Open Letter to Earthlink Customer Complaint Dept.

My internet service went down on 9/4. I thought that a server must be down so I didn't worry about it. After a few days of continued disruption of service I called to notify Earthlink about the problem. By Saturday I made sure that a trouble ticket was issued (ticket #924419). I spent approximately 10-15 hours over 3-4 days over the following week on the phone with a representative trying to fix the problem and whenever the reps efforts failed they transfered me to a different department with an average wait time of 12-15 minutes for each transfer.
Every time I got transfered I was forced to reverify my name, type of computer, OS, account, password, last 4 digits of my credit card, etc. then was forced each time to reconfigure my network settings, my modem etc. upwards of 20-30 times.
Finally, a rep decided that it was time to send an on-site tech out to verify my equipment and other hardware that I had at my home. The tech came and verified everything, tested everything with his own equipment ran his own diagnostics and confirmed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my home set up and his diagnostics showed him that there was some kind of authentication error with the Earthlink servers that wasn't allowing me to access my account.
When I contacted Earthlink the following day to follow up on the tech's visit. The operator said that the tech's recommendation was to replace the modem, which was exactly not what the tech communicated to me in my home. I asked the phone rep just to reset my passwords to allow me to log on, but the phone rep decided that they would send out a new modem overnight. Completely ignoring what the on-site tech's recommendations to me were.
We received the modem yesterday (2-3 days wait, not counting the weekend) and this did not solve the problem. This week, I didn't have time to devote to this problem so my wife took over and over the last couple of days has had to repeat my experiences over the previous week: transfered from department to department, having to test, having to reconfigure network settings and modem settings, having to be transfered and re-re-re-repeat all pertinent information, having to wait through long hold times, having to deal with representative misrepresenting their positions in the company by stating that they are managers/supervisors when they clearly could not make any decision regarding our account/contract since we were not being serviced properly and we were not (at no time) getting any kind of effective, productive and even respectful customer service and also making false statements as to what kind of information they are able to provide to me as a customer. Every time the issue became too difficult, the buck was passed to another department and the blame was placed to another source (e.g., It must be your hardware, It must be the phone company, It must be something in your house, It must be the weather or somesuch nonsense).
Finally after repeating those same experiences needlessly and wasting approximately 30 hours of my family's time since Tuesday 9/12 we were told that another tech would have to be sent out to our home, who re-confirmed the previous on-site tech's findings. After following up with the tech department and continuing the hoop-jumping (for another 2 hours), we were transferred to someone who led us to a firmware update setting that solved everything (connection issues only, not customer service issues) in 4 minutes.

Some ancillary issues that resulted from this fiasco (among a multitude of minute issues that I haven't even begun to list here):

Having to spend 4+ hours worth of minutes on our personal cell phones while waiting on hold because our land line had to be disconnected to test (repeatedly) our equipment

Bouncing checks and overdraft charges and late fees on our bank account due to the disruption of our online banking and not being able to monitor our finances and/or meet due times for bill payment

Missing or being late to appointments (most importantly our daughter's 'Back to School' night) because we were on hold for multiple hours each time over multiple days after being reassured by phone reps that the hold times would not be long and that the issue would be resolved in a timely fashion

Needless to say I/we were shocked and dismayed at the apparent lack of ownership your company takes in their customer's issues. No one at any time could take the problem at hand from beginning to end in any meaningful way, if at all and no one would take responsibility of the issue illustrated by the continued and repeated 'passing of the buck' and continued and repeated deflection and repeated and continued excuses upon excuses.