Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have Suddenlink as my internet provider. The company has established a 250 gb data cap on private customer usage per month.
Suddenlink provides a data use meter so customers may check their use. In late April I received a notice stating that I had exceeded my 250 gb for the billing period. I had not had cause to look at my usage before, and when I now did, I discovered:
From April of 2015 until April 22nd 2016, the highest single day use I had was 4.1 gb. The highest monthly use I had ever recorded was 44 gb.
Now their meter was reporting these insane leaps. 7gb one day, 25 the next, 40 the next. On two days I'm supposed to have used 80 gb and over 100 gb. These super high numbers have continued every day since April 22nd.
I talked with my neighbors and discovered that the same thing was happening to them. My next door neighbor was out of town for five days and her computer not even turned on, yet she was dinged for nearly 100 gb of use on those days.
We have reported the problem five times over the phone and once in person at the local office. Not once has anyone from Suddenlink contacted any of us with any information regarding this problem. The false reports continue and now we are receiving notices that we have gone over the usage limits for a second month. A third month of doing so results in Suddenlink charging customers 10 dollars for every 50 gb over the 250 allowed. Suddenlink has me listed as having used 983.1 gb in the last billing period. That would mean 140 dollars in over use charges.
As to the obvious....
No, it is not someone pirating router signals. I took my router off of my system and this did nothing to stop the high use reports.
and, no, it is not some virus. I have run three full scans on my computer and nothing was detected. Further, since it is happening to a lot of people, it is clearly a system problem, not a consumer problem.
Anyone familiar with any of this? Suddenlink has been doing a big push advertising a higher cost service which comes with unlimited data plans. The paranoia in me makes me suspect that they are trying to scare people into signing up for the higher cost plan.
Last edited by Grandstander; 06-08-2016 at 09:03 AM..
"No, it is not someone pirating router signals. I took my router off of my system and this did nothing to stop the high use reports."
Get a usage reading & screenshot
Remove ALL connections to the internet except for their modem for a period of 24 hours.
Plug back in and get another reading & screenshot.
Have your neighbors do the same, and then gather and print the screenshots.
Send a CERTIFIED letter to them AND the FCC AND the state attorney general.
If the reporting errors did not incur charges to you, that would not involve fraud. Since you have notified them and the problem continues, and there has been no attempt at correction or communication, it is by definition fraudulent. You could go the civil court route to correct it, but let the oversight governmental bodies do the work they were designed to.
When paying any of their bills, make a not that you disagree with the billing and are paying "under duress." That may give you slightly higher standing in any payback settlements. Be prepared for this to drag out over six months or more.
Hi Grandstander - Thanks for reaching out, and I'm really sorry to hear that you've been experiencing an issue with your internet service. I'd be happy to work with our Leadership team in your area to investigate this issue. Please feel free to email me directly with your service address and contact phone number, also please reference your post here - my email address is socialsupport-AT-suddenlink-DOT-com. Thank you, -Dawn
5 hours after that was posted? Google doesn't even show this indexed yet.
Looks like it might be a valid support address, but there are a number of these responses in various forums by people with different names so it looks like it doesn't belong to "Dawn" specifically. Likely just a standard support que.
5 hours after that was posted? Google doesn't even show this indexed yet.
Yeah, I found that curious as well. My guess is that some employee/stockholder/interested party saw the OP and my response and went "Oh SPIT!" and immediately notified the tech support team. Lawsuits and the FCC coming in could have major impacts on the company.
Covering my own butt, note that I in no way directly accused the company of fraud. I stated that every thing but the modem needed to be removed as possibilities, and THEN if the usage was still high as reported by the OP and neighbors, there was fraud. I try to be very careful the way I use words. As for involving the FCC? I had to resort to that in a battle with AT&T. It was the 800lb gorilla that kept AT&T from ignoring me.
We pay for them to do a job, and using them when appropriate only makes sense.
The problem appears to at last have been corrected, my data reports have returned to normal levels.
Throughout this time Suddenlink never contacted any of the affected customers to let them know that they need not worry, that they were aware that the reports were false and no one was going to be charged for going over. Instead we all got the boilerplate warnings from Suddenlink informing us that we were over and extra charges would made if we exceeded it for a third time.
There is nothing in place anywhere at Suddenlink which allows a customer to report a system problem such as this. Every time one called, it was starting from scratch with someone who knew nothing of the problem and could offer only the same solutions which had already failed. Not one of them had any idea of how to report a system failure. Had it not been for an accidental encounter with a Suddenlink sales rep, who showed some initiative in bringing the problem to Suddenlink's attention, I doubt that anything would have been done.
All in all, for a communications company, Suddenlink seems to have no internal communications between their departments and they could not be bothered with communicating with their customers.
There is nothing in place anywhere at Suddenlink which allows a customer to report a system problem such as this. Every time one called, it was starting from scratch with someone who knew nothing of the problem and could offer only the same solutions which had already failed. Not one of them had any idea of how to report a system failure. Had it not been for an accidental encounter with a Suddenlink sales rep, who showed some initiative in bringing the problem to Suddenlink's attention, I doubt that anything would have been done.
All in all, for a communications company, Suddenlink seems to have no internal communications between their departments and they could not be bothered with communicating with their customers.
That's par for the course with customer support these days. Comcast, probably the largest provider in the US has been at the bottom of the barrel with customer service for years and show no signs of fixing it any time soon. Why should they, many people have no other option than to put up with them.
That's par for the course with customer support these days. Comcast, probably the largest provider in the US has been at the bottom of the barrel with customer service for years and show no signs of fixing it any time soon. Why should they, many people have no other option than to put up with them.
These companies spend millions of dollars in advertising to tell us what swell operations they are. I wish that they would invest some of that money in trying to be good companies.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,096,346 times
Reputation: 3996
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander
These companies spend millions of dollars in advertising to tell us what swell operations they are. I wish that they would invest some of that money in trying to be good companies.
A good company (my some measures) is one which makes money while spending as little as possible on the customer experience. Doesn't that make Comcast a good one already?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Google doesn't even show this indexed yet.
