Complaint Review: Earthlink DSL

I recently had what I would call as a very poor experience with Earthlink. I'd been using their dial up service for about 9 months since moving to Albuquerque. So far so good, and the only DSL available locally was from Qwest, with what I considered to be a very poor deal. That's how it goes with single suppliers, I suppose.

Then I received a call from Earthlink telling me that they now were offering DSL in my area and there was a promo for $19.95 for the first six months and then $39.95/month after that. Sounded like a decent deal (it was a little less than what I had been paying in Connecticut through SBC) but I wasn't ready to sign up just yet. For one thing, I wanted to look up the current offers on the web, and do my homework. So I declined to set the deal up at that time.

After doing some checking, I realized that they were offering two speeds: 3mbps for $44.95 month, and 1.5mbps for $39.95 a month, after the $19.95/month intro period of six months. So I assumed that what they had offered me on the phone was the 1.5mbps deal.

Then they called again to make the offer (this was a couple of weeks later) and I asked them point blank about the speed and mentioned what was on the web site. They responded by saying that I would get the
higher speed at the 39.95 price because the "phone offer was a promo that was not available on their site". So I signed up for it. At this point, no one on the phone from Earthlink ever even mentioned the $44.95 price. They did go over the details of the offer, including the fact that the modem would be free, activation would be free, etc. So I was expecting that my first bill will be in the $20 range because of the promo.

The modem arrived, I hooked up the system, get going, and everything was great. It was fast, worked like a charm, great. No
need to even load software. I was a happy camper!

So I got my first invoice (via email) and it is for $41.80. I look through it and realize that they have charged me $19.95 for SHIPPING the modem and software discs. This wasn't overnight or anything. Just a small box the size of a phone book via UPS ground. But more importantly, at NO TIME did they mention anything to me about the shipping charges.

In the invoice, there are three ways listed by which I could contact them about billing issues. One of them is to send a note to an email address, and it happens to be the same address from which the invoice came. So I reply to the email with my displeasure about the exhorbinant shipping charges and the fact that they did not tell me about it when I signed up for the plan. I received an auto response saying "email is not a secure way to discuss billing issues, please use one of these other methods" with a secure live chat URL and a phone number. OK, I started getting a little miffed. What was the point of including that email address as a contact method if I wasn't actually supposed to use it?

So I fired up the online chat thing, and got an agent right away. I explained the shipping charges issue to him and his response was "it's listed on the web site". I respond with "This entire deal was conducted over the phone and no one told me about the shipping charges". After a few more rounds of hemming and hawing, he agreed to give me a partial credit. I was at least somewhat ameliorated at this point because I figure that
$10 for the shipping would have been fairly reasonable, and my time is worth more than that at that point. So I was ready to let all of this go.

Then he re-confirms my package, stating that I was signed up for the 3mbps connection, at $44.95 a month. OK, now I was pissed again and I let him know that this wasn't the deal I had signed up for. He apologized for the "poor communication". I explained that this was not acceptable and what I wanted now was to set it straight. He declined to help me further and gave me a 800 phone number.

I called the number, and after navigating about six decision trees, I got to an agent and started describing this whole thing to her. Once we got past the story, she basically said "I'm sorry about the confusion
but I can't help you". So I asked for someone who could. At this point, my blood was boiling but I never spoke harshly or used profanity, despite the overwhelming desire to do so. I realize that these agents do not set policy, and my issue was with someone else or a different department, even.

So she asked if she could "put me on hold for a minute or two so I can look some things up". After being on hold for over 20 MINUTES I finally hung up and decided to try again the following day so that I could more
calmly handle this situation.

I got up early the next day and called the number again, then navigated through the six decision trees, etc. This time I reached someone whom I was unable to understand on the phone. Like many companies, Earthlink
probably outsources to call centers elsewhere, and I suspect that I was speaking to someone in India. So I asked for a "native english speaker". Another gentleman got on the phone and although he was also
probably Indian, I could understand him fine. I told the story again and once again was told "I'm sorry about the mis-communication but there are two plans, and that's all we offer. I can't give you the 3MBs at the $39.95 price." So I asked him if he were to purchase a TV set on a web site because of the good price, then he was invoiced for a different price, if he would accept that. And he agreed that he would not.

So he did end up offering me a $20 credit on my account. I accepted that offer and then asked to also go ahead and downgrade my connection to the 1.5mbps speed at the price I had originally agreed to pay for the higher speed, since I realized this was as far as I could take it. He connected me to someone who could do that and as far as I know, this was done (I couldn't tell much of a difference in the performance).

So, this episode cost Earthlink $30 and the time of three of their agents in dealing with me. It cost me time and frustration, and I consider it fraud on their part. I suspect that this was their intention: say anything to make the sale, then once it's done, try to
screw the customer in at least two ways (shipping cost and higher monthly charge). They had no intention of providing the deal that they offered on the phone.

Carl
Albuquerque, New Mexico
U.S.A.

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