🚀 go-pugleaf

Just thought I'd bring this to the group's attention in case anyone else
is considering MCI as a carrier or for any type of service so that you'll 
reconsider before giving them your business or you may be very sorry.

Around December of last year we started planning to add another T1 from a
different provider than our primary.  We researched, called, ordered a
Cisco 4700, etc - you know the routine.  Finally settled on MCI around
January.  Since we were fast approaching saturation of our primary link, I
needed a company that could give me an install date by March since that
was when we expected to surpass our available bandwidth.  Since I had also
had a very bad experience with another carrier who's name I won't mention
but which rhymes with "sprint" (they committed to an install date and then
kept pushing it up for months until I finally went with Net99 who has 
served us well, but we're looking for dual-homing) I was *VERY* cautious
not to have the same thing happen again.

On January 11, after many verbal committments to a 35-day install, I
ordered the line and was *committed* an install date of February 20th by
David Cahayla in MCI's Sacramento office.  Then on January 29th, our
representative, Kim Pickerell called and told me that our install
wouldn't happen until March 1st.  I said "Kim, you told me 35 days and I
also told you if there were going to be delays, I would go with another
carrier".  She said sorry, blah, blah, blah, sorry, blah.  I told her,
**IF THERE WILL BE ANY MORE DELAYS - TELL ME AND I WILL GO ELSEWHERE**.
In true salesperson fashion, she swore up and down there wouldn't be any
more delays.  I let her know this was critical to our businesse's
continued survival.

Well, last week on 2/22 good old Kim showed up to sign paperwork but had
no idea on when our install would happen so I asked that she call me the   
next day to confirm our 3/1 install which she said she'd do.  She didn't.
So I called Monday - no return call.  I called Tuesday and finally caught
her in the office and she said "oh yah...Daniel....uh, ya I've got bad
news - I just got email that said MCI won't install anymore lines until
the end of March".  I wanted to go ballistic but tried, as calmly as
possible to explain to her that this was unacceptable and would cause us
a noticeable loss of revenue, and affect our reputation and levels of
service.

The next day I got a hold of her Branch service manager, Kelly Fisher who
told me even worse news - MCI wouldn't even finish their network upgrade
until *4/15* and they couldn't even *GIVE* me an install date.  I said
"surely you must have known about this coming congestion well in advance"
and she said, "well, we've known about this cancellation for at least a
week and a half".  Hmmmm.....I said "why couldn't you at least have called
me so I could've made alternate plans?".....silence.  I said "what would
you do if you were me?"  She said "go to another carrier".  I told her     
that would take at *LEAST* 45 days from today and again she had no
response.  I can appreciate the fact that the big brass at MCI didn't want
to continue bogging down their network by adding new accounts but why
didn't they do this *before* they accepted ours and all the others I'm
sure they accepted and committed to along with us?  Is that too much to
ask?  Couldn't their network gurus have forecasted this a long time ago
and in January said "OK guys, we cannot install any new circuits after
February so stop accepting new accounts now or at least tell customers we
will not be turning circuits back up until April".  Would that have been
unreasonable?  I think not, so we had our attorney zip off a letter to
those MCI scumbags today.

The bottom line is this folks: these are unscrupulous people and if you
want to get screwed, order from MCI.  They knew about this problem well
in advance yet they continually insisted that they'd meet their committed
install date and waited until the very last minute to tell me otherwise -
AND, I had to call *them* to find out since they didn't give me any notice.  
I *really* hate to see companies that do business this way prosper so I
hope you take my experience into account when you're shopping.    

Daniel F. Duffy                                                  _\\|//_
Vice President/Founder                                           (-0-0-)
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