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| Scary Billing Issues Hi All, I've been running into some billing issues with Speakeasy this last week and I wanted to voice this a little louder. I believe this is a worst case scenario type issue, but it is important for anyone considering Speakeasy to know what could happen. I apologize in advance for the length of this but it has been quite a long process and there is a lot of back-story.
The First Call:
I called back at the end of August to get DSL hooked up at my condo. I was tired of Comcast and had a great relationship with Speakeasy as they hosted a Counter-Strike server of mine way back in the day (gogogo.speakeasy.net if anyone every played  ). Qwest delivery went smoothly and Covad scheduled their on-site. I was there to meet the Covad guy but the condo MGMT group, helpfully, did not show up to open the telephone closet in the garage. Covad then rescheduled; on the second time around the tech was able to get in the phone room, get things going but couldn't get a signal up in my condo. He determined that there was a wiring issue in the building and that phone or dsl was never going to make it up to my place.
At this point I called the homeowner's board and they schedule an electrician to come out. I called Speakeasy as well and explained that I would still like to be a customer; I just need to wait for this to get sorted out. The very friendly CS rep told me no problem, and that I should hold on to the modem, apply for the mail-in rebate and that my account would be in a hold pattern until it came up to speed. Great!
The Second Call:
A week later in the electrician came out, fixed the issue and I was good to go. It is now the beginning of October, I called Speakeasy and gave them the account # and said I was ready to have Covad out. The sales person asked if I had applied for the mail-in modem rebate, I had not. He wanted to have me RMA the modem and said it would be easier to open a new account and just get rid of the old one. Fine by me, whatever works for you guys works for me. The old account was closed, modem was RMA'd, I received the new hardware, and the Covad tech came back out. Unfortunately the wiring problem was NOT fixed  and the Covad tech couldn't get DSL up to my unit again...very frustrating and fault lies nowhere but with the electrician who was supposed to fix it.
This time, the homeowner's board said they would drop new wires at their expense but that it would need to be approved first at the January meeting. So I was once again in a hold pattern until they could get stuff moving. I called Speakeasy back and apologetically let the rep know what was going on. They were quite friendly and said I should RMA the modem and that we'd close up the account for the time being with no charges since the problems I ran into were not my fault. The modem was sent back in mid October and I was holding out until the HOB approved or declined the wire drop.
Fees and Charges:
This past Monday, the 17th, a charge showed up in my bank account for 123 dollars from Speakeasy. I was curious what exactly this was for so I called in to billing. The rep asked for my account numbers, which I didn't have handy since I thought everything was closed up; he sounded pretty irritated with my lack of information and in-between sighs on the phone said my name/address would work. He told me while he didn't see any charges for 123 dollars (which I thought was odd) he did see a balance of 450 dollars that I needed to pay. What it came out to was 2 $150.00 'missed appointment' charges, a $99.00 setup fee, $15.00 for shipping the modem, and various taxes. My jaw was literally on the floor as this is a huge amount of money.
The rep told me right away that there was nothing he could do and that they don't refund any charges when "someone calls up one day, orders DSL and then calls back the next to cancel it". He flat out refused to listen to my situation and I had to argue with him for 15 minutes to get him to open the invoice to see what the notes were. He discovered that one of the 150 dollar charges was an accident, a double charge. He said the other one was valid even though the notes said I was there to meet the Covad tech; they charged 150 dollars because the condo managers didn't show up. At this point he was being extremely unfriendly, quite argumentative, and was beginning to raise his voice at me. He told me that the 99 dollar charge was entirely my responsibility because "you can't just order DSL and cancel it without being charged". I explained to him that I was specifically told Speakeasy understood the position was in and the account was clean. He literally said he didn't care. At this point he said he would request that a supervisor remove the invalid 150 dollar charge and that he would call me back regardless of their decision. At this point I think both of us wanted to get off the phone and I didn’t want to broach the subject of the odd 123 dollar charge that hit my bank account.
Fees and Charges PT. 2:
I hadn’t heard back from him by Wednesday so I called in to see what was up. I ended up having to explain my story to a new rep. He was receptive and friendly on the phone and said to me “you shouldn’t be responsible for more than 100 dollars of this, I’m sub noting your ticket now.” He told me that these kinds of things happen and that Speakeasy charges a little more for their DSL so they can provide great service to its customers. I felt pretty good about all this and got off the phone awaiting another call.
