This is a continuation of a series (1, 2, 3).
Part four actually happened back in October 2006, when our house got struck by lightning, knocking out our telephone connection. After going out to the junction box on the side of the house, plugging in a wired phone only to get no connection (thus proving that the problem wasn’t inside the house), Alice called Hawaiian Telcom to get someone out to fix it. The customer service rep told Alice that it was probably a problem with our phone because it was cordless.
Needless to say, after Alice bitched at them for being stupid they sent out a technician to find a blown fuse in the junction box. Who would’ve thought.
Part five has been going on for five months now. Five months ago one of our phone calls to Victoria got billed as if it were a call to Rwanda. I know how easy it is to confuse Rwanda and Canada. They both have the letter ‘a’ in their name. I called and got that fixed fairly quickly.
Next month we got overcharged for long distance. Not outrageously, mind you — we got charged either 7 or 10 cents a minute to Canada when our plan is 5 cents a minute. I called and got that fixed.
Next month we got overcharged for long distance. Not outrageously, mind you — we got charged either 7 or 10 cents a minute to Canada when our plan is 5 cents a minute. I called and got that fixed.
Next month we got overcharged for long distance. Not outrageously, mind you — we got charged either 7 or 10 cents a minute to Canada when our plan is 5 cents a minute. I called and got that fixed, but this time the CSR said that she’d personally look into it and send me a letter. Haven’t heard a thing since, and that was a month ago.
Notice a pattern? Can you guess what happened on the bill I just received? That’s right! The only change is that I haven’t called because their call center is down because Honolulu is getting hammered by a winter storm.
I am beyond disappointed in Hawaiian Telcom’s customer service. They always say that they’re looking into it, yet nothing changes. Counter-example: Oceanic Time Warner Cable. Our DVR was getting a little flaky, so they sent a technician out to look at it. Turns out it was an older model that had problems dealing with some of the programming, so we got a new one. A week later we got a voucher for a free pay-per-view movie from Oceanic “for the inconvenience [we] suffered.” Now that’s customer service!
All I have to look forward to from Hawaiian Telcom is another overcharged bill and another wasted fifteen minutes on hold. And that’s why Hawaiian Telcom continues to suck.
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#1 by Chad on December 5th, 2007
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Do you need HT at all? I haven’t had a “real” phone for years, between cell phones and VOIP for long distance…
#2 by Brad on December 5th, 2007
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We’re in a cell phone null. Alice is lucky to get one bar. We can’t get digital phone through our cable company yet, although they’ve said it’s been coming since June 2006. And yeah, we could probably use VOIP, but we’d either have to leave the computer on 24/7 (and thus jack up our electricity bill) or get one of those Linksys/Skype phones or something.
#3 by Dean on January 16th, 2008
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It took us 8 months for them to correct the billing overcharges on our monthly invoice. The had double charged us for the same physical phone line. Overcharged us for long distance calls. They offered nothing for the several hours I spent on the phone trying to un-screw up thier problem.
Once we finally got that fixed – the Haw Tel Yellow pages salesman tried to take us to the cleaners for about $3000 in advertising when we verbally authorized him a $500 limit. Needless to say we filed a complaint with the Hawaii BBB and refused to pay the fraudralent charges. During the complaint process, HT Yel pages upper manager supported his saleman’s illegal sales practices. If you go onto the Hawaii BBB website, you will see they have a terrible record. We have already scheduled the switch to Oceanic as soon as the digital phone service is offered in our area. The Haw Tel ads on television, seems to try and attack oceanic due to 911 service going out during electric outages as a selling point to keep thier service. If we all lose power, 911 isn’t going to be my primary problem, as most of us have cell phones as a backup. However, they have not been able to clean up thier own act before attacking the competition.
The attack ads show that they are trully afraid of the loss of business that they are experiencing. I trully hope they lose every customer they have since they have proved to me to be totally incompetent. We also asked for a refund check for a discontinued line(over a year ago), and it took several requests and 3 months to get the refund back. Overall they are just terrible, and I don’t know what else I can do to return all the heartburn this company has caused me. When I get the monthly bill now – I just throw it into the shredder, since I know looking at it is just going to piss me off. I have considered starting a HT sucks.com website, but I see since this is already started, I would add mine to the pile of shame. We have forwarded our information to a lawyer, and I hope the PUC does get involved, and I will be adding my name to the list if anyone starts a class action lawsuit. Please if anyone is contemplating Oceanic vs HT com please learn from my most recent year (2007) of experiences. I can’t see how one company can screw up so many different things in the same calendar year.
I have made it a personal goal to tell everyone I know or who will listen how bad this company has treated us so they don’t have to go thru the same headaches. Please continue to share your horror stories… Aloha….
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#4 by Dean on February 10th, 2008
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Great article in the Pacific Business News date 8 Feb 2008 “Can the Phone Company BE SAVED”. The article clearly shows what a disaster the company has experienced since buying out Verizon.
My last four emails to customer service have been unanswered in the past two weeks. I am not sure if they were also one of the 150 that lost thier jobs.
They dismissed (fired) the CEO. I hope the new CEO is able to fix them.
I guess this company is on the road to complete failure without my help.
Aloha, Dean
#5 by Bonnie on April 23rd, 2008
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How and who do I file a complaint against Hawaiian Tel for faulty business practices?
#6 by dean on May 2nd, 2008
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website: http://hawaii.bbb.org
has a link for consumers to file a complaint against businesses that take advantage of consumers. Sorry for the late reply, been a while since I last visited this site. Aloha.
#7 by Todd on July 16th, 2008
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Complaints should really be directed to the PUC.
http://www.puc.hawaii.gov/
#8 by Sam on July 17th, 2008
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But we can still bitch about it on the web, right ?
#9 by simon on October 14th, 2008
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When calling your friends Hawaiian Telcom cell phone dial *67 to block your phone number and they will not charge your friend any minutes. Try it, your friend will thank you.
#10 by Your Master on April 7th, 2009
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Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Let’s hope that Oceanic doesn’t become the monopoly here. God help us all. What a bunch of rip off artists.