About a year ago, a little more, my step-daughter was signed up by Earthlink for an internet account. She was, and is, a minor. Her version is that they cold-called her, she told them she was a minor, and they STILL signed her up. We suspect something slightly different. She tried signing up for an advertised freebie and they didn't bother checking.
We found out because they called us for a credit card number. We discovered this thanks to a message on an answering machine. Naturally, we were pretty angry that they were trying to sign up our underage daughter.
My wife spend hours over several days trying to convey to them that they were breaking the law and needed to take our address and, particularly, our daughter's name, off their list. We specifically told them to delete the account they had created for our underage daughter. Thet promised that they would. We never were sure whether they cold called or if our daughter initiated the situation, but the fact of the matter was they wanted to sign someone up who was not legally able to do so. And they were reluctant to understand that we might be upset at this. By contrast, Time Warner Cable, who was also a part of the offer that was in question, was HORRIFIED that Earthlink was trying to sign up a minor. They said it was completely against all Time Warner policy to do this or to cold call. Earthlink seemed less understanding of the situation, but in the end we conveyed that we wanted to be removed from their list and that our daughter was a minor who should NEVER have been on their list. We thought that was the end of it.
We should have known better. After a few months we started getting letters from Earthlink for our daughter trying to sign her up AGAIN. Let me be clear. We had explicitly ASKED TO BE REMOVED FROM THEIR LIST and we had explicitly told them that the name they were contacting was A MINOR. They ignored both of these explicit messages and continued to try and sign up our daughter. We threw out the letters and half jokingly chastized our daughter for the initial situation.
The letters continued for months, thrown out. We made no further action because we figured they were simply wasting their money on this so no big deal.
Then they started calling. Even though we are on the "do not call list" AND we told them explicitly NOT TO CONTACT US and told them explicitly that the person they were incessantly trying to sign up was a minor. Despite ALL OF THESE LEGAL REASONS FOR THEM NOT TO CALL, they called us.
A couple of months ago they called and I picked up the phone. They asked specifically for my step-daughter and said they were Earthlink calling about her account with them. Yes...the account they NEVER should have opened and that we explicitly told them to delete from their records and explicitly told them not to call us about.
I blew up. Now...honestly my son picked up some words he never should pick up when I heard who it was and why they were calling. I told the customer service rep in very rude terms that they were calling a minor about an account that we had explicitly told them to delete. The customer service rep hung up on me.
Well, fuck that. I went on line and tracked down a number to call. Earthlink makes it VERY DIFFICULT to call if you have a problem. All they care about is signing you up. Beyond that, there is no easy way to get customer service. It is like a maze of numbers, buttons to push and connections to make. Earthlink seems to have DEVELOPED a lousy customer service system. This is no criticism of the people in their customer service system. It is a criticism of their customer service system per se. To simply talk to a person took me an hour. And from there it was a series of people telling me they couldn't help me or thier manager was on a lunch break or hanging up on me or putting me on hold. In the end, it took me two long, angry hours to reach someone supposedly in charge.
It became clear to me that Earthlink's customer service was outsourced, probably to India. The accents were Indian and they were on their lunch break when we were at night. I have no problem with that except for the fact that it is part of the drain of jobs from America that Bush has been presiding over, but India is a vibrant, wonderful nation. So I have no problem talking with Indian customer service reps under most circumstances. But this time I admit I was rude. Whent told that their manager was on lunch break I refused to take it and insisted they interrupt that lunch break. Eventually, someone with some authority was pulled from their lunch break and I conveyed our story.
They expressed shock. They told me that this situation should NEVER have happened (yeah...I know that...several laws are probably being violated by Earthlink here) and she PROMISED she would deal with it. I made it clear that if we EVER were contacted by Earthlink regarding our underage daughter, I wouldn't even bother contacting them again. I would go public with their illegal hounding of someone they HAVE BEEN TOLD was a minor at an address/phone number ON THE DO NOT CALL LIST that they were TOLD TO REMOVE FROM THEIR LIST. I told them we wanted NO CALLS and NO LETTERS. Once again we were promised we would not be contacted.
Today we got another letter. Today Earthlink has made clear to me that they have no intention of keeping their promise, of providing even minimal customer service or even of following American laws.
I am quite busy right now, but when I get the chance this will be referred to several goverment agencies dealing with businesses. Earthlink is showing no moral sense, no willingness to follow American laws and abyssmal customer service. In all we have told AT LEAST four separate customer service agents to remove us from their list. FOUR SEPARATE CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENTS failed to do this. Even when told the person they were hounding was a minor.
I will keep you all posted on what happens from here. If you have had any similarly bad experiences with Earthlink, feel free to post here. Maybe it is time to tell the world what assholes Earthlink can be.
For the record, I had no previous experience with Earthlink and had an overall positive view of them. We had considered switching to Earthlink at one point but they weren't the best offer by any means, so we went elsewhere. But I still felt positive about them as a company. But now I find them the epitome of what is wrong with American business today: immoral, illegal, lying bastards with lousy customer service.
