Review by bradleyjay 
UPDATED: 319 days ago
member for 319 days, 1 visits, last login: 313 days ago
 Fort Lauderdale,Broward,FL
 $49 per month (12 month contract)
 "Terrible customer service, unprofessional"
 "Seems to be hit or miss...if you get lucky and everything works, great, but it didn't for me."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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Where to begin...
I purchased dry-line residential ADSL service. This requires a new copper pair to be run to my house. After being assured that the technician would only need access to the NID outside my house and not the interior, I was surprised to find that the technician needed access to the interior. Luckily, the technician happened to still be there when my wife returned home, so the appointment didn't have to be rescheduled. He installed the new circuit without any problems.
The next appointment was for the Covad tech to "professionally install" the DSL modem. This consisted of him plugging the modem into power and the new DSL line. He was supposed to test connectivity with my modem, but he was unable to because he didn't have my PPPOE login information. So he configured my modem, and then tested connectivity using his own modem, and his own PPPOE login information. He then gave my wife some hand written instructions for me to enter the PPPOE info in to the modem. Quite professional.
This all would have been fine, except for the fact that the modem was defective. It will not maintain a connection for more than an hour or so, and intermittently refuses to serve DHCP addresses on the LAN side. Also, it intermittently refuses to serve up its web interface, so no configuration changes can be made. Also, rebooting the modem causes it to lose it's PPPOE info, so that has to be re-entered on every reboot, if you're lucky enough to be able to get the web interface.
OK, fair enough. I can understand that the modem is defective, so I called Lightning Bolt to ask for a new modem. Brent refused to send me a new modem on the grounds that it may be trouble with the line itself. He had me perform some tests like unplugging my computer from the modem. For some reason, even with my computer turned off, there was still traffic thru the modem according to Brent. He still had doubts that this could be caused by the modem, and insisted that it could be trouble in the line. I may be naive, but I don't know how the line itself could cause traffic to flow. I guess Brent can answer that one.
Against my better judgement, I agreed to yet another appointment for another smelly Covad technician to come to my house to troubleshoot and if necessary provide a new modem. Brent would not simply send me a new modem.
Then, I get a bill in the mail for a lot more than I was expecting to see. Brent started billing me on the date that my service was activated, regardless of the fact that I have not been able to use it. I politely asked Brent to prorate the charge, since I have not been able to use the service.
Brent insists that my service does not come with an SLA, and I in turn am SOL as far as credit. I explained to him that I wasn't looking for a free ride, just a little credit as a show of good faith and understanding that I have a service that's basically unusable.
Brent refused to offer any assistance, so I exercised my 21 day cancellation right.
Another thing to note is that this appears to be a one-man operation. Every phone conversation I've had has either been Brent calling me, or Brent answering when i call. early in the morning, afternoon, or 10:00 at night, the only person I've ever spoken to at Lightning Bolt is Brent. Emails also either are signed by Brent, or someone else with a conspicuously similar writing style as Brent, and regardless of weather the email comes from Brent or "Heather" or "Frank" they are sent from the same workstation.
While there's nothing really wrong with a one-man operation as it should be less overhead that's passed on to customers, you have to remember that if Brent doesn't give you the answer you're looking for, there's no recourse. There is no supervisor, or manager. You cannot speak to the owner because you already have, and he isn't listening.
So, if Brent would rather lose me as a customer than give me a paltry week's credit, then so be it. I can certainly get service form someone else.
Followup comments:  
LBDSL
Lightning Bolt
VIP
join:2002-01-07
Auburn Hills, MI
edit:
November 27th, @11:48AM
| wow, I'm very surprised to read all this Brad,
First I must say, I'm shocked at some of your comments.
1) You have NEVER spoken to me about any billing issues. looking at your account, I do see you have spoken to our billing department, however not me personally, so I would appreciate you being honest about your interaction with our company. In fact the last time we spoke, was a VM I left for you, about getting you a sooner tech dispatch, which I left you on Sat.
