fed up! It would take me another 5000 words to just give you a few examples and I have plenty. I know that some may say this is all BS, believe me far from it! ACN likes to deal with an automated web-based solution for everything, I am still trying to stop the endless emails and it has been 2 years now. When you try to call them, you better be ready and patient enough to navigate their voice system to get to a real live human being. We spent many hours, on average 1.5 hours dealing with ACN on the phone per service related issue. You will end up frustrated, pissed off and then end up still not have a resolution that any good customer should receive. I had to personally get involved in the customers I got to sign up for services because it can be a nightmare. Just transferring or setting up new mobile phone services took hours with some idiot and more than one call to finally set up correctly. This resulted in people you know, friends, family, etc., getting pissed off at you! ACN"s video phone service, VOIP (voice over IP) another d**n joke! This will end up costing you a small fortunate until you figure that one out. YOU end paying fo an Internet connection just to hook up their "home" phone service. You end up buying hardware (equipment) that you might as well plan on throwing away if you leave ACN! Go and buy a VOIP box and your are way ahead of their game on that service. My own literally poor brother was one of my 1st ACN victim's and ended up spending twice the amount of money over the 2 year contract then he should have thanks to his older brother, me! Another example, an electrical storm "fried", damaged a bunch of equipment at one of my homes, faulty surge protector. I ended up having to replace a cable modem, Apple Time Capsule (router/switch/backup device), and the ACN little silver box from Linksys, several hundred $$ in equipment was damaged including ACN's little silver Linksys (VOIP) interface that I spent over 40 dollars for + $39 hook up fee! A friend who dropped ACN for the aforementioned reasons, service and higher costs gave me her little VOIP box. After spending over 2 hours with Technical Support and ACN's Customer Service Rep, I was given conflicting information, ended up frustrated and pissed off! I personally happen to have very good technical/computer background. It took at least a 45 minutes to get through to Technical Support. Once I finally got a "human being " on the phone, I tried to explain to him all I needed was for him to switch out the MAC Address of one device for another. I told him I had another like device and wanted to hook it up and needed him to just turn on the new MAC Address of the replacement unit that another former ACN Customer had ALREADY PAID FOR! He explained, no problem, however are you ready for this, he had to transfer me to the Customer Service Dept in order to do that. After being on hold for way to long, I finally get a lady on the phone, I end up explaining what happened all over again and that I SIMPLY just wanted to switch out the Linksys box and reasign that MAC (device) Address to the other unit and was told she had to do it. YOU can only imagine what happened next! Note, after spending over an hour with Tech Support and wait time on the Customer Service Dept, she told me she could not do that! I said, you got to be kidding, I stated the Tech Support guy had just told me no problem and transferred me to your department. Are you ready, the Customer Service Rep, told me that she could not do that for the device given to me may have been stolen or not paid for. That I had to buy another one for $40 and pay another $39 connect fee and sign up for another 1 or 2 year contract because I also had the "F'n" Video Phone if I wanted to keep that working. I started to lose it! Even though I explained that I had been given another device that had ALREADY BEEN PAID for by another ACN "fool" customer, why would I have to pay for another. NOTE, you get to pay for all ACN equipment up front there is no lease or pay for it in your bill! I also stated that this was outrageous, how could she charge me additional fees and try and force me into another CONTRACT ! I tried to reason with this MORAN, explain that this device had already been paid for and I just wanted her to connect it on her end, couple of key strokes. SHE told me that it was ACN policy that you had to either buy another one, agree to another 1 or 2 year contract, and pay another connection fee! Even if I wanted to connect the already paid for device, I still had to agree to another FEE and another NEW CONTRACT! Needless to say, I don't even want to say what I said next, I ended up wasting over 2 hours on the phone and throwing all the ACN crap out! What a RIPPOFF in fees and forcing an existing customer who was almost done with a contract into another one!!! I will give you a one final other OUTRAGE, have not got time to write a book on what a JOKE ACN services really are and how you will end up spending more in the long run! My fiancée another innocent "sucker", had a credit card issue around the Christmas Holiday. ACN was unable to charge her credit card, less than $20 fee and this resulted in 4 months later, after we had already had it with the equipment failure and trying to replace it, in a $400 COLLECTION by another 3rd party company! I s**t you not, ACN did not even send her one d**n letter to inform her or even offer the opportunity to avoid collection. She first found out about this when the Nasty Collection Agency was threateing her, etc., demanding $400! As GOD by my witness this is a true story! After spending hours to try and resolve this unwarranted and unfair issue and being told that ACN's policy is emails only I gave up tryng to work through ACN has customer. Note, we were also both still signed up as IBO's (Business Partners) and customers as well and had spent a thousands on ACN video phones, etc. Three were sent to Romania and we never got them to work that was another joke, the rest I donated to Goodwill. I ended up having to contact a guy in ACN (one in few) that actually gave a crap that I ended up befriending over the phone after 3 months of trying to get my ACN Business phones and service to work right at my office! That is another nightmare I am not going address. I was able to reach out to him to personally and get him involved in this outrageous collection to get to the right person in ACN. We ended up paying a $100 before we it was closed out! The REAL Outrage is that ACN is to d**n CHEAP to even put a stamp on an envelope and mail their customer a letter, never mind perhaps 2! As far as they are concerned they sent an EMAIL, God help you if you failed to read it, get it or ended up in junk mail! In my adult life as a customer of many services (electric, cable, Direct TV, Cox, etc.), I have never experience such CRAP, where a service provider sends one email and that is it regardless of the issue at hand! IN SUMMAY ACN sucks regarding services and your really saving money, wait until the 1st year is up! I personally know of one man who has busted his buns for over 4 years now, spent a lot of money getting people to join ACN and he has still NOT really seen any real success, far from any RESIDUAL INCOME! Believe me this guy works at it full time 7 days week, lucky to have another thriving business his wife runs, has spent a lot of money and is no where near 4 years later regarding retiring on Residual Income! Talk about an ACN brainwashed believer! I know of others and stealing customers and behind the scenes crap that really goes on in trying to reach the top of the ACN PYRIMID! The real truth is that ACN's success is due to the fact that have many thousands of IBO's (business partners) really not busting their asses, but paying there annual membership and definitely keeping all those ACN services that ACN makes plenty of $$ on. Think about it, any person who drops out or gets fed up with CHASING THE POINTS, No matter the financial cost alone is not going to stay with ACN's services for they end up spending far more and get to deal with a nightmare of what ACN calls Customer Service! You only put up with the aforementioned examples and issues if you are stupid enough to become and ACN Rep and remain loyal paying the extra costs! ACN truly is nothing more than a reseller of services, you MAY save a few bucks initially, but there is a catch and in the end you get what you paid for or not!