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I understand that the city of San Francisco is planning on contracting with EarthLink to provide ISP coverage for citywide WiFi. I request that you re-consider a business relationship with EarthLink. As a consumer, I had a terrible experience with EarthLink recently. The consumer issues associated with my experience were mainly associated with EarthLink’s lack of adequate customer service.
EarthLink outsources their customer service to a company in India. Although the Indian customer service agents were friendly, they were unable to resolve my problems with EarthLink’s service. They also failed to forward me, in a timely manner, to someone at EarthLink’s corporate office who could resolve the problems. Thus, EarthLink’s customer service essentially became a dead-end. My attempts to resolve the issues took over two months.
In the end, while still trying to sort-out the mess created by EarthLink (EarthLink erroneously merged my account with another individual and then billed him for my services), EarthLink cut off my DSL service without warning. I am a physician and temporarily lost my e-mail contacts, which impaired my ability to communicate via e-mail with my patients. My ability to do online banking, bill pay, and communicate with friends and family was also impaired.
I filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and my local Congressman (George Miller) - who forwarded my complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. EarthLink’s corporate office finally responded. But they failed to explain their actions and their lack of adequate and meaningful customer service, except to say "human error." EarthLink then cited paragraphs of it’s lengthy terms of service and essentially said "too bad, that’s life" (my quotes). They unilaterally closed the discussion.
In attempting to regain DSL service, I signed up with AT&T. During my discussion with EarthLink’s corporate customer service office, they tried to get me to sign back up with EarthLink. I declined and stated that I had established AT&T DSL service. Despite this, EarthLink took over control from AT&T of my DSL line without my permission. In assuming control of a DSL line, as in switching service from one company to another, the ISP is supposed to obtain third party verification of the order to do so by the customer to assure that this is what the customer wants to do. According to what I was told by AT&T, third party verification is FCC policy. EarthLink switched control of the line anyway, without third party verification. This cut me off from my DSL service for another week until I was able to confirm with AT&T that I wanted to stay with AT&T.
My experience with EarthLink has been a nightmare. I feel that EarthLink acted with contempt towards me as a customer. I feel that they have anti-consumer policies. I searced the web to see if others were having the same problems with EarthLink. Interestingly, I found a website called www.earthlinksucks.org, which has a great deal of testimony from others who have suffered extreme frustration in their dealings with EarthLink. I urge you to visit the website.
Internet access has become a vital utility in communication, business and researching information. It is not a luxury. It should be regulated and respected as a vital utility.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
David MacDonald
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