Earthlink revolves around who?
We’ve been Earthlink hosting business customers for several years. They host a website for us and provide us with email through that service. About a month ago as I was frantically getting prepared for the Kosmix launch at DEMO 06, my email started to do strange things. I noticed on Wednesday that I wasn’t getting much mail, and by Friday I was receiving absolutely no mail whatsoever. When you’re a marketing person getting prepared to launch a company in two days, that’s the definition of disaster.
I spent over five hours on hold, on the phone and on chat with various Earthlink personnel. The live body that I actually reached on the phone told me that they were having problems with their email servers, and someone would call me to let me know the status. Having received no phone call by the next day, I jumped into a chat session with someone on the webmail team who was completely useless. They tried to get me to reconfigure my smtp server, when I had no problem sending mail, only receiving. They told me they had no other reports of anyone having problems receiving mail (clearly they hadn’t talked to the hosting team!), so it had to be something with my connection or my machine, which was incorrect as I was receiving mail through another ISP over the same ethernet connection, on the same machine. Finally, on Saturday, my mail started to trickle in, but I lost three days of email.
A note of apology finally showed up from Earthlink corporate a month later. Far too little too late – and my return response said as much. As a consultant, five hours of lost time and three days of lost email cost me a significant amount of money – enough to pay for our Earthlink service for quite a long time. However, the note back bounced:
Thank you for contacting EarthLink,
We received your email on 3/9/06, however in order to better serve you EarthLink only accepts new messages created by completing our online email form. To ensure that your inquiry is handled by an EarthLink representative we ask that you resubmit your request using our online email form which you can access using the “support by email” link on your personal start page, or, by inserting the following URL in your web browser:
and so on…
So, we tried to send an email to this URL, and received another mail stating that “Earthlink does not receive email at this address.” As my husband’s frustration mounted, he contacted them via chat – just to find any kind of customer support email address that would work! The following is a transcript of his final email to Earthlink:
I tried to send the attached email to you about a horrible customer experience my wife had. As you’ll see in the attached email, I simply replied to the address from which the Earthlink apology for providing poor service was sent. Of course, that resulted in an email stating that you didn’t accept emails at this address (“Earthlink Has Received Your Mail,? attached.) However, you were kind enough to provide me with a link that sent me to your support site. When I tried to submit my email to your support site, it told me that “we don’t accept those types of inquiries here, you’ll have to use chat or do nothing.?
Great. What do I want to do, chat with somebody who has absolutely no knowledge about the original problem and isn’t even remotely connected to customer SERVICE, or do I want to do nothing? I decided to ask “Seth V.? about how to reach customer SERVICE. Of course, it took some time for anyone to answer me. (My frustration builds, I’m only trying to send an email!!) Seth, to his credit, provided me with an email. But, when I asked if there was a name I could send it to, he said “No. There is no particular contact name but it will reach to concern department.? This, of course, proves that Seth knows nothing about how your customer SERVICE department should work. It took me 4 additional minutes to chat for 30 seconds and get a single email address with no additional information.
And all of that was to register a complaint. But, rather than making me feel better because I was able to register my complaint, it ended up making me madder because I wasn’t able to register my complaint. Nice work, if you’re out to irritate and alienate your customers, you’re doing a great job.
The original email is included, titled “FW Apology from Earthlink?
Brad Turner
Future ex-customer of hosting and dialup
After all this I hear an ad on the radio about how “Earthlink Revolves Around You”. Clearly a marketing campaign that’s out of touch with reality.
Michele's Miscellaney 
Mickey Pierce replied:
Did you ever find a way to submit complaints? I have have a HORRIBLE experience with Earthlink, where like you, nothing wrong is their doing. Like you, I’d like to get the message to corporate sans filing in court and sending it thru their coprorate process server.
March 28, 2006 at 11:14 pm. Permalink.
Nick Azar replied:
Phew – I was worried I was the only one. I’ve had the worst experience with Earthlink recently; it was enough to convince me that their support dept is so incompetent and useless the effort in switching ISP’s far outweighs the benefits of trying to get any meaningful resolution from them. I’ve attempted to email them regarding a minor DSL issue which noise start appearing in my line. Just like you, the only replies I received was their boilerplate messages that were bounced back at me. Being forced to use their online chat only increased my frustation with the useless rep on the other end typing what must have been 1 letter a minute. After forcing the issue to a trouble ticket for an engineer, my connection was only cripped worse (my DSL was capped at the slowest rate possible, from 3mbs+ to 128kbs) and my case suddenly went dark. After 5 days of patiently waiting for an engineer to contact me, I went through the online chat again only to be told they have no ETA, no update, and they cannot undo the speed restriction they set. I am worse off than when I started. Now, everytime I see their commercials, I feel a little tear run down my cheek from the pain.
June 15, 2006 at 8:06 am. Permalink.
Rae replied:
I will have been with Earthlink for 1 year next month. Configuring the modem was a bad experience, same goes for their Earthlink Total Access mailbox. Three weeks ago my main mailbox was corrupted after allowing Earthlink to update. Lost all emails and can’t use. Also, have red fist popping up? They keep saying it is an Microsoft problem? I know it isn’t. Their servers have gone down many times and speeds vary. In reality, I believe Earthlink has no type of customer service or support – they put you through the same scripted process and give the same repetitive responses no matter what the problem is. Oh, another thing try timing how long it takes an Earthlink tech to try to resolve a problem, I have timed over 1 1/2 hours! Many times I’ve said to their tech, “Thank you but I can’t take this any longer and will have to hang up.” In my 10 years of dealing with ISP’s, Earthlink’s is the worst support ever. No correcting issues, no contact and no response.
