If your ISP was down for a week, would you pay the bill?

Slayer · Post by **Slayer** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:08 pm

My internet was down for a week, and actually was scheduled to be down for 2 weeks till they managed to get a tech out here (Probably to shrug and say he can't fix it).

Now they sent me the monthly bill. Think I should pay? Technically this outage cost me 200 dollars in discount plane tickets.

What do you guys think?

OLD_Jammer · Post by **OLD_Jammer** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 10:44 pm

File a complaint through the normal channels available to you in their customer relations department. Keep it polite, but to the point. I would use a lot of the same wording you used in your post. End it with the question about paying the full bill...

My two cents.

Post by **Phineus** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 11:20 pm

Jam's right. That's the way to handle the old company. The big question is what kind of alternatives do you have.

Slayer · Post by **Slayer** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:24 am

absolutely none. MTS is the only other provider, and for some reason, DSL doesn't work right on our block, or a few houses in our cluster. it will work for a few minutes then rapidly slow down till it halts completely. They couldn't fix it so I dumped them for shaw cable.

Post by **Phineus** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:24 pm

Shaw? Yuck. But okay, then the best you can do is ask them to adjust the bill, or find some other compensation for the downtime. And definitely go through customer service rather than through billing.

Slayer · Post by **Slayer** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 11:05 pm

I assume customer service and their internet tech support are one in the same?
I havent actually called and canceled the tech appointment either

. Waiting to see if it goes down again. I'll call them the friday.

Post by **Phineus** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 11:20 pm

Shaw is a big company so I wouldn't guess they'd be the same departments. The tech guys would not be authorized to make business decisions. You'd want somebody who's job it is to handle customer satisfaction. If you can't get anywhere on the phone, then ask to be put on to a supervisor or manager. The odds of the person answering the phone being able to actually do anything are rather slim. Patience with them is the key because you want them to forward you to the right place... as opposed to putting you on hold forever.

ShadowPrincess · Post by **ShadowPrincess** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:30 pm

The guys are right.
Hopefully they see reason Slayer, I know I would not pay the full bill.
Let us know how you go.

Slayer · Post by **Slayer** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:55 pm

Ok I did, they credited me the time, 20 bucks. That's good enough. I intend to pay the bill end of next week when I get back from Vegas.