During the first week of July, my bill for internet and phone through Mediacom soared $80. My phone had cost $5/month, and it shot up to $50/month without warning during the first week of July. My internet rate had also gone up, so I decided I wasn't giving Mediacom my business anymore and tried to call someone in retention to cancel all services, because I wasn't going to be paying this outrageous bill. I spoke to a woman named Stephanie in retention. She wound up talking me into staying with Mediacom, provided that I would be cancelling the phone service and not paying the absolutely absurd $50/month fee for it, and I would be bumping down the internet speed to their 3 meg line for $47.95/month. I agreed to this. The next month comes, and I get a bill stating that I owe Mediacom $264. I look at the itemized charges, and Mediacom had charged us for a month of the faster internet service we no longer have, a month of the slower internet service, a month for the phone we no longer have, and several late fees and other erroneous charges. I thought this wouldn't be a big deal to correct, just call in and have them take the other charges out, because I hadn't been receiving those services. Between my wife and I, we have made 6 separate phone calls relating to the billing problems on the account, totaling to somewhere around 7-8 hours of call time. The core issue seems to be one person doesn't know what the last person has done to try and correct the situation, they either don't leave notes or leave notes that are so cryptic nobody knows what they mean. We've had random account credits for amounts that seem to only be coming out of thin air, and mostly accusatory customer service reps who are all convinced that we are in the wrong and that the computer must be right. According to the customer service department, as of 9/14, late charges and delinquent balances on our account include $46.44 (that number agrees with the delinquent balance on our 8/22 statement). While on the phone, a $13 credit was applied “for phone services,†bringing our total delinquent balance down to $33.44. We agreed to make that payment to have our services restored, with the intent of further disputing the past due claims. **note: The $13 phone credit applied 9/15, plus the $35.44 phone service credit applied 8/10 and shown on our 8/22 bill still do not add up to the erroneous $49.95 charges for our disconnected phone service that appeared on our 7/22 statement. Together, they add up to $48.44, meaning Mediacom still owes us a refund/credit of $1.51 for phone services not rendered. After paying $33.44 and having a $13 credit applied to our account, our balance (originally $101.89 on our 8/22 statement) is $55.45. That number reflects our monthly service charges ($15.00 for HS Basic, $5.00 High Speed Modem, $27.95 Mediacom Online Intro) plus a $7.50 late fee on the previous delinquent balance (the $33.44 we paid on 9/15). A payment of $55.45 plus sundry taxes and surcharges not even mentioned to us, would be due on 9/19.
So, for services from 7/1 to 7/8: $29.64 + taxes around $1.00. Services 7/9 to 7/31: $31.85 ($11.04 HS Basic, $20.70 Mediacom Online Intro plus taxes). ---------------------------------------- Combined, our bill for services 7/1-7/31 would have been $61.49 to $65.94, depending on taxes. The statement we received in the mail was for a full month’s services at the higher rate internet and with phone service, so we were advised by Mike in Customer Service to wait for a new statement to be mailed to us showing the correct charges. A corrected statement was never received, but a new monthly statement did arrive at the end of the month, still reflecting the incorrect charges (that would be our 7/22 statement). The 7/22 statement was incorrect, reflecting the complete past due balance from July without any changes. The correct charges should have been: Services from 8/1 to 8/31: $47.95 plus taxes ($15.00 HS Basic, $5.00 Modem, $27.95 Mediacom Online Intro)
Balance due from July: $65.94
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Combined total: $113.89 The statement we received was completely incorrect, so Tanya in Customer Service (ID #14784) gave me a corrected total via telephone of $97.90. That was allegedly the total amount due and would bring our account current. Payment was due 7/19 and actually made via EFT 7/18/11 in the amount of $97.90. Having looked at these numbers in depth myself, I believe her total was incorrect and that we actually owed $113.89 plus sundry taxes. However, because we paid the “balance†she gave us on time and in good faith, I don’t believe we should have been charged a late fee for the remaining balance. The 8/22 statement again shows a past due balance, this time of $46.44. We have no idea where that number is coming from. I presume it’s a combination of taxes, services and with credits made to our account by Tanya deducted, but have been unable to get the numbers to agree. Given our above assertion that Tanya’s “balance†of $97.90 was incorrect and that we actually should have paid $113.89, we should have had a past due balance on our 8/22 statement of $15.99. Mediacom would have added a $7.50 late fee, bringing the correct total past due balance to $23.49. Since we do not believe we should be charged a late fee, having made a payment in good faith, our total past due balance was $15.99. New charges for Sept.: $47.95 plus taxes ($15.00 HS Basic, $5.00 Modem, $27.95 Mediacom Online Intro)
Plus past due balance: $15.99
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Total due for September: $63.94 plus $1-2 in taxes.
