Excel.Net, Inc.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.  I  chose to use a local business instead of a big name provider and I feel like they are taking advantage. The contract is only in favor of the business and the consumer has no rights. I find it totally unacceptable that the solution is to have the person that will be living in the old house take over the contract. The home is being sold and who knows who or when it will be rented. Bottom line they can't offer the service how can they hold someone captive?
Regards,
Tim [redacted]

These images really do not provide the needed information and the customer has refused to work with our Tier 2 staff leaving us without the ability to help resolve the issues that they are experiencing.  Again there are many factors that impact speed including other users, background transfers (windows updates, AV updates, e-mail downloads,...) other devices on the network,...  Without our support staff working with the customer at the time these tests were taken it is impossible to say that one ore more than one of them was not impacting the customers test and therefore significantly skewing results.  The example that I typically use is one of a hose.  You can only push so much water through the hose based on the size of the hose (plan customer has).  If water is already flowing through the hose filling it (video streaming or any of the other items mentioned) then pushing more water (the speedtest) through is not possible and the results can appear to be poor even though in fact the hose (customer link) is working properly.  We have not been able to work with the customer enough to get to this point and determine the issues they are experiencing.  Our staff is still willing, but it will require involvement from the customer.

It appears that Excel.net is missing the fundamental issue here.  What they are advertising is not what they are delivering. As stated in their own advertising, the Family Plan speed is supposed to be “Perfect for allowing multiple people to use the internet tobrowse, play games, stream SD video and music.” We simply did not experience this. Referring to a specific call my husband made to tech support, he was asked to test the speed of the system using a web site.  The response time was showing a rate close to advertised speed.  Yes, this included OUR equipment as part of this test all of which must have been working properly.  Yet, when while standing a mere five feet away from our router after this test, it took up to 20 seconds to load web pages on both a smartphone and an iPad.  However, when switching to the AT&T data plan on the iPhone, the loading of the web pages was immediate.  The tech support agent was unable to explain this issue.  This is the fundamental problem.Excel.net cannot have it both ways.  When rates are measured close to advertised speeds (while including our equipment in the test), Excel.Net somehow blames the problem on us when the WiFi cannot support basic services?  Excel.Net again cannot have it both ways saying that “the customer refused to work with us regarding any issue.”  Yet, for three years we both can reference emails and phone calls where we discussed the issues, upgraded from the Basic Plan to the Family Plan, tested the system and were referred to higher tech support.  It is agreed that due to our lack of residency at the lake house, these phone calls were spread out over time.  That is one of the reasons we did not cancel earlier. Excel.net refers to system upgrades that were needed.  Why were these upgrades never performed?  Why did Excel.net not make an appointment with us to make these upgrades on site, if needed?  If a booster could be a problem, why was this never indicated to us?  As an aside, thebooster actually helped.  These suggestions could have been made to us at any time.  Also, my husband works 10 minutes from the lake house so an appointment could have easily have been scheduled.  Finally, after a year and a half of limping along with a bad Basic Plan and another year and a half with a mediocre internet Family Plan and frustrations with solving the performance issues, we chose to disconnect the service.  While there were issues with dropped signals, slow response time, poor site coverage and even technical support, we have come to realize the main issue is that Excel.net cannot deliver what they are advertising.  No amount of system testing or software upgrades or technical support can fix that.When my husband called to cancel the service due to lack of performance, Excel.net did not even listen to the reasons, that is, lack of delivery of what was promised in the advertisement: allowing multiple people to use the internet to browse, play games, stream SD video and music.  Excel.net simply said “sorry, you are under contract” and that we owe them $300.  At that time my husband then “threatened” the use of legal action to remedy the situation.  When we received an invoice for the cancellation, I sent a letter to Excel.net explaining why we were canceling and that we did not owe any money since Excel.net did not uphold its end of the contract, that is, providing the service advertised.  After arranging return of the Excel.net equipment, Excel.net proceeded to send us another invoice with a penalty fee.  That is when I contacted the Revdex.com. We are willing to walk away from this mainly because we are very frustrated.  But we will not pay one penny more. As it is, we have not received our money’s worth.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Nothing was done to this point. I submitted alot of information and test results and did not hear back yet. I have proven and they know it they have oversold their capabilities again. Please see the attached peak hours and the after midnight test to see for yourself. As far as a open ticket. My account has had an open ticket many days in the last few months and they call when traffic is low and it seems to be working OK.  I doubt anything will be done and my service is still not working correctly. During high traffic my connection is not even at phone modem speed with a lot of lost packets, freezes and timed out connections. 
Regards,
[redacted]

This account was never told they would receive credit for their service and any perceived issues have yet to be worked on.  Our support staff has MANY times tried to contact this customer to look into issues they are stating, but they are NEVER available to work with us.  We are more than...

