A couple of weeks ago, I canceled my Comcast broadband service and transferred my Speakeasy DSL service from my house in Lowell to my apartment in Cambridge. On October 4th, the DSL and VoIP service was installed and working at my apartment. When I checked my bill the other day, I was surprised to see new charges for the Lowell address:
Why am I being charged for 11/18 - 12/18? The service should have been canceled on 10/04! Apparently, Speakeasy doesn't cancel your old service when you transfer service from one location to another -- you have to specifically call to request the old account be canceled after you confirm the service has been successfully transferred to the new address. This is not what I was told on the phone when I placed the order for the transfer. I simply stated that I wanted to transfer my service and cancel service at the Lowell location. The sales rep said OK and started the transfer order. After hassling a Speakeasy sales rep and asking to speak to his manager, I managed to get a refund for the 11/18 - 12/18 charges as well as 10/04 - 11/18.
When I transferred my service back in October, I kept my existing line-speed - 1.5/384. A few hours before I discovered the discrepancy in my bill, I called Speakeasy and requested that my line-speed be increased to 6.0/768. (It's almost double the price, but I've been doing a lot of transfers lately and I need the faster speed.) When I looked at my bill a few hours after placing the request, I was surprised to see charges for 10/04 - 12/18, for the 6.0/768 service I ordered only a few hours earlier!
When I spoke to the Speakeasy sales rep, he explained the actual charges. I wasn't being charged for the 6.0/768 line-speed ($26.77 for 10/04 - 10/18, $59.28 for 10/18 - 11/18, and $59.28 for 11/18 - 12/18). Speakeasy always charges for the first two months on a new install, so these charges made sense once the sales rep explained them to me. What was throwing me off was the line-speed: 6.0/768. The sales rep admitted there was a bug in the billing software which caused the package name on the bill to change when you upgrade your line-speed. That goes to show how such a bug can lead to so much misunderstanding.
But in the end, I'm happy with the outcome. The Speakeasy sales rep was very helpful. He even called me back to give me the final refund total and send me an email with that information as well. As usual, I'm very happy with Speakeasy's service. My new line-speed is nice:
Download Speed: 5179 kbps (647.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 646 kbps (80.8 KB/sec transfer rate)