Bellsouth DSL

My complaint is with Bellsouth DSL.

I moved into my new house approx September 2005. Being a brand new house, I

was very limited to what and who I could use. My only other option besides

Bellsouth DSL was Adelphia. I took the lesser of the two evils (or so I

thought) and went with DSL.

The DSL was on and working great for about 3 to 4 weeks, up until Hurricane

Wilma came through and hit South Florida, hard. My DSL went out. I called

customer service time and time again to figure out what happened. I was

told that the hurricane knocked out some towers in my area that sent the DSL

to my house as well as my neighbors. It would be LATE January before we had

DSL.

So January rolls around and nothing, then all of a sudden, I receive an

email a few days before February saying thank you for your order. An order

I didn't place. I didn't want DSL from Bellsouth, nor did I want my house

phone service from DSL. I wanted to look around, shop elsewhere for DSL,

after all it had been some time since we moved in, maybe another company had

a product available.

I never had any further contact with Bellsouth, not phone service, not DSL.

2 months had passed with no contact, no bills, nothing. When I got around

to getting time to search for DSL, I found out Bellsouth has a monopoly on

my area, NO COMPANY besides Bellsouth can offer DSL or home phone service

besides them.

So early March I suck it up and call them, to yes, place an order.

What a shock. I was being charged for DSL AND my phone for months. Not

January but December! The two bills added up to over $200. The way I see

it, if the basic phone service cost $25+ with taxes and regular DSL Ultra

not Xtreme and the Xtreme 6.0 cost $40+ with taxes, I was being charged for

at least 3 MONTHS, and not only was I being charged for a service I wasn't

receiving, but I WASN'T GETTING ANY BILLS!

So what now?

I call Bellsouth to straighten this problem out.

I speak to the DSL department. They tell me that someone using my social,

my address, my birth date called up in January and placed an order for DSL.

I'm 100% sure NO ONE did that, no one has my social, not too many people

know my birth date, and those that do would never place an order for DSL in

MY house!

Anyway, I call and explain to them that I never called and I was told that I

need to open a fraud investigation because SOMEONE called and ordered the

DSL. I tell them to go ahead and do it. I need the internet at my house so

whatever will get this process going, do it. They said within a few days

I'll get a packet in the mail, fill everything out and send it back.

A week goes by and nothing.

I call up a full week after and hear 'oh we're so sorry, we'll be calling

you within 2 days to straighten this out'

A week goes by and nothing.

I call up a another full week after and get transferred to a supervisor.

Finally, someone who knew what he was doing! I got credits for not only my

DSL which he admitted the system automatically ordered when the service was

reinstated in my area but he gave me EVERY credit that I was unknowingly

charged for DSL and the home phone. I was told that a fresh order was

placed and within 4 hours I'll have a phone line and within 24 hours I'll

have DSL back up and running since I have all the filters/modem already.

Now this is where it gets good.

The fraud department calls no more than 20 minutes after I spoke to the

supervisor, 2 weeks after they were suppose to call, and tells me that my

house has an active fraud investigation going and I will not have DSL at my

house until they close it.

2 weeks pass. No mail, no phone calls. Now I'm getting mad.

I figure I've been pushed around and told the wrong information long enough.

I call the DSL department to order DSL. Thank you Mr. Siegel, your order

was placed, please wait 24 hours for your DSL to become active, have a good

day.

2 days pass, no DSL. I call and ask why, I waited 48 hours.

We're sorry Mr. Siegel, no order was placed. I'm sorry for that, but I'll

go ahead and place an order for you right now. You'll have your DSL working

within 72 business hours.

A week goes by, nothing. No DSL.

I call back. I asked why Bellsouth is so hard to work with, why they can't

place a simple order? Why when I'm told they're going to look into why an

order was automatically placed they have no answer. Why did a supervisor

tell me I was getting my credits and it was going to be active within 24

hours, and it not be? Why is this taking MONTHS to get straightened up?

Why was I being charged and never getting any bills?

NO ANSWER! I was transferred from Sales to Customer Service, to Sales to

Customer Service for 35 minutes with the same exact conversation EVERY TIME.

Sales; we can't help you, you have to speak to customer service.

Customer service; we can't help you, you have to speak to sales and place an

order.

This happened honestly 3 times each until CS was closed!

So what now?

Today's April 17th 2006. Its 11:30AM, I called them today and Sales said

nothing was ordered and transferred me to CS. (what a surprise) CS told me

the only record they see in my account at all is, March 8th there was an

order sent out to kill my service.

WHAT SERVICE?

I NEVER HAD SERVICE!

What can I do? Why am I having such a problem with this company?

I place an order, it doesn't go through.

I don't place an order and it goes through.

DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH BELLSOUTH, NOT LOCAL PHONE SERVICE, NOT CELL PHONE

SERVICE (CINGULAR) AND NOT DSL!!!!!