How can a company survive with such poor business practices is beyond me.
Looking for another provider.
June 18, 2006 at 7:11 am. Permalink.
Nancy replied:
I too have had a horrible experience with Earthlink. In August 2005 I got their DSL service. A few weeks later we had a terrible hurricane and my phone service provider said it may take up to three months to get phone service back so I called Earthlink hoping to suspend DSL service until I got phone service back. They told me then that they could only cancel my subscription for $149.99. I should have cancelled. Then I called in Jan due to the fact I got DSL service back from my local phone provider and asked again if I could cancel. They told me sure for $149.99. I said never mind. I called again in May to see if I could cancel because I didn’t use their service since Jan. they again told me sure for $149.99. I told them I couldn’t afford that so they dropped my payments in half. I called again today (July 10, 2006) only to be told that I have 44 days left and she would cancel it for $149.99. I had nothing but problems when I had their service like not having service ALOT! I have been searching for a way to contact their corporate office to no avail. If anyone has an email address for their CFO or CEO or anyone I would really like to know so I can send them an email.
Thanks,
Nancy
July 10, 2006 at 11:05 pm. Permalink.
Terry replied:
Call 800-719-4664 (I believe this is a toll-free number to get through to their corporate office in Atlanta; at least they can speak English, unlike the crackheads in tech support over in India). The one person I spoke with there is Jim Barrett (x22254), who initially was somewhat supportive in getting EarthLink to finally coordinate with the phone company to fix a problem with a circuit two blocks away (this was after the crackheads kept telling me that my modem was the problem). Then, he turned ugly and (just like the rest of the crackheads) started lying, cheating, stealing, etc. Trust me, Nancy, you’ll be better off if you consider this all water under the bridge and cut your losses like I just did and tell ’em to go hang it in their ear! The only way they’ll give you something back is if they think they can take more of it away from you in the future (like another long-term contract). They’re just like a big black (ass)hole – or maybe a better analogy would be a vacuum cleaner you can’t turn off; it just sucks and sucks and sucks and…
July 11, 2006 at 7:14 am. Permalink.
Christina replied:
Ugh! Earthlink is HORRIBLE for customer service. About a month ago, they charged me $30.00 on my account then they should have, took it out of my bank account and overdrafted the account. They owe me over $116.00 now. I sent them a fax- the ONLY number I could get from their “customer service”, they would not give me a phone number. Imagine that! Atleast I know I am not alone w/ my crappy customer service from such a “High rated company” yeah right. So if anyone has the corporate office phone number, I’d LOVE to get it so I can put an end to this nightmare!
Thanks,
Christina
July 26, 2006 at 6:00 pm. Permalink.
BILL L replied:
JIM BARRETT IS WORTHLESS AS WELL AS ALL THE OTHER CRACKHEADS AT EARTHLINK. MY DSL HAS BEEN DOWN FOR 12 DAYS . I GOT EVERYTHING FROM “THERE IS A OUTAGE” IN MY AREA TO “THE PROBLEM IS COVAD” , TO “THE PHONE CO. SAYS I ORDERED A DIFFERNT SREVICE ON MY LINE.” ALL A BUNCH OF BS.. I HAVE SPENT HOURS OF MY TIME WITH THESE WORTHLESS IDIOTS ON THE PHONE. I WANT JIM BARRETTS BOSS!!!
July 31, 2006 at 10:54 pm. Permalink.
Mark R replied:
Installing Earthlink Total Access on my desktop and Mac OS10 lap was such a bad move.
I have had nothing but problems with my e-mail since installing.
For a few days I recieved no e-mail.
It still is spotty.
One day…any e-mail I sent came back to my in box.
Sometimes now my incomming e-mail shows up in my other mailboxes that aren’t even Earthlink.
The Webmail connection has been spotty for about 3 weeks now(that I know of)
The wait time for tech assistence in the day is just stupid.
And when I call at night I generally can’t understand a word they are saying.
Earthlink Total Access is a DOWNGRADE.
But,when I deleted it…I couldn’t get my e-mail at all.
August 13, 2006 at 7:44 am. Permalink.
Gary K. replied:
Earthlink offered me an upgrade in DSL service from 3.0MB to 6.0MB for less than I was previously paying per month, so naturally I accepted the offer. Unfortunately, I’m lucky to get 700kb service at the present. 3 weeks of online chat, telephone conversations, trouble tickets and emails, all apparently outsourced in another country, and I still do not have the service. One agent says they are working on it, another says it’s not available.
It’s the worse customer service I have ever experienced. It’s nothing but a runaround with people who are barely able to communicate in English and who are only trained in very basic troubleshooting.
September 18, 2006 at 10:41 pm. Permalink.
Jackie Polson replied:
When Earthlink Customer Service could not resolve my billing problem, I asked to speak to a supervisor, and this was denied. I called back 4 days later and was put on hold for 1-15 min. and again denied the right to speak to a supervisor.
What kind of department does not have a supervisor available!!!!!!
I am looking for a new ISP.
September 21, 2006 at 3:34 pm. Permalink.
