Review by Amadaeus 
member for 2.7 years, 101 visits, last login: 8 days ago
updated 2.7 years ago
 Thornhill,ON
 $19 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 10 days Bell Canada "- 30-day money-back guarantee" "- Unknowledgable tech support, NO phone billing support - Unable to diagnose speed problem after 3 weeks of usage" "Would NOT recommend."
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(ratings match consensus)
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- Terrible service and impression overall
- Terrible support: Phone tech support is NOT 24/7. NO billing support through the phone. Tech support is NOT knowledgeable. Acanac support is either technically unable or not motivated to help their own customers.Tech support emails are flagged as spam by GMail.
- Customer Service: There is NO billing support over the phone.
- Tech support failed to diagnose speed issues over a 3-week period, while competitor was able to find the problem within 2 minutes and fix the problem that same night
- Encountered repeated stalling from billings department when requested to cancel (I was entirely within my rights to cancel within user agreement under the 30-day money-back guarantee)
I started with Acanac early April 2009 when I decided to switch to DSL from Rogers Cable. Acanac had a very attractive pricepoint so I decided to chance it and ignore the consistently poor reviews regarding technical support and client service. I called before ordering to inquire about the expected connection speed from where I live and was ensured that I could get a 5Mb connection with no problems. Knowing they had a 30-day money-back guarantee, I decided to try out Acanac.
It was a mistake.
I've documented the debacle chronologically:
April 4 -- Ordered Service
April 14 -- Bell technician arrives, declares nothing is wrong, but the DSL service magically activated after his visit. That's 1.5 calendar weeks from start to activation. I can understand the lengthy wait due to the Easter holidays, and do appreciate the readjustment of the contract start date. This, however, would be the only silver lining to my 3 weeks the "Acanac Experience"
April 15 -- Speedtest conducted using Acanac's own speedcheck service. Discovered that the performance was substandard:
Download Speed: 3876 kbps (484.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 642 kbps (80.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
I contacted an Acanac support analyst through the RedFlagDeals forum to help me out, and she asked me to wait a few days for full speed to ramp up.
April 20 -- After a rainstorm, the ADSL connection becomes intermittent. I call into tech support and request a technician to come to my house to look at the line the next day. The speed on the line DID NOT IMPROVE as expected by Acanac support. In fact, connection speed has degraded to half of the advertised speed:
Download Speed: 2515 kbps (314.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 638 kbps (79.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
April 21 -- Scheduled Bell technician does not arrive. My father wastes a full day at my house waiting for the tech to arrive. I receive a call at the end of the day from the Bell dispatch asking for a time to arrive tomorrow. I tell them they should have arrived today, but Bell dispatch tells me that the appointment was originally scheduled for the next day. I am unsure who to believe at this point as neither Bell or Acanac holds much of my confidence.
April 22 -- Bell technician arrives, and declares nothing is wrong. Goes ahead and blames the hardware setup. Apparently, according to the technician, modems are not supposed to be plugged into routers (This was shocking as routers are designated for that exact purpose)
April 28 -- Line speed has not improved. I contact support again, and quotes the notes from the Bell technician that my modem is the problem. Support them immediately attempts to upsell me the Acanac modem at 49.99 as it "may improve speeds"
Sensing the same troubles other had experienced, I signed up for Teksavvy and they were able to diagnose, within 2 minutes of being on the phone that Bell had put me on a 3Mb profile. It took them another 2 minutes to request my profile be raised to 6Mb. My connection speed drastically improved later that night through my line with Teksavvy. It took Teksavvy under 2 hours over the phone to resolve a problem that Acanac failed to even diagnose in 3 weeks using 2 Bell techs and 3 separate tickets. For the record, Acanac's official response was to upsell me their own DSL modem which "may improve speeds". I get completely fed up and decided to cancel immediately.
April 28 -- Cancellation request sent through the webform.
April 29 -- Reponse from Acanac was less than optimal: "I have asked our manager to investigate this issue, Please wait, we will contact you as soon as we receive his response". I consider this nothing but a stalling tactic to have my contract lapse past the 30 day guarantee. At this point I make it clear that I do not want in investigation to take place and to have my refund processed immediately. I also threaten a credit card chargeback
April 30 -- More stalling from Acanac: "Please note in your case we need to have a permission from our supervisor and we have informed him already. We are looking forward to hear from him. We will reply/update you upon receiving an answer." Now getting close to the 30-day mark, I provide them with a deadline to process a refund or I will pursue a credit card chargeback
May 1 -- More stalling from Acanac: "Hi, I asked my manager to expedite the investigation. Please wait". Note that they are still "investigating" even though I had explicitly told them that no investigation is to take place and that I'm fully within my rights for a refund under their user agreement.
May 1 -- Refund finally approved, 4 days after initial cancellation request and two separate threats of a credit card chargeback.
After the nightmare of an experience, I would NOT recommend Acanac to:
- Casual users, as they might be quietly bumped to a lower profile without them even knowing about it, or knowing how to pursue an improvement of service quality
- Experienced users who experience a line issue that cannot be resolved under the 30-day money-back guarantee
- Any user who is less than comfortable with being aggressive with tech support to get what you're entitled to (let that be a refund or line quality improvements)
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