My experience with Earthlink has been a total mess and it angers me just thinking about this whole situation that's dragged on now for 2 months. That's right, it took them TWO MONTHS to set up our DSL line and every single day since, there has been an issue. I've had Comcast, Cox, and Verizon Fios internet service before and may have had issues with each -- I understand it comes with the territory and am generally pretty laid back about these things. BUT I have never had such trouble with the most basic service issues before. Earthlink customer service is rock bottom THE WORST I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. They are nice enough, but CANNOT and WILL NOT help you.

I've already gotten 1 month service free and will shortly be getting at least 1 more for all the waste of time, effort, and general huge inconvenience they've put us through.

1) Don't believe what they tell you - nobody at Earthlink seems to know what they are talking about and for all I care are either incompetent or liars. Each person I speak with contradicts the other. They said it would take 3-4 weeks MAX to get our service up. However, they scheduled the set up visits way too far out, and even if each visit had been successful (which they weren't, it took 3 tries), Earthlink would not have met the 4 week max timeline for set up which they originally quoted. I have had numerous occasions with Earthlink agents apologizing for something another agent said because, "that wasn't true", or "that may be what they're pulling up, but we're [this department is] the only ones who can tell you for sure what's going on".

Example 1: It takes 2 visits to get service active, fair enoguh, but GOOD LUCK with their subcontractors and automated scheduling. First the phone company has to come to the house, then at max 1 week later Earthlink comes and gets your service up. Earthlink had to set up THREE visits to get the phone line active because their subcontractor's subcontractor were not showing up to the house and lying about it. After we FINALLY got the phone company to do their job, Earthlink had the nerve to schedule us out **21 days** before activating our service. I had to waste another 30 minutes on the phone to shave that down to *13 days* and have them come Thanksgiving weekend. WHAT A JOKE. How is waiting almost a full month the same as waiting '5-7 days'???

Example 2: When these visits were being automatically generated, NOBODY from Earthlink called us or e-mailed us to inform us of these visits. If I hadn't kept on calling them and wasting hours on the phone, we would have never known about these visits.

2) They are outsourced like crazy - Earthlink is way too big for it's own good and outsources all of their call centers.
You will be on hold a minimum of 15 minutes. I am on hold an average of 30 minutes. I have been on hold for up to 50 minutes (no joke) to reach the first live human. THEN I am transferred or put on hold like crazy, usually being dropped in the process so I have to call back and start the hellish process over again. Once, an over eager Earthlink agent told me he would call me back at whatever time I chose, so I chose 7:00 pm. He did call me back at the right time -- because it was TOTALLY AUTOMATED and basically Earthlink's system called me and PLACED ME BACK IN QUEUE, exactly the same as if I had placed the call. I was on hold for 15 minutes before I hung up.

3) The customer service folks are annoying - Just my personal pet peeve, and probably unfair given that some of the agents I speak to sound like they actually want to help. But they seem to care more about convincing you that they are trying to help you than actually trying to help you. They fall over themselves telling you how they are there to make things easier for you but it gets on my nerves because they so obviously have no idea what they are doing. I don't think this is their fault of course, Earthlink's infrastructure when it comes to customer service is a joke and they do not train or properly equip customer service to help you. Plus, outsourcing like crazy and having no central system probably doesn't help.

4) They use subcontractors - who use subcontractors. In DC, they use Covad for phone service who uses Verizon and Verizon is not reliable. Is that enough passing the buck for you? If you have an issue wiht your DSL or phone line, you will have to stay on hold for at least 10-15 with the agent while they are on hold with Covad who is probably on hold with Verizon, after you've already been on hold for 30 minutes to reach Earthlink in the first place. When Verizon does come to your house, they can't do much for you and will tell you to place your concerns with Earthlink, who will place it with Covad, and then Covad will send them out to fix the issue -- even though there is a Verizon phone technician standing right there in front of your phone box who can fix the issue at that moment. Ridiculous. Part of it is that I think a lot of the Verizon technicians are just plain lazy (my own personal opinion based on experience) and will not bother ringing the doorbell so that you can let them in.

5) The actual service is not as advertised - Every day for the first week (seven days) after DSL service was activated, we had connection issues. The modem was not working, phone line was not working, the DSL signal was not working. I would troubleshoot for an hour or more with a technician, get it resolved, and the next day have the same problem. And every time this happened, we would have to call Earthlink for another irritating, unhelpful, unnecessarily drawn out 'trouble shooting session'.

So that is my rant so far. I loathe dealing with Earthlink. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. I hate Earthlink. Whenever I hear that "We've been voted best in customer service" line while I'm on hold for 15-50 minutes for the same problem I've been dealing with every day for a week, it makes me want to laugh. And then break my modem.

To sum up, dealing with Earthlink tech support or customer service = a waste of precious hours of life.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 60