Deborah G. replied:
this is a letter i sent to earthlink recently after, seriously, the WORST customer service experience(s) EVER. I don’t know how to get it to them, if any of you know, please forward the info. thanks
September 23, 2006
To Whom It May Concern:
I am inspired to write this letter, not because I have the time or because I do this regularly and am familiar with sending my comments to large corporations, but because my experience with your company has been so unpleasant that I feel you should know about it.
Over two months ago, a former roommate of mine left our house to move abroad and closed her Earthlink account. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal because we would be able to call any other internet provider and just reopen one. Unfortunately, every provider we called informed us that we already had an open DSL line on our phone and therefore we were locked into that service. We assumed that Earthlink had failed in completely shutting off our line, and after two months, at least ten phone calls and more unpleasant conversations than I hope to ever have in my life, we find that we were right.
The first few times I called Earthlink they told me that they could tell me nothing of that account. As we didn’t have any of our former roommate’s information, they claimed they couldn’t tell us anything without her passwords. We, now quite frustrated with the abominably poor customer service (literally, every single question I asked was somehow squeezed into the form that could be answered with a prewritten response), decided that we would just reopen the former Earthlink account and go from there. After six days, and not hearing from Earthlink, I decided to call once again to check in on our service only to find out that it wasn’t going to be opened because there was already an active line on our phone number (which, it turns out was yours). This is where my shock in how poorly Earthlink values its customers began (not even a phone call to tell us we should stop waiting for our modem in the mail and our internet to be turned on?!).
Two weeks later, after trying to just buy a modem and see if we could access our internet that way (we, at the time, were getting a full signal from our old modem, our computers just couldn’t pick it up), I called again. And AGAIN, someone curtly and unpleasantly told me that, “Ma’am, I don’t know what you want me to do. It’s closed, that’s all I can tell you.” So I called our telephone company and they, probably in an effort to appease my frustration, connected to the ISP center who confirmed that, yes, it was Earthlink who had our DSL active, and that they hadn’t removed their linesharing codes and basically were inadvertently holding our DSL “hostage”. So this time I called back, and spoke with a manager, who, honestly bestowed upon me my most unpleasant experience with a customer service person to date. I explained the situation, this time sure that I had enough information to make it clear that Earthlink indeed had only partly cancelled our DSL, and after what turned into a screaming match, he again said, “look ma’am, your line is closed. That’s it, what more do you want from me?” I simply mentioned that in a company as large as Earthlink, human error can still be a factor, to which he agreed, and when I suggested that he just call the ISP center to see that I was right, he said absolutely not, that that was not his job.
Finally, after another call to my telephone provider, and more than two months after our internet had initially been cut off, I spoke to someone, who I think was in India, who said, “I can not tell you anything about this account, because it’s not in your name but I am going to put in a request and it should be cleared up in three business days.” And indeed it has been.
I am a law student, I am busier than I’ve ever been in my life and yet I have spent more time on the phone with your company in the last month that I did speaking to immediate members of my family. I, being a renter, cell-phone owner, student etc have dealt with many large companies and never before have I felt so unsupported and appalled at customer service. And, just for you records, am clearly not alone. In googling Earthlink to get your customer service number every entry that came up had to do with a comment provided to one business forum or antoher, on how aweful the customer service was.
Perhaps you should listen to some of these recorded phone conversations, perhaps you should reevaluate your customer service policies and think about hiring people for their personal skills and not because they need to answer a phone line and read a script that, to be honest, is poorly written to begin with. You have not only lost a customer, you have lost my friends and family and anyone else who asks my opinion about whether they should go with Earthlink or another company.
September 26, 2006 at 6:50 pm. Permalink.
Andrew replied:
Earthlink is such a shady company. I have spent hours trying to find out why they continue to charge my credit card for services I don’t even have anymore, and when I called the number all I got was someone who doen’t speak the English language. Now to find out that they put my old account to collections while it is being deducted from my credit card…what the hell is this shit. Earthlink can kiss my ass!!! And all of those non-english speking mofo’s as well. I hope Earthlink burns in hell!!!
November 10, 2006 at 3:15 pm. Permalink.
Screwed too replied:
Earthlink screwed me too. Someone in their company stole my credit card number and bought stuff with it. This card hadn’t been used for anything else. When I complained, their guy in corporate said “Earthlink categorically denies any wrong doing regarding the safety of your information.” I can see from the recent posts that they are still up to their old tricks and am passing along these helpful tips to others so that they may avoid some of the pain the rest of us have suffered.
Tips for dealing with lying, rogue, indifferent ISP’S.
1) DO NOT use auto-pay. Auto-pay works for everyone except YOU. If there is a problem with your account, Earthlink can continue to keep taking payment from your card even if you change the number or close the account entirely. You need to give the credit card provider a confirmation number from Earthlink in order to stop it. Earthlink does not want to stop this cash cow and will make you BEG for this number by keeping you on hold as long as possible. The credit card companies also love it. Your credit report will be zinged if you do not pay. Do NOT give them your bank account number or pay with a personal check.
*Pay with a money order.
2) When you have to speak to anyone on the phone, TAPE RECORD your calls (first check the laws for your state on tape recording laws). BEFORE you state the purpose of your call, FIRST get THEIR name, employee I.D. and location (city+state). ONLY THEN should you tell them why you are calling. This should result in better service.