happy to help the customer determine the issue, but this will require them to work with our support staff.  E-mail that it is not working from their end really does no good as it could simply be their router flaking out.  We have monitored the radio for more than 24 hour periods and see no issue.  If customer would like to work with our support great, otherwise there is little we can do for them to determine the cause of the problem.  We have routinely been left harassing / threatening voice mail messages from this account, but continue to try and work with them.  Customer demands to work with [redacted], but seeing that they never work with support this has been declined as support is not what my focus is.Here is an e-mail that we sent to the customer asking them to work on their problems in response to another message stating they only would work with [redacted]:Justin: I have received the calls that you left about your account and am very aware of the account as it has been looked at internally MANY times.  I checked and currently there is not even a ticket open for the account, so if you are experiencing issues please feel free to contact our 24 x 7 x 365 support that is available and should they not be able to resolve the issue it will get escalated to our Tier 2 support staff.  The issue has been that we have tried MANY times to work on the account, but nobody is there to work on things.  I would like to address some of the concerns left on the message:1.       No web site should take 90 seconds to load and certainly not with the wireless connection that you have.  I would suggest potentially another browser or computers that you use to try this with and make sure it is hard wired into your router for optimal connections.  If you have any sort of antivirus software and/or firewalls I would also consider making sure they are fully patched and updated as well as they could be interfering.2.       You mentioned pings in the 150ms range.  I just took 1000 pings to our radio at your home during “peak” traffic and received the following results:               1000 packets transmitted, 1000 received, 0% packet loss, time 100855ms              rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 8.989/33.870/111.425/13.920 msThis would show that the average ping was 33.8ms over the 1000 packets which is definitely an acceptable number and there was NO packet loss on the link.  Not exactly sure what device you have hooked up to our radio at this point, but by MAC address it appears to be Cisco-Linksys.  You might want to check the router for updates and additionally if this is a dual band router disable the 5GHz band to insure it is not interfering with the radio providing your Internet service.3.       You mentioned jitter in the 45ms range which is definitely acceptable for a VoIP connection that is configured as needed.  You of course will want to setup QoS on your router and prioritize this traffic over the rest of the traffic on your link.  Additionally you equipment should have a jitter buffer to compensate for reasonable swings and may need to be properly configured as well.  Here is a reference showing jitter under 100ms should be fine: [redacted]Please feel free to give our technical support a call so that they can assist you further in determining the root cause of the issues that you are experiencing.  Thanks!

Review: We initially purchase Basic Internet Service from Excel.Net in Fall 2012. This level of service per their advertising was "Great for multiple people to web browse, use social media sites, work with music and photos." We experienced trouble with browsing and any type of streaming video and were advised to upgrade to the Family plan which was advertised to be "Perfect for allowing multiple people to use the internet to browse, play games, stream SD video and music." We limped along with this Family plan complaining multiple times about the inability to steam a movie without dropping the signal as well as the inability to just browse the internet and read emails. It could take up to 20 seconds for a smartphone to load a home page from CNN.com. This service was located at a lake house so we were not always present. We were told by their customer service we needed to be at the lake house when we called. We would make a special trip there and call only to be told the problem would need to be escalated. The technician would then call us back when we were not at the property only to tell us we needed to be on site. It all became very frustrating. After a year and a half of calling every few months without any improvement or visit from a technician on site, we finally just canceled the service. Excel.Net then proceeded to invoice us for canceling the plan before the 2 year contract was up. From our perspective, Excel.Net never lived up to their end of the contract and we should in no way pay any penalty for canceling their inadequate service. We actually think we should be reimbursed for ALL of our fees we have paid to date for lack of advertised performance on their part. This amounts to $1584.77.Desired Settlement: We would like to be reimbursed for all our fees paid to date for lack of advertised performance on the part of Excel.Net. This amounts to $1584.77.

Business

Response:

This is simply a case where the customer refused to work with us regarding any issues and even by their own admission showed that the problem was likely with THEIR equipment. We received an e-mail April 27th from the customer: Just FYI, we are having inconsistent quality of coverage requiring us toreboot the routing fairly frequently. We are there only a few times a monthand have to reboot the router almost every time.The router whether purchased from Excel.Net directly or from any other location is the customers equipment. Following that message we reached out to the customer MANY times. However, this location is not their primary residence and we were having a hard time connecting with them while they were on-site. Also, during the call attempts customer informed us they added additional "boosters" in the home to expand coverage and unless done properly this can cause internal wireless roaming issues and such, but again this is customer equipment and NOT ours or under our support. The one time during that support ticket we were able to get hold of customer there were some issues with their devices not having updates needed and speed tests were showing proper results with all of the traffic on the connection.Then July 29th the husband called to cancel the account and was told that they were still under contract. At that point he threatened us and the call was ended. After that our interaction with the customer was to coordinate the takedown and return of the equipment that is ours. Customers balance is currently $320.20 and we do feel that is correct and owed to us.

