2008 August 20 | Los Cuatro Ojos

Earthlink’s Customer Service Is Worse Than Their Tech Support… That’s Pretty Bad.

Here I Am Paying For DSL Service And I’m Sitting In A Mickey D’s To Put This Post Out… Shameful!!!

I’ve been with Earthlink for 12 years and I’ve never been real crazy about their support system… But I’ve put up with it because… Well… Because I’m stupid.

My DSL modem sits there with all lights lit and refuses to let me onto the net… I reboot the thing and it drops the connect 10 minutes later.

So I deal with this for 4 days and finally I get on the horn and I get some overly polite dude in India who sympathizes with me… but basically, he’s a drone who’s reading his lines and can’t deviate from the book by one iota. “Did you reboot sir?”… Yup.

“Let’s try a reset”… says my 1st line hive unit. “Been there…Done That… 40 times already.”… Says I. “Sorry sir”… “We must follow procedure.”

“Self”… I sez to myself… ” Lets humor this guy and we’ll get to the level 2 guy sooner than it’ll take to convince him that you’ve exhausted all avenues before calling.”… But he throws me a curve ball. After the factory reset…He says… “Can you hook up a Windows machine directly to the modem and run it for a couple of hours so we can monitor the line?”… “And use IE by the way.”

This was my silent response.

This was my verbal response… “Dude… This is an all Mac and Firefox operation”… “I told you that from the beginning” … “I need to work… And I need to work with a Mac”… “Specifically… My Mac”… “It’ll take me 20 minutes to go dig out and dust off a Windows box and then I can’t get to my files “… Not to mention the whoop-dee-do the silly thing is gonna to put me through while it downloads 3 months of updates and installs them.”

From that… He deduces that it’s my line that’s screwed up… And that I’ve agreed to hook up the Windows box… ” OK Sir.”… “We’ll monitor the line until tomorrow”…

“Wait!” I squawk… “You said it was only for a couple of hours!”. (Notice how I’d forgotten all about my need to keep my Mac online?)… Devious buggers , those subcontinent tech types.

Sooo… For the next 20 minutes (while I’m digging out the Dell) I’m explaining to this guy all of the troubleshooting I’ve done and the fact that I’m pretty much savvy to any problems that come up, and that I’m pretty sure the modem was in the process of dying….

It was like talking to this guy

Anyway…

I ended up feeling like this

So the following day… I get a call from a slightly higher up drone who tells me that my line had a high noise to signal ratio and that all was fixed and all is well… And would I mind going online for him?… “Oh sure!” sez I… And I jump on the Dell and punch up the url for (what else?)LCO. Then we wait…and we wait.. and we wait some more… And Firefox gives me the old “Try Again?” button.

My new drone’s tone now changes to accusatory… “Are you sure you are hooked up to only one computer?” … “Yes”… “Did you unhook the router?” “Yes”… “OK” sez he…. “Then Something must be wrong.”

Noooo!… You Don’t Say!.. Thinks I

But what I sez was…“Can you escalate this to someone with authority to make a decision on replacing the modem?”

“OK” sez he… “But first… could you reboot the modem and we try one more thing?”… “Go along with it” I think… Anything to get me to someone who can get this thing back to normal.

So… I reboot the modem and he gives me an IP string to type in and, lo and behold!… I’m at Google’s home page.

So now he suggests that maybe I could type in IP addresses instead of like… you know… words.

Along about now… The old BP is up around 195/105.

Something’s about to blow!

So I grit my teeth and gently but firmly insist that I absolutely must speak to someone who can authorize a modem swap.

“OK” sez he… Someone will call me back within a couple of hours… OK Fine.

The Next Day…

I call with the ticket number and a machine tells me that the phone company is still checking my line and that I should call back later.

I am not a happy camper.

2 Hours Later…

Another overly polite fellow calls and informs me that he’s called all the way from India to inquire whether or not I’m satisfied with the tech support solution and that he’d like to now close the ticket.

And I’m Like…

“I Want A New Modem.”

And He’s Like… ” Let’s Test It First”

And I’m like …“OK..Fine”

So We Test The Modem…

And He Says… “THE MODEM IS BAD”

AND I’M LIKE

And Then… He Says…

“That’ll Be $79.95 plus $23.59 shipping.”

$104 for a modem that Best Buy sells for $40?!?!

That’s !!

“Well” sez he… “If you buy it at Best Buy”… “We Won’t Support It.” … “No More Tech Support For You.”

So I sez.. You mean that you expect me to pay you 50 -something bucks a month… And I’ve got the exact same model of modem… And you won’t give me any tech support?… I’ve been a customer for 12 years!.. and you won’t give me tech support unless I let you milk me for a piece of equipment?!?

“Well”… sez he … “Maybe we could let you have the modem for just the shipping charge if you’ll sign up for a year of Deluxe service.”

“How About I Just Cancel And Sign Up With Qwest?”.. Sez I

“Well… You’ll Have To Call Customer Service To Cancel Sir”… Sez He.

“OK -FINE !!” sez I.

And I Called Customer Service… Who promptly put me on hold for 40 minutes.

And… As Of This Morning… I’ve Still Got Earthlink As My ISP… But I’ve Already Made Arrangements For Their Replacement… And Guess What?… They Auto Deducted The New Months Payment On The 18th… So Maybe I’m Stuck For Another Month.

But If So… I Can Spend That Month Making Sure That None Of LCO’s 100,000+ Monthly Readers Get Shafted Like I Did.

Blogging Is Soooo Rewarding!

P.S….

Seems That I’m Not The Only One Feeling Shafted By Earthlink’s Know Nothing, Dronified, Incompetent, Arrogant And Downright Dishonest Ways… Somebody Cares Enough To Set Up A Dedicated Site And Forum At EarthlinkSucks.org … This Guy Even Came Up With A Wicked Little Logo…