3) If you send an E-mail, PRINT and SAVE all correspondence with them in the event they freeze or cancel your email address. If using Instant message, copy and paste the content and/or TAKE A SCREEN SHOT of the dialogue. They say they will send you a copy of this at the end of the session. THEY NEVER DO.
4) ANY correspondence to them needs to be sent CERTIFIED/RETURN RECEIPT.
5) When canceling your account, print the emails you cannot live without. Get a new, free email address (Gmail, MSN, Yahoo) at least 2 months ahead of time so you have time to tell everyone. DO NOT GIVE EARTHLINK THIS NEW EMAIL ADDRESS.
If I had it to do over again, I’d sign up using a cell phone number, false name, address, SS# and D.O.B. They would get a money order (sent from a P.O. box) for a year of prepaid dial-up access. GET YOUR DSL FROM A LOCAL PROVIDER. Do not co-mingle these services. Do not let Earthlink’s tentacles into your life anymore than absolutely necessary.
November 24, 2006 at 5:37 pm. Permalink.
Cindy replied:
All these messages only confirm what I already know which is Earthlink has got to be one of the most horrible, disgusting companies I have ever dealt with. Every single time I have a problem, I can count on being on the phone with a no customer service rep for at least an hour and a half. Also every single time, like someone else here said, it is because of, according to them, MY equipment. After all the garbage they put me through this evening and each time before, they have the gall to send an email wanting to know how they did. I told them exactly how poorly the situation was handled same as I did a month ago. Of course I never heard from anyone and don’t expect to this time either. The only thing they are consistent with is charging our credit card each month. Our local phone company has a deal going on right now where we can get local phone service, Directv and DSL service for $99 per month. Much as I hate to change my email address, I feel I no longer have a choice. I only wish there were a way to warn others from having anything to do with Earthlink. Thanks for listening and I do hope others will read these messages and never do business with these thieves, liars, losers, etc. Please feel free to insert any words you wish here. I’m sure there are plenty more.
December 17, 2006 at 5:05 am. Permalink.
Cindy replied:
Noy sure how well this helps but here is a link to the corporate numbers for Earthlink. I was directed to this site by the Clark Howard Consumer Action Center. The website they directed me to is http://www.hoover.com. Just type Earthlink in the search button. Wish me luck; time to start making phone calls to them.
http://www.hoovers.com/earthlink/–ID__51055–/free-co-factsheet.xhtml
January 12, 2007 at 9:26 pm. Permalink.
Cindy replied:
Sorry guys; made a mistake with one of the links. It is http://www.hoovers.com
January 12, 2007 at 9:28 pm. Permalink.
Steve replied:
Redundant albeit, but I got hosed as well. We transferred our phone and internet to earthlink and absolutely nothing happened. Nothing!! Phone went dead, no internet. The the phone rang ~ never someone looking for anyone that actually lived in our house though. Turns out the line was crossed with another # and we were getting their calls and they ours. For two weeks this lasted. After repeatedly denying a problem, still no phone or internet yet by the way, they finally came clean. But, still could not fix the problem. We cancelled and went back to ATT. However, now earthlink wants to collect $149.99 from us because we were past the 30 day cancellation cutoff. By the way, did I mention that there was never any service, that includes customer, over that 30 day span nor did they have a solution to the problem. In fact, even after admitting the problem, antother cust. serv. rep. again tried to deny there was a problem. Although, I am convinced they are efficient at one thing BILLING!! I will tell anyone with an ear about Earthlink and the unbeleivable poor service and lack of consideration for their customers. I’ve had some pretty poor service before but this is by far the worst and one that I will never forget. I still cannot believe that I’m going to be forced to pay, to avoid collections, their offering of $79.99 ( a favor to us ) for something that I never got to use once. The only time I got to use earthlink was to listen to their hold music or talk to some idiot lack of support guy. I’d be embarrassed to work at earthlink and if I did I sure as hell wouldn’t tell anyone. If they treat their customers this way how do you think they treat their employees? I hope to meet you in a dark alley one day earthlink so I can happily kick your ass….
Ahhhhh!! I feel a little better.. Thanks
Steve
March 8, 2007 at 8:10 pm. Permalink.
KANNIBAL HEKTOR replied:
EARTHLINK CORPORATE PHONE NUMBER: (404) 815-0770 OR 1-800-719-4664
March 9, 2007 at 10:48 pm. Permalink.
Cindy replied:
As far as I know, the toll free number listed above is the one to call for their no customer service. I wouldn’t even waste my time calling it. What a p**s poor excuse for a company.
April 20, 2007 at 5:41 am. Permalink.
Karen Kamener replied:
Now we all know why Embarq divorced Earthlink, the out- sourcing, lack of integrity, -out right lies-, they understood enough English to lie, and the extreme level of incompetence is unbelievable. No customer service what so ever. I wish Embarq had explained why they created their own web mail system, because then maybe I would have endured Embarqs bad spam filters rather than go back to Earthlink and be treated like trash and only then have an Embarq employee elaborate on the problems they were having with Earthlink.
I think it is about time we got our economy back and declare war on the corporate criminals since they have already declared war on the consumer. The news said yesterday this level of service is epidemic and the only way to combat it is to complain. I called Earthlink about 20 times so far. When I call the corporate office all they do is transfer you to an American who transfers you overseas. Even when I tell them I want to talk to an American. I am disgusted with the whole consumer situation and I can only see things getting worse. Well I am off to bug them some more.