Consumer

Response:

It appears that Excel.net is missing the fundamental issue here. What they are advertising is not what they are delivering. As stated in their own advertising, the Family Plan speed is supposed to be “Perfect for allowing multiple people to use the internet tobrowse, play games, stream SD video and music.” We simply did not experience this. Referring to a specific call my husband made to tech support, he was asked to test the speed of the system using a web site. The response time was showing a rate close to advertised speed. Yes, this included OUR equipment as part of this test all of which must have been working properly. Yet, when while standing a mere five feet away from our router after this test, it took up to 20 seconds to load web pages on both a smartphone and an iPad. However, when switching to the AT&T data plan on the iPhone, the loading of the web pages was immediate. The tech support agent was unable to explain this issue. This is the fundamental problem.Excel.net cannot have it both ways. When rates are measured close to advertised speeds (while including our equipment in the test), Excel.Net somehow blames the problem on us when the WiFi cannot support basic services? Excel.Net again cannot have it both ways saying that “the customer refused to work with us regarding any issue.” Yet, for three years we both can reference emails and phone calls where we discussed the issues, upgraded from the Basic Plan to the Family Plan, tested the system and were referred to higher tech support. It is agreed that due to our lack of residency at the lake house, these phone calls were spread out over time. That is one of the reasons we did not cancel earlier. Excel.net refers to system upgrades that were needed. Why were these upgrades never performed? Why did Excel.net not make an appointment with us to make these upgrades on site, if needed? If a booster could be a problem, why was this never indicated to us? As an aside, thebooster actually helped. These suggestions could have been made to us at any time. Also, my husband works 10 minutes from the lake house so an appointment could have easily have been scheduled. Finally, after a year and a half of limping along with a bad Basic Plan and another year and a half with a mediocre internet Family Plan and frustrations with solving the performance issues, we chose to disconnect the service. While there were issues with dropped signals, slow response time, poor site coverage and even technical support, we have come to realize the main issue is that Excel.net cannot deliver what they are advertising. No amount of system testing or software upgrades or technical support can fix that.When my husband called to cancel the service due to lack of performance, Excel.net did not even listen to the reasons, that is, lack of delivery of what was promised in the advertisement: allowing multiple people to use the internet to browse, play games, stream SD video and music. Excel.net simply said “sorry, you are under contract” and that we owe them $300. At that time my husband then “threatened” the use of legal action to remedy the situation. When we received an invoice for the cancellation, I sent a letter to Excel.net explaining why we were canceling and that we did not owe any money since Excel.net did not uphold its end of the contract, that is, providing the service advertised. After arranging return of the Excel.net equipment, Excel.net proceeded to send us another invoice with a penalty fee. That is when I contacted the Revdex.com. We are willing to walk away from this mainly because we are very frustrated. But we will not pay one penny more. As it is, we have not received our money’s worth.

Business

Response:

Even in the current comment from customer they are showing that their router is likely a cause of issues. We do not change anything from our initial response.

Consumer

Response:

I have been a customer of Excel for the past 15ish years. Great service, great everything. For years we watched Nexflix, VUDU, and every day internet stuff without any problems. Then came December 2014, a tad higher than dial up speeds I was experiencing . For the month of January I bet I was on the phone with their technical support and Tier 2 technical support for more than 10 hours. I could write what was all said to me by their technical support (Whom are all great people, just doing their job) but reading the past complaints we experienced the same thing.

So, February I had the service people come out to move my antenna, and upgrade to the newest possible technology they had. They also supplied me with a new router. The very experienced installer whom is a great guy wasn’t equipped with the proper tools at all. No hammer drill, caulk gun didn’t work, the caulk was two years expired, the guy he was training had zero experience in anything he just basically stood there for hours. The very experienced installer whom I had to support while he was on a latter, because he said he shouldn’t really be on a latter because he just went thou back surgery in December and was on prescription pain medication. The poor guy, but I guess he had to come back to work because they were very short handed and way behind. He said recently the other installer fell off of a customer’s roof while doing a install with the owner ([redacted]). It was such a serious fall Flight For Life came.

So after the install was complete, out comes the contract. Excel would consider this a new install so the work would be free with signing the contract. I said I’d be happy to sign it, in a few days, I just need time to give me piece of mind that its working as it should, also I said I don’t think it is asking too much for what I went thou in January. Then the bulling came and I was told they would remove everything that was just installed, Per Excel policy, I said fine I will pay for it without signing the contract. How would you like it cash, check or the credit card you have on file. The bill was over $600. I worked them down to just under $500 with all the reasons above.

