EARTHLINK

I was never actually able to use the internet because of malfunctioning modems they sent me. The first modem they sent me did not work and the second modem was just as crappy as the first one. They then charged me and extra $9.95 to ship it to them to fix them. They refused to give me a refund. I called them today to discontinue service with them.

I was a loyal customer of Mindspring and then Earthlink for many years (15?) without a lot of issues. So I didn't have any reason to contact them for support -- until early/mid 2011. Our DSL internet connection slowly started to degrade to the point where it finally would not stay up for more than 1 minute at a time. When I contacted Earthlink to report the issue, I became extremely disappointed with the service. First, it took several different calls and discussions with support agents before we got anywhere. And every time I talked to someone, I had to go through the same "talking points" that I had already discussed with the previous agent. It was very frustrating. They also convinced me to buy a new wireless router/modem from them before they would take any other action. After trying all of these things, they finally realized that it was a problem with the physical phone line to my house (which is what I kept trying to tell them). Upon discovering these, they told me that they couldn't help me and that I would have to contact my phone company to get resolution. Excuse me, but -- I bought my internet service from Earthlink and not AT&T (local phone provider), so I expected Earthlink to provide the support that I was paying for and coordinate any physical issues with the phone company. They would not do this. So I basically decided to fire them, cut out the middle man, and just use AT&T directly for service. After doing this, the problem was resolved very quickly. Note that there are tons of issues with AT&T as well. But at least they have been responsive and responsible for the connection end-to-end. That's what I expect out of a service provider.

They have always been very responsive if I ever had any problem. I will continue to use them in the future.

NIGHTMARE! I spent weeks trying to get the problem fixed. Now I'm working on transferring all of e-mail sent to my new account and transferring my family info elsewhere so I can close my 15 year old account.

I called Earthlink researching providers in my area. My home has challenges with thick tree cover and no phone service. The computerized response system was structured in such a way that a caller has no options if you are calling to talk to a person and ask questions. When I was finally able to get a person on the phone I had to be transferred to another person and go through the entire name/address/no phone/bad satellite zone spiel again. After the 45 minute phone exchange I discovered they only had satellite internet service, which wouldn't work in my case.

Before signing up, I "chatted" with one of their online agents and asked if I moved before the contract was up to somewhere they didn't offer service, I could cancel my service. They promised that I could without any penalty. I did end up moving to a location where they did not offer their service. I had printed out the prior conversation and called to cancel the service. They first said I had to pay the almost $300 cancellation fee, and then when I provided evidence of their agreement not to, they dropped my call over and over instead of transferring me. While they agreed finally to waive the fee, they never would transfer me to the "cancellation department." In order to sign up, I had to submit a credit card number. I asked them to stop automatically billing me and instead send me a paper bill so I would stop getting charged for service I couldn't access anymore. They said they could not. So I canceled that credit card, and suddenly, they could. It took several letters to their CEO to finally get confirmation that the service I they could no longer provide me was not being billed to me and that the cancellation charge was waived as agreed. And before all of this, the actual internet was spotty and unreliable.

Earthlink DSL service is a joint project between phone company (which maintains the phone lines) and Earthlink (which provides the internet service provider function). For the first three years the Earthlink ISP function was adequate, but the phone company transmission and service availability was indifferent to poor, with continuing random transmission outages from a few minutes to several days in length. Earthlink customer service support (from their Indian call center) was uninspiring. The unchanged initial Earthlink monthly service cost is no longer competitive with the rest of the industry. Last month phone company crews came through the neighborhood and rebuilt the entire aerial telephone wire network, as preparation for a future expansion of their services. From that point the DSL transmission has been nearly flawless, with continuous service availability at maximum advertised speed. Lesson learned: old, poorly maintained telephone wiring between home and telephone central office can compromise any ISP s DSL service!

We signed up with them (Earthlink) due to their advertised rate of $19.95 and we made it very clear at the time we signed up, it was for that rate ($19.95). We later found out when we received our first bill for $29.95 that the $19.95 rate was not available for our area. When we called them regarding this, they told us they could cancel our account but they could not refund us for the difference. I would not use them again.

What a nightmare! Almost all my long distance calls were dropped. Two months in and my DSL stopped working, after repeated trips to fix the problem, they informed me my phone line would not handle DSL. I canceled and went with another company and what a difference. No dropped calls and DSL works on my line. They were pleasant but they never could get anything done. They had very poor communication.

Telephone service was rarely helpful. The people in India just couldn't understand my issues.

Since we had an existing dial up service, I called Earthlink sales to upgrade our service to DSL. The sales rep took the order. That was the beginning of the downfall of service. Once we received the hardware, it worked for about a week. Then we had no service. We contacted tech support (which has been outsourced, so this takes hours to get through and get a correct answer.) After many conversations, and the service sporadically working we were finally able to resolve the technical problem. Then we noticed our bill was twice as expensive as we were quoted. Four months later, 3 calls/chat sessions later, and hours of frustration we were able to resolve the billing issue. The sales rep added extras to our account that we did not order and our dial up was never inactivated. In addition, we did not receive the introductory rate that was advertised when we initially upgraded. Our upgrade to DSL did no go as seamlessly as we were expecting.