June 20, 2007 at 3:15 pm. Permalink.
Larken replied:
I had a lot of the same problems as above and canceled by DSL account. I called 404-815-0770 and pressed zero a couple of times to talk to the operator. (wonder how long this will last). I politely explained to the operator my issue and she transfered me to an English speaking person who able to help me. He credited my account and I was a happy camper. I politely explained to him why I canceled my dsl account and explained my issues with Earthlink as a company. He gave me this email address to complaint to the corporate powers that may be who really created the problem.
ceo@corp.earthlink.net
I hope that this can help a few people out in the future. I recommend that know one ever uses Earthlink for their ISP. I highly recommend DSL Extreme. I had an issue with my connection right after I switched to them and they had the problem corrected and phone me back explaining how the corrected the problem in less than couple of hours. I was totally amazed.
July 9, 2007 at 6:23 pm. Permalink.
Jim replied:
There are others in pain too … So, ELNK does’t revolve around me?
My issue: at unexpected times the hard-drive will take over the email program. It sounds as if there the HD is writing to itslef. No so … ELNK is up to something. Any ideas?
If not ELNK – who is the next-best ISP?
July 13, 2007 at 3:20 am. Permalink.
David replied:
I had the worst customer service experience of my life with Earthlink. I was charged a cancellation fee of 160.00 even though I cancelled my inoperative dsl service within the thirty day window. They charged my credit card, then admitted the charge was an error and said they would mail a refund check (?) After six months of crackhead customer service that culminated by being told by a Earthlink rep. that I was “not allowed to receive any information about my account or pending refund” I finally got the charge removed by American Express. I wish everyone the best of luck trying to deal with these morons.
August 12, 2007 at 9:24 pm. Permalink.
Mary Koch replied:
Earthlink is without a doubt the worst internet service provider. My e-mail went down because of a server problem on their end and I was told for 4 days in a row that it would be fixed. It never was!!!~!
August 30, 2007 at 11:03 pm. Permalink.
Marla replied:
This is the worst company I have ever dealt with. I was lied to, told I had a “free trial” of WIFI, and ended up being charged $56.78.
I have spent hours on the phone trying to disconnect the service which never worked at all to begin with. The customer service reps are like programmed robots and I can only imagine the amount of duress they are under to do what they do. Web chat was useless. No one ever calls back. This company is the epitome of what a company should strive NOT to be; corporate greed, expoitation of cheap labor, and an indifference to customer satisfaction.
September 24, 2007 at 10:17 pm. Permalink.
Thomas White replied:
Thanks all! I have just experienced a month of Earthlink hell, and my problem still have not been resolved. The service bundle, which was supposed to have been activated on the 20th of September wasn’t, but I lost my DSL connection all together. Then I was told that there was a technical problem and it would be activated on the 27th. On the 27th, I lost my phone services. NOW, it is October the 6th they say. In the meantime, I can’t call out, or receive calls on my main line. I can only access my internet because I have WiFi on my laptop. Every effort to communicate with Earthlink support has been. . .well you all know. Thanks to this site, I am now armed with corporate information and an email address.
September 30, 2007 at 2:54 am. Permalink.
michael mawby replied:
Earthlink Inc. (Corporate Headquarters)
1375 Beechtree Street
Level A
Atlanta, Ga 30309
404-815-0770
Monday thru Friday 8:30am-5:00pm
Hope this info helps all in contacting an American office of an American corporation. Cheers, Tex
October 9, 2007 at 10:56 pm. Permalink.
Lionita replied:
Earthlink is terrible. I wanted to know if you could help me in doing something about them.
This is my story:
I signed up in July 2007 for the bundle service (Phone and Internet, the first month was a free trial). One week of having the service I could not receive incoming calls. If someone called they would get a message saying, “The number you have reached (my number), is not excepting incoming calls”. I have never heard that message from any phone service except for cell phones. Then, right after that my DSL connection drop. The DSL would connect sometimes, but the connection would not last long. I called tech support and the representative blamed the problem on my phone lines and/or my computer. I had just switched from Verizon, and there wasn’t any problem then. Also, I had just replaced my hard drive.
So, I decided to cancel my service with them in August 2 days before my trail period was over. The rep. then offer me all kinds of deals and credits to stop me from canceling. I turned them down and requested a cancellation. Then the rep told my I had to pay an early cancellation fee, and I owed a payment for one month of service. I asked to speak with a supervisor, I was then put on hold. When the rep return I was told my cancellation was processed, I would not receive an early cancellation fee, and in fact had a negative credit on my account (in which they gave me). I told them I was going to re-sign with Verizon. The rep assured me that there would be no problems from Earthlink. All I had to do was let earthlink know when Verizon was coming to install my new service. They also informed me, once Verizon install their service it would automatically knock Earthlink off my line. The rep. then explained because of the one month credit I was given, I would be able to use Earthlink free for a month or until Verizon was installed (which ever one came first) if I chose to.
On September 14 my Verizon installed. On the 17th or 18th I tried to install my Verizon DSL, it did not work. When I called verzion the rep informed me that Earthlink was still on my line. I called Earthlink and they told me that Verizon had to call them and request the number. I explained to the rep that Verizon had my number, they just needed earthlink to get off my line. The Earthlink rep still insisted on have Verizon call. So, I called Verizon and informed them of what earthlink told me. Verizon called and earthlink gave them a conformation number that the transaction was complete (this did not go through until Sept. 27). I then received a bill from earthlink for the month of August and September.