Still after all the new stuff installed my internet is nothing even compariable to what it was like pre December. At may times of the day its just a tad higher than dial up. I just fired Excel couple of days ago (May 28,2015), after 15 years as a loyal customer, they didn’t even try to convince me to stay. Thank god I didn't sign that contract. The interesting thing while I was down at US Cellular upgrading my data plan because all my devices in my house work great using my IPhone as a Hotspot, the lady said are you on the Excel Highway 67 tower, I answered yes. She said you are the 20th customer saying they are having trouble off this tower. I guess there is a Facebook posting on this also. It is so very sad a great local company as Excel is loosing their creadiblity with so many, as they are lying about the problems they are experiencing and charging people for services they cannot give knowingly.

Why cannot Excel be honest and tell people be patient and are working on it. I think they would be surprised on how understanding people are. Instead they choose this path.

Review: Over the last week, I have tried to get the support "specialists" at ExcelNet to change the routing device they have on file to a newer piece of hardware. We are a retail business, and depend on reliable internet connections to process transactions. The router I have is failing, and needs to be updated. Seems like that should be a fairly simple request for an internet service provider...

I was told that changing the MAC address of the hardware on file will be processed within 24 hours. That was Monday, July 13th. Since then, I have been given the runaround, including absurd excuses as to why the process has not been completed yet, each conversation ending with the same 24 hour window that they have failed to hit every time.

The one time I did receive a callback to try and address the issues, they called my desk phone at work (not the mobile number I told them to call). They left a message to call back to address the issue. No one at their Tier 2 technical support group has returned my messages since.

Changing a MAC address should take all of 5 minutes! Why is it that as a solutions provider to local businesses it is acceptable to drag a simple problem along for over a week?!? This is extremely disruptive to my organization. I have never received service this poor from any of the vendors I work with for 17 other retail locations!Desired Settlement: The equipment change I have requested needs to be processed immediately. I also expect a credit for the 7 days that my sales have suffered due to ExcelNet's incompetence.

Business

Response:

While I agree with the customer that the process that needed to be completed is one that does not take much time, it is one being performed by our Tier 2 support people to insure correctness as this can cause complete lose of connectivity if not done correctly. According to all of the calls logged to this account (we log 100% of calls) it was opened up on 7/15 for the change of MAC address. What happened after that is the customer continued calling into Tier 1 support which then grabbed the ticket back to log the additional call information taking it from the Tier 2 queue. This happened on 7/16 before the customer was called, then it was placed back to Tier 2. On 7/17 @ 12:12pm our Tier 2 called and left a message which would have again explicitly said how to contact Tier 2. On 7/18 (Saturday) twice customer called into Tier 1 causing the ticket to be pulled back to their support level and then pushed up to Tier 2. Finally Monday the ticket was left in Tier 2 we called and spoke with customer and it appears the issue was resolved.

Review: I have been a customer for several years. Over the years as they added customers the service speed diminished to phone modem speed or worse. I then paid to have what they called the next generation equipment installed and was promised they would never be able to over sell the service to the point it would slow the service.

I have spent thousands $$ on new PC's and routers over the years because they would not admit they oversold the service until they finally admitted they were overwhelmed when they sold me on the next Gen service and it would solve the problem. Why was I lied to and my equipment blamed for the problem until they were able hook me up to a new service at my cost?

Now I am right back where I was. During peak hours I have no meaningful Internet service. Only one tech to this point has admitted they have oversold their capabilities again. The rest of the techs play stalling games and ignore me.

The problem is not on my end. Why would my equipment not work during the same hours every day and weekends. I'm sure all summer long the service will suck as well due to the kids being out of school and on the internet all day.

Why can't they just tell the truth? Give me the speed I am paying for. I am getting no service at times to about 10% the speed I am paying for at best.Desired Settlement: Give me the service I am paying for.

Business

Response:

[redacted], we are very sorry to hear that you are having issues with the service. I do see that you have an open issue with our tier 2 customer support staff that is being worked on. Please continue working with them and I am sure we will be able to assist with this issue. I do see that we reached out as recently as 6/10 and that 5/29 we had received feedback the service was working good from you. Our office number is toll-free ###-###-#### and our support staff will be happy to work on the issues you are experiencing. Thanks!

Consumer

Response:

I am still waiting for an answer on why the service is so poor during peak hours? Is someone actually processing all the data collected or what is going on? I should not have to wait until everyone else is in bed before I can use the internet service I am paying for.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Nothing was done to this point. I submitted alot of information and test results and did not hear back yet. I have proven and they know it they have oversold their capabilities again. Please see the attached peak hours and the after midnight test to see for yourself. As far as a open ticket. My account has had an open ticket many days in the last few months and they call when traffic is low and it seems to be working OK. I doubt anything will be done and my service is still not working correctly. During high traffic my connection is not even at phone modem speed with a lot of lost packets, freezes and timed out connections.

