So a couple months back, I receive a call from Suddenlink stating that they had increased my internet speed from 30 meg to 50 meg. They also said this was being provided at no additional service fees. They raised the speed, it was awesome, and I felt like an appreciated customer.
Flash-forward to last Monday when I receive my Suddenlink bill. The Internet service fee has gone up. There were various reasons spelled out why some customers had their fees increased, but none were for my account. So I called and asked why the increase since I met none of the criteria on the bill for an increase. The guy put me on hold to consult his manager. He comes back and says, "It's due to the giga-speed initiative". I asked if that had anything to do with my speed increase a couple months back, he said yes. I told him about the call where I was promised no service fee increase... He says, " I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you, but we'd hate to lose you as a customer".
I've run a technical call-center in the past and knew it wouldn't do any good to continue the conversation with that guy and didn't have time to hash it out with his manager. I'll probably lodge a complaint with the puc, bbb, fcc, or whatever is appropriate.
I just couldn't brleive how crappy that was of them. 

suddenlink needs a competitor in Kingwood. 

That would be CenturyLink- much better- 

Direc-tv!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I have both! 

I have both!


Century Link for internet and Direct TV for cable? My friend did that, ended up paying much more than SuddenLink with lousier service and ended up switching back. 

I haven't had that experience- 

Hi Slider152 - My name is Kacie, and I'm with Suddenlink. I apologize if one or more of our representatives misspoke - there was no added charges to a customer's account for the Internet speed upgrade. If you could please email me directly, I'd be happy to review any changes to your account. My email address is socialsupport-AT-suddenlink-DOT-com. Thank you, -Kacie 

there was no added charges to a customer's account for the Internet speed upgrade.


No not that month but a month or two later all bills went up at least $5 a month. I am furious about this type of misleading lying. 

We get a "free" upgrade but then fees for "other" services amazingly go up soon after.

Nah, that's not a shell game. 

QYCP---quiit your complainin' people (sheeple)... 

We ditched cable and got a Roku 3, don't miss cable one bit and we are saving about $100 a month. 

This happened to me too. My bill literally doubled from 90 to $180 out of no where after this "free upgrade". I called and they said they could only get it down to $125 after speaking with a manager. Funny thing is they lowered my internet back down to 50 Mbps, too (what we were paying $90 for before the "free upgrade".

My boyfriend and I play video games and stream movies, so we need the higher speed internet; centurylink is not an option for us. we just have to pay it because there's no other choice.

I'm kinda furious and would LOVE another company to choose from as well. The monopoly here is ridiculous. 

Hi Kacie,
I can certainly contact you, and once I verify that you are who you say you are... We can talk.
I've worked in IT for a long time and have managed everything from a call center, service desk, field service techs, and a systems operations group with more than 1100 servers affecting more than 5,000 corporate employees who service more than 200,000 worksite employees.
My experience tells me that after reading this board that you'll have a greater impact by answering my concern in this forum than with me individually. As a rep for Suddenlink, you now have several people who experienced the same service fee increase after being proactively called by suddenlink promising no service fee increase.
My situation is very simple. I use Suddenlink ONLY for the ISP service, nothing else.
I scrutinized my bill. It stated there would be increases for certain items like sports channels, and Internet services up to 15 meg. I had 30 meg that was increased to 50 meg. Nowhere on my bill did it mention a fee increase for the 30/50 meg connection, yet the fee increased.
What I (and several others here would like from Suddenlink) would like is two fold...
1. Why did the service fee increase for my speed when I received a call a couple months earlier and was told that I would not have my service fee increased?
2. Though I see several areas on my bill's fine print where some people will receive fee increases for their service, my particular service wasn't listed. So again... Why the service fee increase?

I can't help but think that after seeing the bill, that Suddenlink is increasing everybody's service fees across the board to recoup costs. While usually, this is understandable, in this case... We were specifically told that there would be no service fee increase, and my bill had no explanation on why my service increased. 

I rec'd a letter a few months back stating the speed increase but no fee increase. My last bill I rec'd had a $5 fee increase for internet. I'm a little annoyed with this as well. Had I known my fee would be going up b/c of the speed increase, I would've opted to not have the speed increased. We didn't have any issues with the speeds we previously had. 

Why would Suddenlink take the time to verbally call thousands of customers to state that their fees would not increase instead of putting it in writing and mailing it? Hmm.


Edit -- just saw the post above mine. Receiving a written statement claiming your fees would not increase only to see them increased is fraud. Since the USPS was used to commit the fraud it's a felony.

Submit a complaint to the FCC. The complaint form is online and takes two minutes to complete. 

Suddenlink SUX. They NEED the competition to keep them in line. With the monopoly they currently enjoy in Kingwood, they can F**k you with impunity at will, and there is not a damn thing you can do bout it other than cancel. And THEY KNOW IT. They don't care, because THEY DON'T HAVE TO. 

This is a long post so I'll apologize now for it, but I had a lengthy discussion with Suddenlink and thought you all should be aware of it.