I called earthlink once again and they told me that my account had been active from my start date in July to September 27. I explained the entire situation to them, and that is was not my fault earthlink took a month to drop my line. At the end of the conversion they were suppose to re-give me the one month credit, and give me a second one for September. Come the first week of July I received another bill from earthlink. This bill was from a bounce check fee in August when they tried to take from my bank account one month of service. I never knew this had happen, and why didn’t they bring this up before? I refused to pay because, they should not have taken anything being as though I was in my free trial period.
On October 30, I received a bill for the bounce check fee and an early cancellation fee. I am not paying anything, I want to go over their head. I would really appreciate any help you can give me.
October 31, 2007 at 5:37 pm. Permalink.
Vicki Journeay replied:
EarthLink Offices
Headquarters:
EarthLink, Inc.
1430 West Peachtree St., NW, Suite 400
Atlanta, GA 30309
Phone: In Atlanta 404-815-0770 or toll-free 800-719-4664
Fax: 404-815-8805
Office Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30am – 5:30pm ET
Rolla P. Huff
President and Chief Executive Officer
November 21, 2007 at 5:32 pm. Permalink.
lamar replied:
earthlink is the worst service i ever had hope noone gets there service
December 17, 2007 at 3:40 pm. Permalink.
Phil Himmelfarb replied:
Here’s a letter I sent to the CEO of Earthlink after suffering through their horrible customer service and dishonesty:
January 1, 2008
Mr. Rolla P. Huff
President and CEO
EarthLink, Inc.
1375 Peachtree St., Level A
Atlanta, GA 30309
Re: Cancellation of DSL Services, Account Number 26132746; 414-352-4426 and 414-352-5083
Dear Mr. Huff:
Here’s the history:
I was advised by your service representative on September 16, 2007 that we could get DSL service on the above two telephone numbers. I placed the orders and we received the two modems four days later. I installed the modems but was never able to connect either phone line (separate computers) to Earthlink’s DSL services, despite at least 15 phone calls to your representatives in the Philippines and India. On September 30, 2007, after another frustrating attempt, I was advised that it was technically not possible to connect our telephone lines to Earthlink’s DSL.
Therefore, I canceled our services which in fact, never got started in the first place, within the 30 days notice as required by your rules as posted on your website. Attached is a copy of the cancellation letter I sent by certified mail along with evidence it had been received within the required time frame. I also am including evidence that I returned the modems.
In the meantime I have repeatedly been billed, both on my credit card and by direct invoice from Earthlink a total of $581.98 for services I never had. I have been billed on separate occasions $149.95, $158.35, $44.25, $44.25, $168.53, $3.70 and $12.95. I have indicated to my credit card company that all charges from Earthlink are fraudulent as are all charges invoiced to me directly from Earthlink.
Because of my prompt and timely cancellation I do not owe you any money and you should clear my account accordingly.
I am sending a copy of this letter to the Chairman of the Board of Earthlink, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Response Cente, r Senator Russ Feingold and to consumeraffairs.com in the hopes that this matter will immediately be resolved.
Sincerely yours,
Philip A. Himmelfarb, Ph.D.
January 2, 2008 at 2:39 am. Permalink.
Vicki Journeay replied:
I finally got the credit from not cancelling Earthlink. We moved from Colorado to Alabama after having Earthlink since April 1999 (I know, sounds crazy but when it works, it works). We found that the phone company here doesn’t have an agreement with earthlink and guess who gets the shaft here? Earthlink for not having an agreement with the only telephone company available? No, us. We called only to fight (between trying to understand the terrible english) and find that we had to pay through our DSL contract or pay a cancellation fee of $149.99. We opted to let it run out, six of one 1/2 dozen of the other since it’s out in three months from that time. Then I received the December billing and it included the cancellation charge – over $160 charged to the Visa and right after Christmas. I called the Atlanta office and spoke to a nice guy named Mike (no way he was named Mike) who assured me that Brandi Wilson would call and make good since they had no record of anyone cancelling the contract. No call from Brandi.
I emailed this to the CEO – oh, did i tell you that I have his email address??
ceo@earthlink.com
I did not receive any reply but also didn’t receive it back as an incorrect address (I got it from a nice worker one frustrating day when we changed to DSL and they sent me the wrong equipment – yet another story).
Finally I got an invoice stating that the credit invoice would arrive in 3-5 days. Horaay. Wait. It says it can take up to SEVEN weeks to post to my bank? Ok, another email to the CEO.
Today I got an invoice showing a credit to my Visa. Yep, it worked!
Now to fight for a credit for Analog Hours. How can a company charge for something that’s not used?? All I can say at this point is that I will be so happy when I no longer use earthlink.
January 5, 2008 at 5:21 pm. Permalink.
L. S.Collins replied:
I am having similar problems with Earthlink as well. Everyone should make a complaint at the http://www.atlanta.bbb.org and write the Atlanta Journal Constitution at cteegardin@ajc.com, she is the business investigative reporter for the newspaper. With everyone writing both places, an investigation into Earthlink’s business dealings could take place.
Does anyone on this site know a lawyer who handles class-action lawsuits? If so, tell us all how. In numbers we can win against even the largest, most deplorable company.
L. S. Collins
February 13, 2008 at 4:20 pm. Permalink.