Regards,

Business

Response:

These images really do not provide the needed information and the customer has refused to work with our Tier 2 staff leaving us without the ability to help resolve the issues that they are experiencing. Again there are many factors that impact speed including other users, background transfers (windows updates, AV updates, e-mail downloads,...) other devices on the network,... Without our support staff working with the customer at the time these tests were taken it is impossible to say that one ore more than one of them was not impacting the customers test and therefore significantly skewing results. The example that I typically use is one of a hose. You can only push so much water through the hose based on the size of the hose (plan customer has). If water is already flowing through the hose filling it (video streaming or any of the other items mentioned) then pushing more water (the speedtest) through is not possible and the results can appear to be poor even though in fact the hose (customer link) is working properly. We have not been able to work with the customer enough to get to this point and determine the issues they are experiencing. Our staff is still willing, but it will require involvement from the customer.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.This man does not tell the truth. I have worked with and waited and support cant find a solution and none was offered. They can't provide working service with usable speeds during peak hours. They are usually not available to take calls and have not called me back either. The lady at customer support says she can see they have been ignoring me. He has agreed to let me out of my useless contract if I remove my Revdex.com complaint. That won't happen. This company is over sold and if you listen to his last comment not capable of servicing their equipment I guess. I bought and installed a US Cellular router and the service is fantastic and cost $20.00 a month less. My suggestion to anyone sick of listening to Excel net lies and excuses is to go through US cellular for all their internet needs. The only solution so far is to remove my service and make me pay out to the end of the contract or I was told if I remove my Revdex.com report he would let me out of the contract. No repair solution was ever offered or given and all the test ran are of no value.

Business

Response:

Customer is speaking MANY untruthful statements, and I am pained by the fact the Revdex.com just allows this to take place with no sort of filtering or auditing, but that appears to be their policy. I verified customer was not told we are "ignoring" him and in fact we call customers back as quickly as we are able and in a timely fashion. I also did not ask to remove the complaint, only to mark as resolved and to remove the comment which really has NO factual information and simply is derogatory - again surprised the Revdex.com makes NO effort to patrol this and basically allows anybody to make any sort of comment about any business. I have no issues with factual information being addressed, but do have issues with posts that are of this nature as I would hope most people would. In fact my support staff JUST was talking with the customer today and customer was stating that he wanted to work through the problem that he is experiencing which of course we are happy to do. The problem is that we need to be able to see the issue to help resolve the issue and have had problems with that. Customers call today was while not on site and that makes it impossible to help troubleshoot through this. He stated he will call in later today and hopefully we will be able to work with him on the problems he is experiencing.

I am a internet user that lives in the country, so are choices are limited for internet providers. A few years ago I installed a micro cell box from AT&T to better are phone service. It worked fine we even upgraded are service to 10mg. In the last 6-8 months we've been having nothing but problems. The owner changed setting on the service so are micro-cell box would not work for a month and there was no refund! Are service for most of the time is pulling maybe 2mg or lower, on a good day it might be up to 6.5mg we've have placed several calls to the customer support and nothing has been permanently fixed! Have asked them to come look at the equipment, and have been told we may get charged!!!! Excel Net has the worst support ever!!!!! I'd like to get what we pay for and not keep getting bills for lousy service....

Review: I had Excel.net a wireless provider for our internet provider since 2010. I had a standard plan package with a 1.5 mps. download speed access to the internet for our computer only, which worked with very few problems over a 4 year period. In October 2014 my wife and I purchased a new TV that has internet capabilities for streaming movies, videos and music. We started to get a lot of buffering and contacted Excel to find out why. They told us they had new 5G plans that would provide us with faster download speeds, better service, and better price. We told them we wanted to have this to replace our existing plan. On October 28,2014 the install took place installing a new receiver on our roof and a power supply for it in our basement. All wiring was already done, and then they aligned it with the tower that is located about 1.5 miles away from our house and within site. Total install time was under an hour. We told the tech that we wanted to be able to stream movies and he said that the basic plan that offers a 3.0 mps download speed would give us twice as much speed as what we had and would have no problems given the tower being within site, and we could even use our computer at the same time if needed. We signed a 3 year contract that day. Most of the time especially during the daytime hours we had no problems, but the evening hours between 8-10 PM we still had a lot of buffering. We put up with it for awhile until the buffering got so bad we were even having problems with just running our computer. I did a lot of speed checks and was getting an the average .026 not even 10% of what I was paying for. We did complain to Excel which after several calls, for them to even address our issue, they told us that we are hooked up to the wrong part of the tower and they would have it corrected soon. Days went on and we were still not getting better speeds than 1.7 mps a little over half the speed I was paying for. Excel said they are not sure why this is happening and I should call in whenever we are having problems. I did many tests with Excel when they would call around 4-6 PM and at those times things would be working at speeds up to 2.3 mps which they say is satisfactory for a 3.0 mps plan. That very same night my wife and I were streaming a movie and had more buffering than movie time. That was it! The next day my wife emailed excel and asked them do we have a contract because we are seriously considering looking else where for our provider unless this gets resolved. Days went by and we never received a response from Excel. I called Excel on June 1 2015 and they gave me one excuse after another. They then recommended we switch to the family plan and that would give us 6.0 mps enough for multiple things running at once, and twice what the basic plan is. We decided to up grade to the family plan. Almost every night we still had constant buffering. This was very frustrating. I did contact Excel when we were having trouble, but most of the time it was after 7 PM when all their people are already gone for the day. I did get a call back to run some tests but that was at 5:15 PM and that is when things are usually running at peak performance, and I believe they know that. On July 23, 2015 I called to cancel this provider for lack of service promised. I have been paying for a service up to this point, never receiving any discounts or any satisfaction of specified product packages. Very inconsiderate people by not returning phone calls or emails. To make things worse they are now charging us over $500.00 because we cancelled a contract that was signed by my wife back in October 2014. We have always paid our bill with them upon receiving it, since 2010.

