Horribly slow internet connection, no support, no acknowledgment of a problem.

[technoid6502]

The past week or so I've had almost no internet access on this phone.  I have a Tribute Dynasty, purchased on 9 AUG 2018.  The service has worked really excellently until lately, but now I have trouble, messages here indicate it is not only me by a long stretch, and no one at Boost is acknowledging that a problem exists.

My connection usually tests out at 27mbps@sec or faster, sometimes as high as 60mbps!  Lately, it flakes out and when I can test it is 14kbps@sec. to 50kbps.  Tech support is unreachable by phone and a talk with account support reveals that they are servicing the tower in my area.  Why didn't they post that fact here and avoid the trouble of hearing from me?  They have no time frame for fixing it either.

I am frustrated and feel that Boost does not care if I stay or go.  I've had this phone seven months, asked if I could unlock it, and they say I need to keep the service another 5 months in order to take it to another service, but 5 more months of this would be intolerable.

THinking to switch services, I checked my account and discovered that boost had charged my account twice when I made my payment last month, so my March bill is already paid, something I did not authorize.  So now I have paid for service in advance which is not worth the money.  Boost tells me now that in order for them to return the payment I did not authorize, they need to suspend my account, even though I have time remaining during this month's service.  This is crazy.

How do Boost customers receive support?  It seems that they do not, cannot, that there is no mechanism in place to support them.

[Boost_MasielQ]

No need to fret, technoid6502! We’ve got you. Can you please send me a private message, with your phone number, PIN and current address?

To send me a private message, please click on my username and select to send a private message.

[technoid6502]

A LONG series of phone transfers from one account rep to another finally resulted in an acknowledgment that there is service occurring on the tower I use most frequently, there is no time frame for restoration of service.  The company kindly offered a $25.00 credit for my service, which I accepted with thanks.

The issue of the double payment remains unresolved, the mechanism to undo this has been removed from the website and the representatives don't seem to be aware of the original problem.  With the credit, I'm going to keep the service for the next month and see if it improves.  I will update this forum with regards to what happens to my next one-time payment of $50.00 to see if the company again charges for two months in advance again. 

Here is the information from my account history page:

03/07/201910:57AM$50 Unl Talk/Txt/Data Payment-$50.00$25.00 03/07/201910:57AM

Increase Adjustment Adjustment$25.00$75.00 02/08/20194:47PM$50 Unl Talk/Txt/Data Payment-$50.00$50.00

Here is the information from my account history page:

02/08/20194:46PMOne-Time Recharge Other$50.00$100.00

The issue I dispute is the ONE TIME RECHARGE OTHER line item.  I did not authorize this.  This is the Second time the website has done this.  The first time was a month or two ago.  There was then a button to click to cancel the One Time Recharge line item.  I pressed it and the charge disappeared.  This month, there is no such button available, it has been removed.

To all present.  I have contacted the Better Business Bureau with regard to this issue (double-billing) and will take action with them should it occur again.  The credit issued to me was to recompense me for poor service during the month of February, not for any other reason.  I did not authorize the company to make the second 50 dollar payment and the representatives are confused as to what they can do as well. 

UPDATE:

Ah, it appears they did actually remove the payment.  Nice.  So my balance consists solely of the credit, thank you, and the automatic payment I didn't authorize has been removed.  I will update should this occur again.

Recommendation to Boost Mobile:

If I were you, I would prominently post a link to a page containing up-to-date information of outages and maintenance-related issues in order to keep the customers informed and to reduce the number of technical support complaints you have to process.  If I'd had the information that the tower was being worked on, I would not have discovered the double-payment issue, would not have burned all that phone time with your representatives, and the company would not have issued me a credit.  Not having a page with this information just cost the company several man-hours, a 25.00 credit, some bad press.

Please clarify your payments page and ensure that automatic payment scheduling is not a part of the one-time payment process unless the customer explicitly authorizes there to be an automatic payment.

Best to all,

Jeff

[Boost_MasielQ]

We understand your frustration & are truly sorry for the inconvenience!

[LayniC]

Were you paying through the My Boost app or simply via the regular website? I know previous versions of the app & web payment system were set up so that you'd basically enroll in Re-Boost automatically unless YOU specified otherwise but now, at least via the app, that is no longer the case. The app allows you to save a preferred payment method (debit or credit) that remains in the system & you can choose to charge at any time, but it will not automatically deduct any money unless you select that option. Plus you can still choose to enter another payment method including a Boost Up card if needed. I've had Boost for a long time too and like you have been mostly satisfied but when things go wrong they go really wrong and customer service can be totally hit or miss (and it's usually miss). You are absolutely correct that they should notify customers of outages or work being done that may interfere prior to it occurring whenever possible. As for other issues, if they give you the runaround be polite but escalate the call. Ask for a supervisor or to transfer you to the "Saves" department or a cancellation department... They may have a different name for it but this is the last stop of any customer service call center where thier only job is to "save" the sale/client and they typically have access to more information and options than regular reps. I hope that helps in some way, good luck!