Richard replied:
I started out as a charter member of Earthlink, certainly one of their first customers, way back when I had a 14.4 modem. I decided to get DSL, and that experience took over a WEEK to get it going because apparently NOBODY on their team knows anything about PPP which they use on many of their DSL connections. I had many problems with DSL, but I could make it work, as long as nobody called my telephone number.
Several years later, I moved to a remote location in New Hampshire, and I just couldn’t go back to dial-up, so I got a high-speed Satellite connection. It sort-of worked until I told them I was moving again, and I needed the service disconnected. Upon learning that they had me on a one year contract, I had the service re-connected for a tenant in the house. They could never get it going again, and despite ten weeks of daily talks with someone who barely spoke English, we gave up.
Eventually, I gave up, especially after the tenant was told to alter the settings in the modem, then NOTHING worked, all the lights went out, now we REALLY had a problem!
I reversed all the bills from my credit card. The credit company did that, because they were UNABLE to contact anybody at Earthlink to verify the charges… just as I had predicted.
These people were AWFUL! but I got almost all my money back. There you go…
March 9, 2008 at 9:04 pm. Permalink.
carolyn mosier replied:
I am having problems of my own at the present. I found this site when I googled earthlink headquarters. Desperate to get some decent customer service. I cancelled service told them to stop billing and I was billed anyway and my account was overdrafted due to them. Because I was preparing to close my account due our moving out of the location. I cannot close my account until they straighten this out unless I pay my back all these Earthlink charges + the overdraft fee. I have made two unsuccessful chats. Three unsuccessful personal contacts. I was told I would be credited. I just looked at my account and they have me as OWING the amount. I’m so frustrated that I with the last email about a class action suite for our lost time which is to many of us lost money. Can someone personally reply to my email if they have a way to get to someone that will actually do something.
July 15, 2008 at 5:23 pm. Permalink.
Frank replied:
HERE IT IS!!
Rolla P Huff’s (Earthlink President) email address is:
rhuff@mpowercom.com
July 18, 2008 at 10:01 am. Permalink.
Becca replied:
Thank you for the president’s name and email. I have had a horrible experience with earthlink and think I will be sending him a certified letter and he may just dump the emails sent. I was a loyal Earthlink customer for 9 years with first dial up and then with DSL – my mistake was to go with their phone service and DSL. They could never get the DSL to work – I counted the hours spent on the phone with them trying to resolve this issue. And I tried 4 modems – none of which would work. I was a month without service when I fired them. I got the permission to return the last modem and get a refund, then was assured that since I had had no service, there would be no cancellation fee – that was a lie. They immediately deducted the $149 cancellation fee from my account and have not yet refunded the money I paid for a modem. I now have an email from them where they say they will be refunding the cancellation fee and am guarding it very carefully -I also got very tired of asking everyone I have spoken with to repeat what they were saying until I could get used to and understand the thick accents. I am now with AT&T for my email and web access and am much happier and will be glad when I get the rest of these issues resolved and have no further contact with Earthlink.
July 29, 2008 at 12:53 pm. Permalink.
john replied:
I think my next step is the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Since they are charging me for services they don’t provide. I’ve had it with these people. I won’t even go into the number of hours I have spent talking to the Philipines.
January 17, 2009 at 11:08 pm. Permalink.
Dale Speer replied:
How I wish I had searched the “net” before contracting with “EARTHLINK” to install a sattelite system on my house.. (what a fiasco that turned out to be!!) After 6 “outsourced” telephone conversations with individuals who barely spoke conversational English, I finally arranged to have a sattelite system installed… that was in August 08. and here we are February of ’09 annd it still doesn’t work, and I have had no response to numerous phone calls to Atlanta main offices nor two letters.. The installer had no idea how to make the system work, drilled several unnecessary holes in my walls, ruined wall paper in two rooms, and left an ugly innoperable dish on top of my roof that I had to pay someone to take down.. Yet no response from Earthlink other than to write off my bill and close my account.. Guest there is no solution short of a lawsuit and that is deffinately in the works!
January 24, 2009 at 2:47 pm. Permalink.
melanie mociun replied:
I have had countless hours of misery trying to get my Earthlink service to be the advertised speed of 1.5 kbps
— it is consistently 507 to 517 — never faster. It has supposedly been “fixed” — yet it hasn’t. I’m at the end of my wits and after reading the above.. I am feeling trapped. I have had this service in my home in Mill Valley since August of 2001. Please keep me in the loop if there is a class action law suit again earthlink.
May 7, 2009 at 7:40 pm. Permalink.
bill mccord replied:
BRING ON THE CLASS ACTION SUIT!; my experience with Earthlink parallels what’s already described, plus no response to a letter sent to Atlanta by registered mail. Obviously, telephone and snailmail communication received/receives abuses similar to any/all forms of email communication. My initial concerns about my low-tech, dial-up service now cede centerstage to Earthlink’s high-tech arrogance.
May 12, 2009 at 2:43 am. Permalink.
Asad replied:
Actually, I have been with Earthlink (Mindspring) since 1997. I never had any problem until a year ago. Constant disconnection. I send a letter, called, and wasted months … they want termination fee for an early termination of contract. Continuous agony of going through by reseting modem, configuring IP addresses, and blah blah blah.
CEO Rolla Huff sucks! So does Earthlink.
May 13, 2009 at 10:45 pm. Permalink.