I did email them several times to try to resolve this issue, even offered to pay $200.00 for them to drop it, but they do not care about anything but their signed contract. The heck with trying to make a good name for themselves, because according to their contract, no matter what the service is like, we as consumers are stuck. their contracts say nothing about what they are providing, or that they even have to provide. If you don't sign a contract you don't get hooked up that's how we looked at it. We based our signature on the past 4 years of service which was almost problem free. Never would I recommend this company to anyone. If I get a good service, I would not look elsewhere for a replacement. Thank youDesired Settlement: To drop the early termination fee's

Business

Response:

Here is the same response sent to another organization the customer sent complaint to. The problem here is Revdex.com is wide open and will allow anybody to post whatever (at least from the customer side of things). We will NOT post any further replies after this as we were "warned" by the customer they would post this all over. We have attempted to discuss this with the customer, but both parties have different ideas on what is happening.As the customer did mention we switched them from an older service to our current 5G service on October 28, 2014. While they did have service prior to that it still did require our installation team to go out to the location, swap the outside and inside hardware as customer mentions, align / test the system for optimal connection and then setup the customer on this new service. Excel.Net treats this switch the same as a new installation as it can require all of the components of a new installation. The rates that we have published for the services of course are a blended average of the costs we incur because it was found that customer preferred this. If we can tell them it will be $xxx.xx to install versus it will be $xx.xx per hour and we expect ABOUT x hours they are a bit more hesitant. So while some jobs may complete more quickly, others do not and we have factored all of this in when determining the costs. Even at that the ACTUAL costs involved with the installation are FAR greater than what we charge up front. We are just assuming that these costs can be factored into the monthly billing that a customer pays for the 1 - 3 years that they contracted for. If they terminate early we have an early termination charge to help recover these actual installation costs.Prior to the installation team being sent to their home for the upgrade we they worked with one of our schedulers to discuss the procedure and to go through the process with them. We use an automated scheduling template / form that requires the schedule to fill in information and check off each of the items to discuss with the customer to complete this process. This is included in its final format that is included with the other paperwork for the install teams. During discussion of service plans and contract length the scheduler also discusses that if the contract length is not met there are early termination charges associated with this. So customer was aware of the costs involved prior to our being on site.We also have a service information sheet that the customer would have filled out the day the installers were on site and this is on file, though no forms included to protect identity. The customer selected for the 3 Year service options which allows for FREE installation of the service and again the early termination charges are outlined on this form right in the same section where the FREE was selected. At the bottom of the form the customer signed and dated the agreement. The last item is the operating agreement that in conjunction with the service information sheet forms the entire agreement between Excel.Net and the customer. You can find this online at our web site: http://www.excel.net/support/contract.php. Items 3 and 4 of this agreement seem most relevant to the discussion at hand regarding the early termination fees. The service plan the customer signed up for is called our "Basic" plan and is meant to be just that. It is intended for customers who browse web sites, use social media, might do some light gaming and the occasional downloading of music, updates and other information. While it may be able to stream video in some cases that is highly dependent on the site they are streaming from, the quality of the video being streamed and the devices that are participating in this. We always recommend for customers wanting to stream video that they go with our Family or higher plans. This has the bandwidth needed to properly handle many of the video streaming sites and provides for a better experience for the customer. As the customer mentioned on 7/1 they did indeed change plans to the Family plan which is more appropriate for the streaming of video. On 7/3 we talked with the customer who stated they were still having issues, but when we worked with them were not able to reproduce. They agreed to call in when they were having issues with the service which would allow us to look at more items while the problem was happening. As you can guess it is difficult to "fix" a problem when you cannot see it happening. On 7/7 one of our Tier 2 support checked back with them and was told that the service had worked well Sunday evening (7/5), but that they had not been using it much. Again it was discussed that they would call in if there were further problems, they were not waiting for us to call them back. The next call after that was 7/23 to cancel service as the customer mentions. The cancellation was at the customers request and with our last contact being that it had been working and they would contact us if issues. The account was canceled at their request which generated a $493.88 charge for the early termination. Since that point additional late charges were added to the account bringing the current balance to $508.70.On 7/31 Tom called in asking to speak to a manager about the termination fees. He spoke with our office manager regarding this at which point she pretty much reiterated the information in the previous paragraph. Most importantly being that our last contact with them was it was working fine and they would call in if the issues persisted. Not being satisfied with that answer he asked to speak with her supervisor. On 8/3 (Monday after his call Friday) I personally called Tom to discuss the matter after reviewing all of the information. Again reiterated that I was sorry they were having issues, but to the best of our knowledge it had been working for them and then they just up and canceled. He offered at this point to pay $100.00, which was not accepted. I counter offered that we would be willing to adjust the agreement as if they had signed a one year term. This would result in the $159.95 installation for that term being charged, the $200.00 early termination fee and then $10.00 for the months in a ONE YEAR agreement left. While the exact amount was not calculated this would have saved the customer about $100.00 from the signed agreement amount and was simply a goodwill gesture. The customer refused this offer and that brings us to where we are today. We would still make this offer, but do not feel anything further can be offered.