2), I also never stated the issue wasn't the modem, what I did ask, was we perform a few test, to rule out other issues, which we did, in about 5 minutes, and aggreed the modem was not functioning correctly. with a dry line product, a tech visit is always performed, verses shipping equipment, this is the standard process.
3) how, and when did you cancel under the 21 day satisfaction clause, because I see no record of it with us, in fact we still have a Tech visit scheduled today to take care of your modem issue.
4) your account has a bridge, not a router, The Bridge, will pass along the Public IP address you are assigned when you connect via PPPoE. If you are expecting a bridge to hand out multple LAN IP's via DHCP, then you have been mis-informed. You are probably thinking of a router.
5) You are right you have spoken to me on the phone many times of the day. I am in the office 7 days a week on average 16 hours a day. I do this for many reasons, the main one, because I'm here for our users, and as the owner want to know what our users are dealing with. However I assure you, we have many people working here, a National ISP can not be run by a single person, TRUST ME!
6) I'm sorry you are not happy with our service, to properly cancel your service, please follow the step outlined in the Terms of service, posting a notice on a 3rd party web site, will NOT close your account.
In closing, I'm sorry you are unhappy with our service, and what appears to be a company as a whole. Contacting myself to discuss your concerns before posting this review, may have been able to resolve some things, however you are free to cancel under the 21 day satisfaction period we give all our ADSL users. We would much rather have you happy with another ISP, then unhappy and locked into a contract with us.
Brent
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Lightning Bolt Technologies | |
|  | bored_in_nh
join:2003-01-04
Stamping Ground, KY | Re: wow, I'm very surprised to read all this pwnt | |
| bradleyjay
join:2007-11-27
Fort Lauderdale, FL
 ·Lightning Bolt DSL
| I told "Heather" that I wanted to cancel In order to cancel, I replied to the last email I received from "Heather".
I asked "Heather" to be understanding in the regard that the service is basically unsuable and that I should not be billed for a service that I have been unable to use to date.
Heather was unwilling to budge or offer any consolation, credit or otherwise accept any responsibility for my unusable service.
I then replied to Heather that I wished to cancel my service, and that i would not be waiting around for the smelly Covad tech for a third time. If this is not acceptable notice of my intent to cancel, then I will seek other means to do so.
The bottom line is that the service has been unusable since it was "activated", and I'm not going to pay for a service that I can't use.
I was certainly willing to pay for the service from the date that the installation is verified to be working, but not sooner. And sorry, but having the smelly Covad tech test the connection with his own modem and his own PPPOE info doesn't count.
It seems to be yet another case of your company being unwilling to budge from its "written-in-stone" policies, and it's costing you customers. But hey, if that $12.50 credit that I asked for is more valuable than my $49.95 a month for the next year (or the $64.95 SOHO that I planning to upgrade to) then I guess you're doing pretty well. | |
| |
LBDSL
Lightning Bolt
VIP
join:2002-01-07
Auburn Hills, MI
| Re: I told "Heather" that I wanted to cancel Sir,
I do now see your request to disconnect service, which needed to be sent to the support team, which you have now done. To address a few of your recent concerns. If you planned to upgrade to a business package, right away, it would have been better to order that from the beginning. we could have certainly upgraded your service, but it would have cost you more to upgrade, verses starting with a SOHO option to begin with. Business/SOHO service has higher rebates on the installation, you would have gotten a router, verses a bridge, which you would need to upgrade if you moved from a residential to a SOHO package, and you would have had an SLA, and would have received a credit for any extended outage per the SLA.
As far as your service being non usable. I see a lot of PPPoE authentications, and a lot of use on your line, so it must have been usable to some extant.
We also spoke on the phone when you had a question about your PPPoE username, and password, and while on the phone I verified with you that you could access the web, and surf. So at that point it was "verified".
Again, I'm sorry we are not the right ISP for you.
Brent
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Lightning Bolt Technologies | |
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