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People Pc An Earthlink Company Fraudulent Billing practices, continued to bill account after cancelling. ripoff San Francisco California
On May 4, 2004, I ordered People PC Internet service. In January of 2005, Cebridge Connections made high speed cable Internet available in my area. I contact People PC customer support on January 31st 2005 to cancel my service. I spoke with a gentleman and told him I would like to cancel my serivce since high speed Internet was not available. He said he would give me a months service free. I informed him that he can do whatever he wants to do, but if high speed internet is not available, I did not want it anymore. Since I told the man that I did not want the PeoplePC service anymore, I thought that was it.
Fastforward 14 months. April 5, 2006 I deposited my paycheck and noticed that I had been overdrawn. April 6, 2006, I called my back to see what had happened. They informed my that a debit in the amount of $10.95 was charged to People PC. I said that is not possible. I canceled my service 14 months ago and have a different provider now. She told me to contact People PC.
I was passed around between 3 different people for an hour, the last person being a lady named Erica. She told me that yes I did call in on January 31st, 2005 to cancel my account. The gentleman offered me a free month of service. After the free month of service, my account started to get billed again. The gentleman never once said that I would continue to get billed. I never received a statement in the mail from People PC. I never used the account during that free month.
I specifically told the gentleman that if People PC could not provide "HIGH SPEED" Internet service, then I want to cancel. The man never gave me a reference number or cancelation number. I have been charged $10.95/month since March of 2005. I never read my bank statements, so I was unaware of the charges until now. This month, it caused 2 $25 courtesy pay fees from my bank because I was overdrawn. There is no telling how many times I have been overdrawn in the past because of this fraudulant practice.
Erica did say that she could reimburse me the last two payments that were debited from my card. That was not good enough for me. I asked to speak with her boss. She said she was the boss. I asked for the number to the corporate office. She conviently did not know the number.
I sent and email to the President of People PC, Bill Heys and received this response from Anne Peckskamp.
"Thank you for bringing your situation to our attention. I apologize for the misunderstanding; however, we do require that any customer with a billing dispute get in touch with us within a reasonable amount of time of that charge for a full refund. Because the free month was agreed upon and no cancellation confirmation was given your account remained open. As a courtesy I will refund an additional 2 months for a total refund amount of $43.80. Please visit our Online Service Agreement for further details on the terms agreed to with your membership."
I replied back to her that People PC, with a billion dollars in revenues and over 1 million customers, should be able to refund the full amount without putting a dent in their income statement or balance sheet. I have not heard back from her. Now I see why they have over a billion dollars in revenues, they do it frauduently.
I would not recommend using People PC because you can obviously not cancel the service easily. They are deceptive in their practices and their service is not great either.