Consumer

Response:

We have been a Wireless Internet customer of Excel.net for almost 8 years. Our Internet service wasn’t always the best. It wasn’t very fast and there were days it did not work. However, anytime I called for support, the staff was great to work with. If I had to leave a message, they were prompt in returning calls. I did deal a lot with Linda and she was always very friendly, professional and pleasant to work with. They did their best to find out what the problem could be, but usually each time they said the speeds we are experiencing is normal and they do not see any issues on their end. I finally came to the conclusion that it was not going to change and to just deal with it because we had no other choice.
Back in July, we did some research to see what other options we had and learned that Excel.net offers 5G Wireless Internet. We, therefore, decided to give that a try to see if that would increase our speed. Jason, I believe was his name, who normally does the installation, has always been polite and efficient during installation. Unfortunately, our service got worse with 5G. We were unable to have more than one device online without having speed issues. We could not watch videos like we were told we could. I did call Support a few times on this issue, but again, they found no issues on their end. We were asked to call again when we experience those issues, but it was usually after hours and late in the day and I didn’t want to deal with an hour on the phone again. It just became a hassle, so we tolerated it again.
In October, we found out we had to move. This was something we did not foresee happening because we actually signed a three year contract for the 5G Wireless Internet knowing we had no intentions of moving. Because Excel.net provides service at our new location, we asked to have our service moved to our new location so we could keep our contract. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Jason was not able to get a signal for us at all at the new location. He tried his best, but it was not an option. This is where our issues truly began.
According to the contract, there is an early termination fee of $200 plus $10/month for remaining months of the contract. This would have brought our total owing to $544.58. Unfortunately, we did not choose to cancel our contract, but it had to be canceled because we could not get the service. After some e-mail discussion regarding this outrageous penalty, the billing person was authorized to change our contract from a 3 year to a 1 year reducing our total owing to $461.95 per her supervisor. We felt this was still unacceptable for the fact that we did not terminate by choice, so I asked to speak to her supervisor, which happened to be the owner, Larry [redacted] responded via email with a lengthy explanation as to why they charge what they do for terminations. After further discussion about the fee, he responded:
“The simple fact here though is that this was not a choice that Excel.Net had any part of or influenced. I do see a couple of tickets on your account over the past year, but they were resolved and closed out. As a token of our appreciation for your long term support of our business and the fact we did try moving the service I am willing to discount an additional $100.00 from the fees AND still offer you the one year term as we had previously. This would breing the balance to about $355.00”.
So, because I mentioned that we have been a customer for almost 8 years, he offered to discount our total by $100 as a “goodwill credit”. This, I felt, was still a hefty penalty when we did not “choose” to terminate the contract and we were left scrambling for other Internet service and had to pay an installation fee for our new service.
The landlord then decided to take over our existing service that we were unable to transfer. Unfortunately, they were not able to take over our contract and had to start a new contract because the equipment was removed from the house without their knowledge. Therefore, they are paying for monthly service of $34.95 and we continue to pay $10/month for terminating because they had to start a new contract. When [redacted] was talking to the landlord and she discussed our situation with him to see what he can do to adjust our amount owing, he told her, “the best I can do is take $150 off the amount owed”. After reminding [redacted] of this conversation, his response was: “Please do not twist what “I said”. Late charges will begin to accrue if this is not taken care of and that might affect balance. I will not respond to further messages as this is not going anywhere other than downhill and the claims being made are not truthful”.
Excel.net not being able to provide service at our new location is out of our control, but [redacted] was not willing to accept that responsibility. According to their website, service is available at our new location and there were a few towers to try to get signal from. We offered to pay the $200 early termination fee only, but he would not accept that offer as payment in full. He said this was his best offer.
Up until this situation, we were mostly pleased with Excel.net services especially because of the customer support we received and did encourage others looking for Internet service to check them out. Unfortunately, we no longer feel that Excel.net is the best provider due to how [redacted] handled this situation, his unprofessionalism, and the fact that we have better service with our new Internet provider for less cost with no contract and no issues with speed whatsoever. It is highly recommended to do your research on Wireless Internet Service and remember that there are much better options other than Excel.net that you will not need to pay a hefty penalty because of a contract and lack of service.

