dslreports logo

Review by crdopp See Profile

  • Location: Oak Park, Ventura, CA, USA
  • Cost: $30 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party AT&T
Nothing anymore...
This is a greedy company with horrible customer support. Once you "sign" the contract, you will regret it
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Are you looking to sign-up with DSL Extreme? If so, please read this first.

I signed up for service way back in 2000 when they were a young company, offering personal service and friendly staff. I maintained service with them for almost 9 years. Over that time, I saw their tech support go from local support to outsourced. All local phone numbers were removed from their website and there was literally no way to speak to a local representative. I became so fed up, that I finally switched to U-Verse. That’s not the worst of it. The saga continues.

My mom had also signed up for service with DSL Extreme. For the same reasons, she decided to switch to AT&T DSL service. This is where DSL Extreme’s true colors came out. My mom placed a cancellation order and in return was given a disconnect date. The cancellation date came, the connection was terminated (no internet service), but the service was still active. Of course as we know, you cannot order new service on a line that is still active. Many calls were made to resolve the cancellation, but without success.

After 2 weeks of being held hostage (service active, but no internet connection), my mom relented and once again signed up for the DSL Extreme service because she was promised it would be turned immediately. One day turned into a week and still no service. Finally, after a week, the service was active, but the equipment did not work. The service was changed from standard DSL to PPPOe, which is not what was signed up for. She was never able to get the new service to work.

Due to all the issues, another cancellation order was placed. After yet another delay, the service was finally disconnected and she was able to sign up for AT&T service. After all the crap, here’s the worse part; they are now pursuing a cancellation fee for service that never worked.

The ethics of DSL Extreme has gone down the proverbial toilet. This used to be a good company, but now I would recommend anyone looking at this company run away as fast as you can. If you’re looking for ethics, then look elsewhere. Their sales staff is just that, sales people. Once they have you committed to a contract, you are screwed and will regret it.

Our next step… my mom will have to pay the termination fee so it doesn’t go to collection and screw her credit, and then we will sue them in court.

member for 12.2 years, 6 visits, last login: 10.5 years ago
lodged 10.6 years ago


dslx_nick
ISP Employee
join:2011-12-24
Chatsworth, CA

1 recommendation

dslx_nick

ISP Employee

DSL Extreme

Hello,

I'm sorry your mother has had some difficulty, but I'm afraid you're misrepresenting the facts somewhat.

Your mother placed a cancellation order on 5/28. A cancellation date was set for 6/4.

On 6/3, she called in to sign up service on a new account. She was advised then that if she didn't want to simply reconnect the previous service on her previous account, she would need to wait until after the current account was closed out before placing a new order - she agreed to call back in a couple days. On 6/5, she did call in, and the representative checking the account for her determined the service was indeed terminated, but line share wasn't quite cleared yet, so another day or so of waiting was needed for that to clear.

As your mother was planning on stopping by the office on Friday 6/7 to return the old modem, she decided to place the order then. She placed an order for a PPPoE 6Mbps connection for 12 months on a new account. An activation date was set for 6/11, and when your mother called in on 6/11 regarding when the service would be active, the representative checking the account confirmed that it should be working that day, and if she wasn't able to get online when she got home then she should call in to our tech support department.

Your mother called in later that afternoon 6/11, and our technician determined that the service was live but your mother's router was not saving the credentials. Your mother checked with you and you insisted on a DHCP connection, so the technician transferred the call to our sales department to change the order to a DHCP connection. The representative advised that she could change the order but that could introduce 0-4 days of downtime, and your mother agreed.

Then on 6/14 your mother called in to cancel the service on the new account. Since this breaks the annual contract, the standard early termination fee (which is actually charged us by AT&T and passed on to you) applies.

On 8/9 your mother called in claiming she had never placed a new order in the first place. One of our billing representatives pulled the recording from the first call on 6/11 (when your mother called in regarding when the service would be active), proving that your mother was fully aware of having placed the order (she even offered the representative the order number at the beginning of the call), and sent that recording to your mother so she could hear for herself.

Again, I'm sorry she had difficulty, but we did not 'hold the line hostage for 2 weeks', nor did we fail to activate the service, nor otherwise engage in unethical practice. We provided the service in good faith, but your mother's router was malfunctioning, so we made a change to the order to try to accommodate such per her request.
Expand your moderator at work
crdopp
join:2012-01-03
Oak Park, CA

crdopp to dslx_nick

Member

to dslx_nick

Re: DSL Extreme

You and DSL Extreme are entitled to your opinions regarding the ethics of your company. Transcripts being provided by AT&T (our new provider) will prove being held hostage to your unethical tactics.

On the topic of AT&T and the early termination fee; once again your ethics come into question. In further discussions with AT&T, I learned that the termination fee you describe as fee charged by AT&T and being passed onto the consumer (your customers), is a bunch of crap. This is a fee solely imposed by DSL Extreme.

The whole process bears the question; why use a company like DSL Extreme, when for the same price (or less), the same services are offered directly from the telco, without contract.

I will not be posting or rebutting any comments you add to this thread. The conversation will continue in court to recoup the termination fee. Not only has this process ensured that we will never return as a customer, I hope it has provided information to potential customers, to look elsewhere for their service.