So... Got a call from Suddenlink corporate in response to my BBB complaint over the price increase.
The lady says the fee increase was "inflationary" in nature and had nothing to do with the speed increase. This of course is not what I was told by the person on the phone when I first called who told me it was due to the giga-speed initiative.
I told her that they mis-represented themselves after the phone-call and the email stating there would not be a fee increase.
She then told me that the reason for the fee increase was spelled out in detail on my bill. I said, "I'm glad you brought that up, and can you go ahead and pull up my bill so we can discuss that?"
She pulls up the bill and proceeds to tell me what it says about the fee increase. When she's finished, I asked her to repeat the part about my specific service (30 meg Internet). She couldn't of course because there was no explanation about that package.
Her answer was to thank me for pointing out that "billing error" so they could correct it.
So I recapped for her. I say, "first, you tell me no service fee increase, then you increase it... Then after you tell me how it was "inflationary", you still increase my fee even though my specific package did not list a reason (like many others did) as to why it increased."
She said, " I'm sorry that you mis-understood the bill, the email, and the phone call that was made to you. I stopped her mid-sentence to explain that the call, the email, and the bill were written in plain English and that a mis-representation happened, not a mis-understanding.
Her answer... well I'm sorry you're unhappy, but if you need anything else, I'll give you my number.
I say, no... I'm driving... I left my email address in the BBB complaint. Please email me the minutes of this conversation so that I may add your no-fee increase email from a few months ago along with your fee increase explanation on the bill that specifically excluded my service yet still increased the fee. She agreed, but guess what... Still no email.
My next stop, I guess the PUC. Somebody has to hold them accountable at some point.
I mean really...? Inflationary...? The taxes and/or regulatory fees did not go up on the bill, only the service fee. Inflationary in this context means the cost of doing business went up. What else in the past few months changed other than their investment into their own infrastructure (giga-speed initiative maybe)?
I would have gladly forked over the $3 more per month for the speed boost... I just don't appreciate being lied to about it.
When we hung up, I looked at my dad (who was riding with me and heard the entire conversation over hands-free) and he says... Though she was trying to sound friendly, she was being condescending tgroughout that entire call. Well here's the kicker... He has the exact same package I do with Suddenlink and he will be filing a complaint with the BBB tonight due entirely to that phone call. 

Remember her name? Was it Beth R or something like that? The lady I had to deal with was unusually vile and seemed to enjoy it. 

This is exactly why I switched to Centurylink several years ago and dropped cable. I went to satellite for a few years but then dropped that too when the price kept going up. I now have Internet and phone for less than $55 a month. My price has not changed by more than a $1 or $2 in years. I have had some connectivity/customer service issues, but I don't think you ever completely get away from that. My speed is slower but with a wireless booster I am able to stream Netflix and use many of my wireless devices at once (printer, iPad, iPhone, computer, Wii, etc.). I put an antenna in my attic and I have t looked back. 

Quick update...
After responding via email to Suddenlink's sorry excuse for customer service during their phone call response to my BBB complaint, I received another email trying to "educate me on what their policy says". So I responded by forwarding them the reference number to the FTC Cramming complaint I lodged against them.
In the email I educated them that unexplained charges or fee increases on a bill that a communications company refuses to remove is called cramming and is Illegal.
Then I copied and pasted directly from my bill the explanation they gave for service fee increases for numerous cable packages, sports channels, and even the 3-15meg internet package, but that specifically excluded my 30meg service.
I summed it up by stating I had asked to have the additional charges removed as there was no explanation on my bill as to why they raised my service fee and that they refused to remove the charges.
We'll see what happens... I don't really expect anything to come of this, but it was a fun and informative little exercise and we'll see what the FTC says.
I'll post their response here when/if I receive one. 

Sounds similar to my experience, but we uncovered that Suddenlinks equipment for measuring usage was defective and that thousand of people were likely overbilled. Even though I got a refund, they would not automatically refund that thousands of others.

HTF is the legal? 

I have had the same problems with sudden link. I have called and gone into the office in Kingwood. I have not been satisfied with their services and have considered switching to other companies. They keep changing their rates. Mine went up shortly after the increase with the Internet speed. I also received a letter offering a much lower bundle payment but was told it was only for new customers. I spoke with someone in the office about a year ago and she was very rude. Called to complain and no one called back. They have very poor customer service. Thank you slider 152 for making the complaint to the BBB. 

I did more than complain to the BBB, I also lodged a cramming complaint against them with the Federal Trade Commission. I always thought cramming only applied to phone bills, but I found out its basically any utility or service you receive a bill for. and it's also not for specific charges, but can also be applied to an increase in a current fee without any reason or explanation. Which is exactly what happened here. If you have the bill, check it out yourself... it specifically states that if you have high-speed internet from 3-15 meg, you will receive an increase of $1. But there was no explanation for the 30 meg package, and I suspect that's because only the 30 meg and higher packages received the "FREE" upgrade email, letter, and phone call. This was their way of trying to mask their deception.
Bottom line is that they tried to slip this in without anyone noticing or creating a fuss over $3. But $3.15 today is $78 over the next two years.
Also, the BBB sent me an email stating that Suddenlink had indicated that the issue had been resolved and that I had a certain number of days to come up with a reason to continue the complaint. I told them my concern had not been addressed properly and they ignored the fact that they raised the price without any explanation. I also told the BBB that I'd also lodged a cramming complaint against Suddenlink.
I intend to keep this alive as long as I possibly can. 

suddenlink has about forty negative BBB reviews and not a single positive review, yet has an A+ rating with the BBB.

I too filed a complaint with the BBB (not a slamming complaint though) and found the BBB to be a joke. 

Agreed... Hence the FTC Cramming complaint. If I can find a way to lodge complaints from the FCC proper and the PUC, I'm doing that also.
My hope is to navigate this and leave a breadcrumb trail for others to follow should they choose to. That's why I'm boring everyone to death with updates... ;)
I know my Dad will follow any successful path I find on this if it leads anywhere. 

What a frigging exercise of futility - makes for entertainment, though...lol 

there are times when I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do...
Plus, it's a learning experience about federal communications laws.
I'll be better prepared next time a communications company tried to take advantage of me in some way. 

A Class Action Lawsuit against Suddenlink by Kingwood/Forect Cove Area residents is in the works. The practices of this company are questionable at best. It is time for us to stand together as a community and address the unfair practices and monopoly that is Suddenlink.