Jane replied:
I will not bore you by trying to top your terrible Earthlink support experiences — suffice it to say I agree when it comes to EArthlink — there is no one home! I sent my letter directly to Rolla Huff and coped each member of the board of directors: Kevin F. Brand, Samuel R. DeSimone, Jr., James G. Dole, Kevin M. Dotts, Craig I Forman, Stacie S Hagan, David H. W. Shipps, and Joseph M. Wetzel. Since it went by snail mail (to a technology company in the 21st century!) – I will let you know if and when I hear back. We’re preparing to move to a provider with U.S.-based technical support after several years with the world’s worst support at Earthlink…
June 23, 2009 at 11:09 pm. Permalink.
ian brooks replied:
These comments are incredible! I thought that I was the ONLY one being singled out by this company. I am a well known photographer, and my website hosting is a key ingredient in my success. This past december, earthling webhosting “accidentally ” deleted my website, it cost $12,000 to create,eight years ago. I spent hours on the phone, they transferred me to the phiilipines, to India..round the globe, all to no avail. When I finaly spoke to someone who understood english, and did not repeat my name 80 times, they apologized and fixed the issue, (after one week, no e mails,no website)! Well, I thought this was the end, NO WAY, this past week. June 25, 2009, again, my site deleted, no e mail,no site, hours on the phone again, they had started to bill my credit card $20, then $30 a month,not the $10.95 promised for the last disaster, I comlained again, been round the globe and no results, they keep stating…”Mr. Brooks, it will be up in 24 hours. that was last week. We need to unite, form a class action lawsuit and sue the hell out of them, and win hundreds and millions of dollars and prove that when a customer is loyal, (as I have been for 8 stupid years) you RESPECT THEM, and take care of them, not crap all over them. I am waiting patiently for monday, so i can attempt to call the Atlanta office, and try to see some light. If not, OFF TO COURT! My other e mail is solidgold008@verizon.net if anyone want to do a class action lawsuit. All we have to do is ban together!
June 29, 2009 at 4:00 am. Permalink.
James Nimmo replied:
I continue to get numerous momentary dropouts of service of 2 to 3 minutes throughout the day. Earthlink claims there are many things that could be wrong. They say I should call as soon as this happens, but by the time I get though the service is restored and of course, everything looks fine then, because there IS no problem at THAT TIME.
I’m tried of trying to decipher the language gap and am going to a domestic provider ASAP.
August 8, 2009 at 5:08 pm. Permalink.
Allison replied:
Glad to know that I am not alone in this relentless battle. I’ve been a “Loyal” customer of Mindspring/Earthlink for 12 years. I’ve really not had any problems until around August of this year when everything started going wrong. We started having random disconnects off and on during the week then the disconnects were so precise we could set our watches to them. We get disconnected every 3 hours on the nose. So I contacted customer support and got someone that I could barely understand and they told me there was no problem showing on their end to call back when it happens again.
So I called back 5 minutes before our scheduled disconnect…needless to say the customer support person missed it by about 10 minutes. Once again got someone I couldn’t understand. He transfered me to technical support. That person there said more than likely that it was my modem since it was 6 years old. So they sent me a new modem and insisted that I now how to renew my contract for a year and charged me $21.95 shipping.
I got my new modem pretty quickly and tried to set it up. (I’m pretty good at setting stuff up like this) but it wouldn’t work. Called tech support and got (yep someone I couldn’t understand and was a royal bitch). after an hour with her she got it running. So I tried hooking up my wireless router and couldn’t get it working. Contacted customer support via chat this time and was told that unless I purchased their equipement and paid an extra $10 a month that I couldn’t use my router. Bull crap.
So I ran their new modem just to see if I would still disconnect and guess what? I still dc’d every three hours.
Bought a new modem and I still dc. Contacted customer service again and was told it was a phone line problem. Umm…I don’t think so. The phone lines are all brand new.
So we contacted them again and told them that we were very displeased and wanted to send back the modem (which after research found out is actually a router) and wanted to cancel our service. They refused again and again.
This is the worst service I have ever seen in my life and I worked in the service industry for 11 years. We are contacting the Atlanta office on Monday to see about cancelling this. Sucks to know that 12 years of loyalty doesn’t mean squat to these people.
November 14, 2009 at 8:09 pm. Permalink.
Judy F. replied:
This seems to be old thread but earthlink has not changed its ways. I guess it’s now my turn in the barrel. Same story and I have been mindspring/earthlink customer for 20 years.
December 8, 2011 at 12:27 pm. Permalink.
Robert Kingsley replied:
Add me to the list. My phone has been down for over two weeks. Earthlink admits that the problem is with their “switch” “server”. I can get through to customer support but they say it is a another departments problem and they are working on it.
So far I have talked with people in three States and two countries..
They never call me back..
January 2012
January 10, 2012 at 8:02 am. Permalink.
jespear replied:
WOW… I thought I was alone with alleged earthlink customer support !!! My issue apprears a little different than those detailed in this thread.
Basically, my account was frozen due to “adiministrative fraud”, according to someone in tech support, barely speaking conversational english, stated that means the account was hacked.
For the past week I have been communicating with customer service trying to get the problem resolved. Before reading all the comments in this thread I was slightly hopeful that my problem would resolve favorably…my faith is fading !!!
I will post the saga when it resolves…either way.
June 22, 2012 at 5:33 pm. Permalink.
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