Review: One year ago I signed a 5G contract for a faster internet with Excel Net.. not knowing that I was going to move to [redacted] where I am now to be closer to my kids and grand kids after loosing my husband .. I had full intentions of hooking back up with Excel Net to stay with that contract.. however when getting the service people up to my house and trying to connect with Excels towers they could not find me a signal no matter how hard they tried .. they told me they went 30ft up and still no signal.. they said they could try a tower of 50ft but not sure if that would do anything .. I can not help that they cannot get me hooked up to internet from here cuz of the trees around here.. I am now being billed a total of $483.41 for breaking of a contract and service for one month that I could not get at all I was totally off.. I could not do my banking ..or anything which totally inconvenienced me .(I didnt not know this is supposedly in there contract..is it fine print..still not fair).It took them 3 weeks just to get a service guy up to my place to try to get me hooked up ..I mean seriously 3 weeks that is nuts!!!! I feel that I should not have to pay this bill .. its a mute point for both of us..they have to have some stipulations in this contract .. I do not have this amount of money that I can just turn over to them .. this just is not fair .. please look into this for me and help me out here ..I am soooo upset about this ..I need every penny I have now due to my home in [redacted] not selling and I am taking care of two places.. Help me please !! Thank you .. Sincerely [redacted]Desired Settlement: I would like to not have to pay on this bill at all it is not my fault they couldnt hook me up .. nor is it theirs although they need to upgrade on there services to customers if they are going to have contracts like this ..they need to have more towers and more people to service people not have to wait 3 weeks to have some one to come in and service you..especially when these days you have to do every thing on line ..that was a very upsetting long 3 weeks for me .. and then I had to wait another week to get hooked up with some one else.. my check book and bills were a mess and I got totally behind on everything ..I am also on a fixed income ..my late husbands Social Security that is it ..

Business

Response:

This is a pretty simple matter from Excel.Net's perspective. The actual cost to do the installation of the service far exceeds the installation costs that are charged to the customer when they are initially installed. Excel.Net uses the monthly fees from the 1-3 year term to offset these costs in addition to providing the service. Customers taking a 3 year term ar offered installation FREE in expectation that we will have them paying monthly service for 3 years to recoup those costs as was the case here. If the customer does not fulfill the term they are charged a $200.00 plus $10.00 times the number of months remaining + tax disconnection fee to cover the actual service charges. This is clearly stated in the contract that the customer signs.

It was the customers choice to move and we cannot guarantee service at every location because of the technology being implemented. We try to work with customers moving to get service at new location, but that was not the case in this instance. In fact we even offer to move the service at 1/2 price from normal installation if we can to help customers with the move, costing Excel.Net an even greater amount!

The current balance on this account is $483.41 and we believe that all of this balance is due. This includes the disconnection charges and one month of service which have not been paid for either!

A copy of our standard operating agreement can be found at: http://www.excel.net/support/contract.php. The actual signed agreement and installation sheet for the customer is attached to this response as well. Please let us know if you have any further questions or comments regarding this issue. Thanks!

Buyer Beware! Substandard Service and even talked with the owner and there is not a focus on customer service. After having them install the internet service we have been having more and more issues with the service. After running through there very labor intensive solutions e.g. turn off the router, turn on the router, look at this setting look at that setting, etc. It finally came to head today when I was told to call back at the exact moment when the service is giving you trouble so we can see if it is our issue. Really? Talked with the owner and he stated that issue is not the service but where the router was installed which I find interesting because they installed our original router in that location. The owner then stated that I need more Internet access points in the house and it would cost as much is 1,000 bucks. It seems that they take no responsibility and when they do they are fast to bring up the fact that the hours they spend getting the service to work is billable at 60 bucks per hour. Tried to explain the concept of customer service and when we could not agree I asked to be released from the service agreement which he is not willing to do. Buyer Beware!

For the past couple of months my mom and I have been having problems with our Internet service. We keep calling and keep getting the run around telling us it is on our end. We try to get ahold of [redacted] to talk to him and he avoids the call like the plague. I know we are not the only 2 customers having problems and they refuse to fix it.
IT ISN'T ON OUR END!!! FIX YOUR FAULTY EQUIPMENT OR LOSE CUSTOMERS!!!