Earthlink, do you read me?

Welcome to the 10th circle of hell: ISP tech support.

By Peter Y. Sussman

Sep 4, 2001 | What follows is an actual exchange of e-mail between me, a real person, and various people and/or machines at Internet service provider Earthlink, whose corporate family includes a number of other e-mail providers that it has gobbled up in recent years. One of the gobbled and only partially digested companies is Mindspring. The companies appear to have separate phone numbers and domain names, but they share some billing functions.

This exchange of messages has been edited only for clarity and privacy. Eliminated, for instance, is some of the e-mail "header" clutter, as well as the previous messages in sequences that, in keeping with e-mail protocol, were strung at the end of each reply. Presumed time zones have been added to some messages that didn't arrive with them.

The messages started with an e-mail invoice from Earthlink/Mindspring, informing me that my credit card had been charged $4.95 for Web space and $1 for something called "paper invoice." I was inspired to write to the Internet behemoth by the following paragraph on the invoice:

If you think there is an error on your invoice, please write to us via email at invoice.inquiry@mindspring.com or US mail at the address above within 30 days of the invoice date to dispute the erroneous charge.

We'll be happy to clarify your invoice or correct any erroneous charges.

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Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 21:28:05 -0700 [PDT]
To: invoice.inquiry@mindspring.com
From: "Peter Y. Sussman" peter@psussman.com
Subject: Re: "EarthLink Invoice #48021202, Please Read"
Cc:

Why do I keep getting these bills? I have an Earthlink account, too, but this bill is for the Mindspring account (pys@mindspring), which is a remnant of the sale of my old ISP to Earthlink. The Mindspring account is not and has never been a fully operational email address or account, it is only for mail forwarding to my Earthlink account, which is pys1@earthlink.net. The only charge on this account was to be the initial $15 for six months of forwarding. That was charged to me in early May.

Please explain, and please straighten this out. There should be no charges that I know of on my Mindspring account after the initial fee.

Peter Sussman

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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:53:41 -0400 [EDT]
To: "Peter Y. Sussman"
Subject: Thank you for Contacting EarthLink Customer Service (KMM4382262V27130L0KM)
From: "invoice.inquiry@mindspring.com"

This automated message is to inform you that we have received your email. This is not a response to your inquiry.

You should be receiving a personal response from one of our representatives as soon as possible. We answer all questions in the order in which they were received.

You can reach a variety of automated tools, as well as links to our online chat representatives, at your Personal Support Center:http://start.earthlink.net/

Click on the Support tab.

The Personal Support Center contains several tools: address change/ plan change/ method of payment/ mailbox maintenance and much more to help manage your EarthLink account more effectively.

To hear an up-to-date message naming all known system outages, call (800)

719-4660 option #1

Thank you for using EarthLink.

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Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 00:59:14 -0400 [EDT]
To: "Peter Y. Sussman"
Subject: Re: "EarthLink Invoice #48021202, Please Read" (KMM4410648V13713L0KM)
From: "invoice.inquiry@mindspring.com"

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Earthlink Customer Service.

If you could please provide me with your account number, so I can be of some assistance to you.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you,

Josh H.
ECS Representative
EarthLink Customer Service
service@mindspring.com

#1 Provider of the Real Internet

Email Case ID: H 1764880

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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 23:02:18 -0700 [PDT]
To: service@mindspring.com
From: "Peter Y. Sussman" peter@psussman.com
Subject: Re: "EarthLink Invoice #48021202, Please Read" (KMM4410648V13713L0KM)

The account number is right there on the email I received (see end of message): XXXXXXX. That's also my Earthlink account number, I think. The Mindspring account forwarding is supposed to be detailed in case no. 25632510.

Peter

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[partial message:]

To: "Peter Y. Sussman"
From: "invoice.inquiry@mindspring.com"

This automated message is to inform you that we have received your email. This is not a response to your inquiry.

You should be receiving a personal response from one of our representatives as soon as possible. We answer all questions in the order in which they were received.

Next Page: "We apologize for the confusion." Not

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