Lets talk about one of the worst companies on the face of the planet that I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with…Hotwire Communications! Last week Shawn decided that we should switch to Comcast for our internet service. I was reluctant because I’m really not a fan of change and didn’t want to deal with uninstalling and reinstalling and all that, but our internet with Hotwire was so incredibly slow (like…had to watch YouTube videos on 240p and even then they wouldn’t load smoothly) so I decided we might as well. So I call Hotwire up on Monday night and tell them I want to cancel. They ask if I want to end service immediately, and I say no, we would like to end service on Friday. The guy tells me that I have to call back on Friday in order to end service that day. Call back on Thursday night telling them to end service. The guy asks me some questions and puts me on hold and then I get disconnected. Call their main number back and get a “number no longer in service” message. Call again and get a “your call cannot be completed as dialed” message. Continue calling and I finally get through to the automated message, but while I’m waiting for someone to answer it disconnects me again. This happened at least 5 times. During one of those times I get an actual person but they have no idea what I’m talking about and transfer me to someone else and, of course, it disconnects again.

Its now 11pm and I just want to go to bed so I try one last time and someone finally picks up…all I hear is “you have a customer!” and a lot of people laughing and stuff…real professional. Some guy gets on the phone who sounds like he’s either drunk, high, or both. He tells me that he can have someone come out on Tuesday to disconnect our internet. I’m like…excuse me? We need it disconnected now, not on Tuesday. Then he tells me he’ll call me back tomorrow morning to “resolve the issue”. The next morning he calls back at 8AM while I’m on the bus (I told him to call me after 8:45AM, but I guess I should be happy that he actually called) and tells me that someone will stop by on Saturday between 9AM and 1PM. I verify that someone actually needs to stop by to disconnect the internet, and he says yes (which is contrary to what the first guy told me). We had to reschedule Comcast installation to Sunday because of this.

The next day (Saturday) we wait for this person to show up. I log onto my Hotwire account online and notice that it says that my service has been disconnected, which is good, but for some reason we still have service. 1PM comes and goes, so I call again to verify that this guy will be stopping by. I’m told “Saturday is busy” and that he is on his way. Call again at 4PM (THREE HOURS after someone is supposed to show up) and I’m told the same thing, but also that this guy is only coming to pick up our modem. Keep in mind that I’ve told every person I’ve talked to along the way that we have already paid for our modem when we signed up…I was told that we don’t have to return it. The guy ends up cancelling our work order since there is no reason anyone needs to come by anymore. I tell him that we still have internet connection despite the fact that it is listed in their system as “disconnected”. He says something about it not being shut off in the back-end and that he will talk to their “engineering team” to fix it (you need an engineering team to shut off the damn internet connection?) and also assures me that it should not interfere with Comcast installation. So I basically wasted my entire day for no reason…great. Well we end up having internet up through Sunday when Comcast gets there. The Comcast guy is unable to install using the same cable connection…I’m not 100% sure if its because Hotwire was still connected, but that’s what I’m assuming. He ends up having to drill a hole out through our balcony and string the cable up there to connect us.

So all is good and we have Comcast now. But you want to know the best part? I get a bill yesterday from Hotwire for $50 for “unreturned equipment”. I almost lost my shit. I called them up to ask WTF this bill is supposed to be about, and was told to “not worry” about it because its automatically generated and that I should be receiving a credit with my next bill (the guy didn’t even look up my account to verify anything). Sureee I believe that. So today I log onto their live chat thing, which I usually can’t connect to 90% of the time, and the person verifies that I already paid for the modem and tells me that they will put a note in my account and credit that charge in my next bill or something. Hopefully that takes care of the problem, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I continue to get billed for random stuff.

So in short, this is the worst company ever (just read these glowing Yelp reviews – I have posted this entry there as well). If you’re living in a community that gets Hotwire (that isn’t a dorm or something where there isn’t a choice) do NOT use them despite the cheaper price. Its not worth it at all. As much as I hate Comcast, at least the internet works and they are only partially incompetent as opposed to completely incompetent.