Bellsouth strikes again!!!!!!

[Guest gracewriter]

...but this time charged me $100.00!!!!!  Ever been so frustrated you burst into tears because there was no one in front of you who you could clobber with a baseball bat?

Banner John was right, I have the worst luck of most human beings with anything that has an electrical cord at the end of it.  I think I'm on day five now, just got the interent up and running on all computers.  Finally!

I went to connect the new lynksis and they said I had to be sure I had a connection from bellsouth and to call them to make sure.  Well, since no one has been able to connect for a few days, I thought that a good idea.

No problem, right?  How many times have you all called and asked them to check the line and they say, "well, I see a connection so the problem must be on your end."

Not this time!!  She started having me do all kinds of things to my computer, then I stopped her and said, "Wait!  Can't you just check the line and let me know if I have a live connection coming into the house?"

She said that's what she was doing then had me go into my computer and ping myself. (I didn't understand how stupid that was until today) AND of COURES I didn't have a connection!    Spent two hours with her on the phone and she couldn't figure out why I couldn't get on line.  Then offered a tech guy to come out AND AGAIN DIDN'T TELL ME IT WAS GOING TO COST ANYTHING.

So this guy is in my office today telling me I have some kind of corruption in my hardware in my desktop.  Because he couldn't get my computer online from the patch that came in from the wall. I had to explain to him over and over again why his theories were wrong to get him to even attempt to look further into it.  I also told him that still didn't tell me if I had a live connection coming into the house.  So he brought in his computer and proved it to me.  Then I brought in four laptops and told him to get it to work on them.  He couldn't get any to work, then tried something different on the last one and it worked.  One by one he's going through my computers pretty convinced there was a problem with ALL MY COMPUTERS!!!!? Asked me if I had a VIRUS!?

Thank God I kept persisting.  After we got the laptops "mainlined" I nearly begged him to go back to my desk top and whatever he did to the laptops to do to the desk top.  It didn't work.

When I had the first woman on the phone I said, "Say isn't that little bellsouth DSL icon supposed to say "connected" because it says "disconnected"?  She said, "Oh, no that's what it's supposed to say."  So she had me set up another connection which didn't work...still don't know why but I suspect there was a problem with the line coming into the housE ALL ALONG.  After all we've all been having connection problems for days.  Ok...

I asked the same thing with this guy and he pretty much said the same thing when he first got here.  Then as a last ditch effort I said, But isn't that supposed to say "connected?"  So then he right clicked connect and low and behold I had a connection.  There was no problem, ever.  Accept probably on their end all along.

The only thing I needed to know from these a******s was if I had a live connection.  It would have taken them two seconds to give me that info, but instead I had to spend part of the day hauling a ton of lumber and boxes out of my office so they could get to the outlet. 

Linksys would have gotten me on line for free, had Bellsouth just answer that SIMPLE question.  Linksys knew exactly what they were doing and what to do when we came up upon this problem again (had a lot of technical difficulties connecting Linksys as well and was on the line over an hour with them)

Ok, if anyone actually made it through reading this whole thing, thanks.  I really needed to vent.

The only thing left to do now is to figure out how to get the audio driver to work on this laptop as the driver or something else is corrupted.  I also have to figure out how to piggy-back this laptop back into my desktop and I'll be in heaven, and just maybe can get some real work done.

I lost all my stuff on this computer, everything is gone--poof.  So I'll be asking some of you to resend me some stuff I'd like to get back.

I think I lost the polka dots, very disappointing, but I know I can find them on this forum somewhere.

I feels soooooooooooo good to be back on line on a computer that doesn't reboot itself every few minutes!

[Guest gracewriter]

I do have to say one thing for the guy.  He was irritated that he got sent out for something this stupid and this NEVER should have happened.  He said technical support should have been able to figure out something this simple.  He told me to be persistant in asking Bellsouth to credit that $100.00 back to me. 

But then again, had I listened to him when he first got here and not kept arguing with him about how wrong I thought he was, I'd be out buying a new computer right now.

[BannerJohn 1,324]

so,in a nutshell...all you had to do was click on the icon and click 'connect'?

[Guest gracewriter]

Can you believe that!!!

I did have the good sense to click that several times before and after the call to tech support.

[Guest gracewriter]

It worked when we re-entered the exact same user name and password that was already in it!

[Guest gracewriter]

In other words, it didn't work for some reason just clicking.  But when we re-entered the user name and password it did.  The guy in my office said that woman should have known better.  He even called bellsouth and reconfirmed with them the correct user name and password.  She didn't do that and wasted two more days of my time.

[BannerJohn 1,324]

I will admit that I haven't been with BellSouth for about 19 months,but what user name and password?

[Guest gracewriter]

When you right click the connection it asks you for your urser name and password before you click connect.

[CyberSultan 6]

Do you have a DSL router?  If so, you can plug your credentials into that and not have to worry about authenticating from any of your computers.  Makes life much simpler. 

[Guest gracewriter]

I usually don't have to authenticate.  What happened was when I conntected to the router it turned off my DSL automatically for some reason. 

Anothere intersting thing I noticed while on techn support with linksys, twice I had to go back to the DSL and reconnect.  Both times the first try did not work.  I had to click connect two times in a row and then was on line with the DSL cable plugged directly into my desk top.

I think that might have been the problem all along.  It just wanted to be connected two times in a row before it woke up and DID IT'S JOB!

[Guest fivestar]

Sounds to me like your DSL modem is actually a single port DSL modem/router combo, that's what Verizon has here where I am.  What you have to do is go into the DSL modem and set it to "bridge mode" to be able to use another router with it.  That's probably why the connection light isn't on, Verizon's "internet light" goes out when you do this.

I'm just glad to hear you got everything working again.  Let's hope for you it stays working. 

[Guest gracewriter]

Thanks!

This day has been unbelievable.  I just opend the patio door and the knob fell off in my hand.  On the way back outside I twisted my ankle, and nearly P'dMP in pain. 

It's a shame I can't sew myself right now, I'm kind of in the mood.

[BannerJohn 1,324]

I never had to do any of that stuff with Bellsouth. It always said I wasn't connected. But I could open my browser (Opera) and I was online. I could do anything I wanted.

I"m with Charter now, behind a router and 2 hubs...and sailing along fine since they shut the interenet off for 7 hours a few weeks ago to fix whatever had been giving me  and everyone in my area the most unreliable,god-awful internet connection I have ever had,including dial-up with AOL back in 96.

[kenimes 42]

If BellSouth gives you slack about refunding the $100, file a report with the State Attorney General and the BBB. The squeeky wheels always get the grease.

[CyberSultan 6]

Verizon FiOS user here.  Leaving the cable co and going with Fiber to my home was the best decision I ever made.

[Guest fivestar]

Verizon FiOS user here.  Leaving the cable co and going with Fiber to my home was the best decision I ever made.

I wished I could do that, but it will probably be 2099 before they get FIOS here. 

[Benr98 40]

WOW Grace, what an ordeal this has been for you.  I'm sorry to hear this, but sure glad you are up and running now.  Truely frustrating though    :-

I currently have satellite internet, can't wait to get cable.  Satellite is a bit costly per month, but we do have 4 computers hooked to the internet, which makes it seem 'in my mind' that it's worth the extra $.

Jenny