Fees and Charges PT. 3:
Thursday the original rep called me back and said the invalid 150.00 charge was reversed, which was great news. I wanted to talk through the rest of the charges on my account and see if we could work through some of it, since I was still 300 in the hole, not to mention the 123 charged to my bank account. He once again got immediately irritable and started raising his voice. I told him about the call I had the day previous and he let me know that there was no record of me calling in on Wednesday and no notes on my account other than what he entered. I was at a loss now. I asked him what the amount of the new invoice would be and he said he didn’t know until it was generated in December. 5 minutes later after some more arguing though he said he could produce a new invoice then and there, which he did. At this point he explained again that he was not going to refund any of the other charges and that this issue was closed and that I “should be happy with that I got”. I asked him nicely if I could talk to the billing super so I could make my case to the person who approves/denies all these charges. It took me another 15 minutes of arguing through “it isn’t going to make a difference” and flat out “no” to the point where I said “This is a lot of money to me, I understand nothing can be changed but could you do me the warm and fuzzy of just letting me talk to them so I feel like I’ve exhausted all my options”. After a few seconds he responded with a “fine” and said he had scheduled a call back. We got off the phone, once again not addressing the 123 dollar charge.
Fees and Charges PT. 4:
On Friday (11/21) in the morning I called in to specifically talk about the 123 dollar charge. Thursday night I spent about an hour figuring out what accounts I had with Speakeasy and what charges existed where. The 450.00 account is the account opened in August, the 123.00 account is the one opened in October. I talked to rep about the account and the 123 dollar charge. It is a 99 dollar setup fee, 15 dollars for shipping the modem, and various taxes. I explained that this account was supposed to be clean and closed. He nicely explained that those fees do not and cannot be refunded but that I was credited back other fees on the account. In short, this means sales wanted me to open another account and get charged the setup and modem fees twice with the knowledge that I would have to pay all the fees with no recourse. That is dishonesty in a way that I have not experienced in a long time. I got off the phone as there was obviously nothing I could do; hoping that the supervisor call-back could help me with all these charges.
Check Up:
About an hour later I called in again to verify that no notes were left on my account from Wednesday and that the original rep had scheduled the call-back. I did not feel that I could trust him, and wanted another rep to check the account out. The call-back was scheduled and there are in fact no notes on my account from Wednesday.
The Summary:
So here I am waiting for a supervisor call back that is apparently not going to do anything at all to help me. I have 400 dollars in charges hanging over my head, 123 of which was already deducted from my bank account.
I understand that this is a no-fault situation. When it came down to setup and installation Speakeasy did nothing wrong and neither did I. Instead of providing some customer service and shielding me from massive charges that I had literally no control over, Speakeasy has passed the buck to me and has rudely said it’s my fault and I shouldn’t have called them in the first place
They also duped me into opening two accounts with the knowledge that I’d have to pay 123 dollars in fees on both with no possible refund. They never sent me a bill or invoice for either account, had I not called in I wouldn’t have known about the 450 dollar balance until it was charged. They lied to me over the phone, not documenting my calls and patronizing me by saying this should be no problem to fix. I’m at a loss for what to do here; I accrued 573 dollars in charges by simply picking up the phone and ordering DSL…I never even had service. It’s like I’ve fallen through the cracks of their TOS and they refuse to help me out. Today I began documenting all my calls, who I’ve talked to, account numbers, what transpired on the call, etc.
I’ll update this when I get a call from the super. If I can’t get these bills down to a reasonable amount, my plan is to reverse the charge already in my account, get a new card number, and file a case in small claims court. This is so much hassle and ill will for the holiday season but I can simply not afford to pay these fees so I have to exercise all my options. | |
| You really need to speak with their executive escalations manager, they arent takin care of you right.
Per speakeasy's TOS, if you call and order dsl today and call em and cancel tomorrow, no fees. If the order is entered, and starts down the road to install, but BEFORE install, you only owe $49.
Even if it gets installed, within 25 days you can cancel, no termination fees, and the only thing you owe is for service for those days. | |
| Hey that is a really good thought and I totally forgot this. Thanks for bringing it up, I'll be sure to ask the billing super when I get a call from her. | |
approval from:
KoolMoe 
thumbs down from:
KoolMoe
| reply to Digi
I'd like to report in that I received a call from Speakeasy this evening. It was the Executive Escalations Manager; he was very friendly and let me know that he saw the post here and researched the case. He looked over the invoices, set everything to 0, and set me straight on how things should work with Speakeasy! I really appreciate the time he spent to look over these issues and am extremely grateful that he advocated for me on the problems above.
Thank you very much! | |
| said by Digi :
I'd like to report in that I received a call from Speakeasy this evening. It was the Executive Escalations Manager; he was very friendly and let me know that he saw the post here and researched the case. He looked over the invoices, set everything to 0, and set me straight on how things should work with Speakeasy! I really appreciate the time he spent to look over these issues and am extremely grateful that he advocated for me on the problems above.
Thank you very much!
Glad to hear. If it was the same person that was in the position when i was there, he is a really good guy. | |
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