Earthlink is big all right. By most reckonings, it's the second largest Internet service provider after AOL. Unfortunately, it shares many of AOL's bad habits -- the most notorious being the near impossibility of cancelling the service.
Below is a sampling of recent complaints. Click the links to the right for more.
Kimberly of Susanville, CA November 6, 2008
Kimberly of Susanville CA (11/06/08) Signed on for service while away to get internet service. After trying the service it was horribly slow and I decided it wasn't worth waiting...waiting...waiting. So a week later I called to cancel. The woman on the phone confirmed it was cancel. They dont ask for an email they just tell you it is cancelled, no solid confirmation. A few months later I am looking through my bank statement and they are still charging me 22. per month.
Called customer service to request again to PLEASE close account and now to request money back. She asks when I cancelled I tell her over 3 months ago she says they have no record, interestingly enough neither do I. My word against theirs. She then tells me that she can't do a refund but the account is now closed. I asked to talk to a manager, she puts me on hold ....forever...and of course at this point I am thinking this is the whole point to put me on hold I will hang up frustrated and forget about it. So I hung up....but I called the same number, got another customer service person (strong accent, hard to understand, plus I am already frustrated) I give her all the same required info again, explain the WHOLE situation again. She says well it looks like you just cancelled today....are you serious.....again I tell her I want to talk to a manger but this time I tell her- DO NOT PUT ME ON HOLD, I will wait, amazing...she keeps me on the line- never heard anybody in the background talking to her, manager never comes on the phone, she just comes back to the phone tells me that I will have a full refund and the account is cancelled.
I then tell her I have to have a confirmation because I have gone through this before, walked away with nothing but more charges. She finally asks for an email that they will send a confirmation, I then ask her how much the refund is because she didn't actually state the amount. She says 100, nice round number. Now I am waiting to see if I get this email that they are supposed to send to confirm the cancellation and refund. We will see. They are horrible to work with, the customer service is very hard to understand. There procedures are very unprofessional and their ethics are questionable. I never make a complaint on these types of forums but this really needs to be looked into.
Time, money, frustration
Catherine of Spartansburg, SC November 2, 2008
Catherine of Spartansburg SC (11/02/08) I am a earthlink under contract but I keep losing server everyday for past two mos this happen like 2 years ago as well frist time took me three mos to get them to fix it this time i been hung up on six time ran thur same test on line I been sold so much stuff andhad to return due to greek come cheack pc to fineit not morderm are any thing of mine but on there end. yet the tell you you need this to get it to fine it not the trouble I call holloween on like with sup and he brust out laughting and hangs up call back it appearls there a party and no one cares i pay good money for dsl and yet last two been wasted i cant afford at&t are cabble but earthlink take full use of there power on sr plus our bills never the same
my hubby can relax are chat with his friends and he cant go out I lost church time with new letters and able to chat with our kids and grandkids as by time it decide to work it to late for them as we are over 1000 mile from them extra money come out of cheack as they will only to a debt so our mo bill never the same
Kathie of Alpharetta, GA October 29, 2008
Kathie of Alpharetta GA (10/29/08) Have been trying to cancel service with Earthlink for two years. First by email notice and this year via phone. The first level of support transferred me to the fraud dept. I told second level of support I never signed up for Earthlink, never used it, and yet they somehow had my cc number. The support rep assigned a reference number for both the phone call and the investigation. I was told I would receive a phone call from the fraud dept within 24-48 hours (never happened)
In talking to the second level support rep I requested that she go ahead and cancel the account. SHE refused to do that since they were going to be investigating the account.
Realizing that Earthlink was not going to take any action, I have contacted my CC company and they are handling it from their end. Hopefully, this will result in a cancelled account.
It is incredible that EARTHLINK can rob citizens of their money!
Bottom line I am out of aprox 300.
Heidi of Nyc, NY October 23, 2008
Heidi of Nyc NY (10/23/08) In short, Three times I canceled my account. And still they send me bills every month.I have been on the phone with them each time at least 25-46 minutes. Today I tryed to cancel yet again. Finnally got to my 4th supervior,and still thy couldn`t solve the bill for the amount of 20.11!
After reading so many complants this company must be stopped! it`s only a bill for 20.11 But that is all paperless invoice and Non-automatic charges for the last 6 month. I cancelled 1st time May 08.
Mira of Fort Worth, TX October 17, 2008
Mira of Fort Worth TX (10/17/08) We had DSL with Earthlink and on 9/16/08 the DSL quit working. My husband called immediately, and they couldn't figure out why it wasn't working, and promised to have someone call him back on his cell phone once someone had checked the line, and he could check the automated line to see when it would come back up. When he hadn't heard anything by the next afternoon he called back and was told the exact same thing (someone has to check the line, I PROMISE I will call...) and the autmated line said it would be fixed in 8 hours. This continued for 3 days (waiting 40+ minutes each time we called to talk to someone), same story.
We then requested that they cancel the service, without charging the 150 to cancel our contract, since they were unable to hold up their end of the contract, and provide us DSL service. That agent said he would not charge us to cancel the service. The next day I called Earthlink to confirm that it was canceled, that we wouldn't be charged the fee and our charges would be backdated to the last day we had DSL service, and whether we were supposed to return the modem. The girl I spoke to said that we didn't need to return the modem, and that she could see a credit that would hit our account for the 150 once it appeared in a few days. Two days later our credit card was charged the 150 fee.
I called and the agent I spoke with said that there was nothing she could do. I then asked to speak to her boss, I then sat on hold for over 20 minutes waiting to speak to the supervisor. When I finally spoke with the supervisor he said he was the night manager of the Dominican Republic customer service branch and told me that two previous agents had explained that I would be charged the 150 fee and left notes to that effect in the system, and that I was lying and there was no way he would refund the fee.
Bottom line, we would not have canceled service if we had been told we would be charged 150. We were lied to by two individuals on the phone, who then wrote notes in their system saying they had told us we would be charged. The supervisor didn't care, at all, and was very, very rude to us. Earthlink lied to us, and stole 150 from us.
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