As of 9/15, we paid $33.44 toward our account’s balance, making the total remainder due 9/19: $30.50
---------------------------------------------------- Below are the last two calls I made in to Mediacom regarding my ongoing billing issues. I wrote these call logs as I was on the phone with these employees. Call Began at 9:37PM, call ended at roughly 10:30pm on 9/15/11. Called and spoke to Jason initially. Explained situation to Jason, and told him I wanted to be transferred to whoever could take care of the problem once and for all. Transferred me to Lesley in customer service. Explained situation to Lesley. Lesley tried to figure it out herself, then went and spoke to Jennifer, customer service supervisor for West Des Moines, Iowa. Jennifer and Lesley figured out that there had been a credit for the VOIP phone charge, not applied to the account previously, for $13.00. They applied this amount to the account, and with this credit, the delinquent balance became $33.44. We decided to simply pay the delinquent balance of $33.44, and Lesley gave me an authorization number of #044663. Payment went through @ 10:20pm on 9/15/11. I then told Lesley that we would be printing out all of our statements for the previous three months, and that we would be going into the Geneseo office to go over the bills line by line with the employee there. Lesley said, "That would be a good idea, because then they could explain anything to you right there, and they could see everything I'm seeing here. I will go ahead and put a comment on your account explaining our entire conversation tonight, so that they will also have somewhat of an idea of what the trouble is when you do arrive." I asked Lesley why the internet wasn't working yet. She said she couldn't be sure, but that she could transfer me to Internet Troubleshooting. I agreed to be transferred. Bill in Internet Troubleshooting answered the call, and I explained the situation to him. He asked how long ago this block on the account had been lifted, and I told him it was literally right before I had spoken to him. He said, "The servers take about 15-30 minutes to update. Once it is updated, you shouldn't have to do anything. The internet will simply start working on your end. If it's been thirty minutes and it still isn't working, give us a call back, because that means something has gone horribly wrong." I said I would wait it out and see if it started working. Lesley's ID# is 4167, in customer service.
Jennifer, Lesley's supervisor, can be identified within the company with the following information: First name Jennifer, works as a Customer Service Supervisor out of West Des Moines, Iowa. As an aside, I also asked Lesley if there was any identifying information about the call I could also have, such as a tape number or call number. She went and asked Jennifer, and was told that the only reasons they pull calls are for training their employees, or for contract disputes; she gave me the example of, "You know, if somebody doesn't think they've gotten what they were promised in a promotion, or something." (Which, funny enough, is the exact problem I have been having.) Call began at 10:55pm, call ended at 11:07PM. Waited until 10:55pm and internet was still not working. Called back and spoke to Miles in the "Internet and Phone" department. Miles showed that the delinquent amount was for the original $46.44. I asked miles if I could be put through to either Leslie in customer service, ID# 4167, or Jennifer, the Customer Service Manager out of West Des Moines, Iowa. Miles informed me that Leslie was on the phone currently, and that Jennifer had gone home for the evening. I replied, "Of course". Miles then sat on the phone repeating, "Uhhh," and "Let me see, here,.." for about three minutes. He then told me that he saw what the problem was and that the block has now been lifted, but that he's currently working on getting the internet back up and running. Miles then put me on hold for about 5 minutes. He came back saying that when he tried to resume the service, the computer came back saying that there was a database error. He explained that he does not have access to this database, and that he was going to have to, "kick it up to the tier 2 internet trouble shooting people." Miles' ID number is 78124 in internet and phone. The tier 2 ticket number is #888576. Tier 2 comes in at 8:00am CST M-F. Miles explained that, "Tier 2 is going to have to go through all the tickets that have come in over the course of the night. The soonest the service will be resumed will be in the early afternoon tomorrow (9/16/11). They will try to contact you if there is either another problem, or if they can get it turned back on sooner." 9/16/11 Update: At 10:30 am, the internet was inexplicably back on. No missed calls or messages from Tier 2 received.
--- At the end of the day, I just want someone in billing or wherever to total everything out for the CORRECT amounts, credits, charges, fees waived, and so on, and to tell me that the problem is FIXED and WILL NOT OCCUR AGAIN. I have been receiving totally incorrect bills for going on 3 months now. The most frustrating thing is, they are never even incorrect in the same way. The errors are always different, always seemingly random, and no one at Mediacom seems to be able to decipher it. All the employees we've spoken to so far have sworn up and down that "this is the last time, you won't have to deal with this again, and I understand the situation and I am correcting it once and for all." My wife and I went into our local office in Geneseo, Illinois today at around 4:00pm CST. We spoke with the woman working the front desk, Joyce. My wife had typed everything out, explained where Mediacom went wrong, and how the situation could be corrected, as you can see above. Joyce couldn't be bothered to get up from her desk and come and look at our paperwork, but instead told us that, "I can see it all in the computer anyway." When I tried to explain that ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS ARE ORIGINATING FROM THE COMPUTER BEING WRONG, Joyce told me "Well, it's all in the comments." Joyce finally capitulated that she would send an email to Angel, in the "Research Department" out of the East Moline, Illinois office. She claimed that Angel could fix this problem "once and for all". I am sure you can see how this would be extremely frustrating. I will be posting this to DSL Reports and RipOffReports as well. PLEASE HELP ME. |
