Access One did the same thing to us as the reviewer above. Sneaked in an automatic renewal ("Evergreen") clause in the fine print of the contract in legal-ease on page 3:
"The term of this Agreement commences on the date the service in question is made available to the Customer and shall automatically renew for one renewal term for a length of time equal to the initial term stated in this Agreement."
The office manager who reviewed this did not realize this or forgot about sending in the cancellation three years later. Now we are stuck with them for another three years.
Yes, shame on us for not getting our attorney to review the contract, but I find it reprehensible for a legitimate business to hide this from us which is clearly what they are doing. By the way, on the front page of the document that discusses the price and term length in plain laymen's terms, there is nothing to indicate that the contract renews unless you contact them. And of course, we received no notice that the contract term was ending and that it would automatically renew.
Access One is not the only slime-ball CLEC to pull this stunt, but needless to say we and I will never do business with them again and we are now reviewing all contracts for what we consider this unethical practice. I am also letting everyone else I know to stay clear of Access One. Comcast may have their own problems but at least when your contract is up it does not auto-renew, so although prices go up you can cancel or re-negotiate.
The company I work for had used Access One for nearly 6 years up to the point of this incident. We had given them a decent amount of business over this time and the service had been relatively good from them.
Recently I was able to get service from another provider. Having signed a contract with Access One for only 36 months in 2008, I had assumed our term was long over and we would be able to cancel service with no issues.
I was wrong.
We received a letter in the mail recently stating that our contract was in fact not up and that they were charing us with nearly $3,000 of early termination fees!
Wondering how this could be I pulled out the old contract from 2008 and looked over it. On the front page the term length was clearly stated and the box for 36 months was checked. At that moment I also recalled that the salesperson had echoed this while we were inititally disucssing the contract.
I read through that first page and found nothing unusual, and again on the second page there was nothing unusual. Finally at the bottom of the 3rd page buried in fine print, I found it.
This third page dealt primarily with credit information that we needed to fill in. Near the bottom of the page they inserted this information regarding the length of service terms in probably 5 or 6 pt size font;
"The term of this Agreement commences on the date the service in question is made available to the Customer and shall automatically renew for one renewal term for a length of time equal to the initial term stated in this Agreement."
Wow.
So basically you think you're siging for 36 months but you're actually signing for 72 months.
You would think they would have tried to notify us that the service would auto renew just as a reminder. After all, that's what a good upstanding company would do. Especially one that doesn't want Ripoff Reports written about them.
No such luck. I searched through 3 years worth of email and looked at all of the bills we received from them. I came up empty. Contacting customer service at Access One also confirmed, they don't attempt to notify you.
Very sneaky. Why would they not attempt to notify you? They're hoping you'll forget or that you didn't read some of the fine print(like me) so they can lock you right back into contract again without you even being aware that it was done.
Send me all the hate/idiot comments you want for missing the fine print. I don't care. The main reason I posted this is the fact that I hate the sneakiness of it. Inserting modifications for the term length into the fine print is down right scummy. The fact that the salesperson never alterted me to this fact is also very scummy. They all know about it there at Access One. The customer service person knew almost word for word what part of the contract I was talking about!
6 years of business and this is how we are rewarded. Thanks guys!
If you are working in the tech industry and are looking at telecommunications or Internet services, don't bother with Access One. Just a bunch of the same old crooks the industry has come to despise wearing good guy masks.
Access One, Inc Reviews
"Evergreen" Clause
Access One did the same thing to us as the reviewer above. Sneaked in an automatic renewal ("Evergreen") clause in the fine print of the contract in legal-ease on page 3:
"The term of this Agreement commences on the date the service in question is made available to the Customer and shall automatically renew for one renewal term for a length of time equal to the initial term stated in this Agreement."
The office manager who reviewed this did not realize this or forgot about sending in the cancellation three years later. Now we are stuck with them for another three years.
Yes, shame on us for not getting our attorney to review the contract, but I find it reprehensible for a legitimate business to hide this from us which is clearly what they are doing. By the way, on the front page of the document that discusses the price and term length in plain laymen's terms, there is nothing to indicate that the contract renews unless you contact them. And of course, we received no notice that the contract term was ending and that it would automatically renew.
Access One is not the only slime-ball CLEC to pull this stunt, but needless to say we and I will never do business with them again and we are now reviewing all contracts for what we consider this unethical practice. I am also letting everyone else I know to stay clear of Access One. Comcast may have their own problems but at least when your contract is up it does not auto-renew, so although prices go up you can cancel or re-negotiate.
The company I work for had used Access One for nearly 6 years up to the point of this incident. We had given them a decent amount of business over this time and the service had been relatively good from them.
Recently I was able to get service from another provider. Having signed a contract with Access One for only 36 months in 2008, I had assumed our term was long over and we would be able to cancel service with no issues.
I was wrong.
We received a letter in the mail recently stating that our contract was in fact not up and that they were charing us with nearly $3,000 of early termination fees!
Wondering how this could be I pulled out the old contract from 2008 and looked over it. On the front page the term length was clearly stated and the box for 36 months was checked. At that moment I also recalled that the salesperson had echoed this while we were inititally disucssing the contract.
I read through that first page and found nothing unusual, and again on the second page there was nothing unusual. Finally at the bottom of the 3rd page buried in fine print, I found it.
This third page dealt primarily with credit information that we needed to fill in. Near the bottom of the page they inserted this information regarding the length of service terms in probably 5 or 6 pt size font;
"The term of this Agreement commences on the date the service in question is made available to the Customer and shall automatically renew for one renewal term for a length of time equal to the initial term stated in this Agreement."
Wow.
So basically you think you're siging for 36 months but you're actually signing for 72 months.
You would think they would have tried to notify us that the service would auto renew just as a reminder. After all, that's what a good upstanding company would do. Especially one that doesn't want Ripoff Reports written about them.
No such luck. I searched through 3 years worth of email and looked at all of the bills we received from them. I came up empty. Contacting customer service at Access One also confirmed, they don't attempt to notify you.
Very sneaky. Why would they not attempt to notify you? They're hoping you'll forget or that you didn't read some of the fine print(like me) so they can lock you right back into contract again without you even being aware that it was done.
Send me all the hate/idiot comments you want for missing the fine print. I don't care. The main reason I posted this is the fact that I hate the sneakiness of it. Inserting modifications for the term length into the fine print is down right scummy. The fact that the salesperson never alterted me to this fact is also very scummy. They all know about it there at Access One. The customer service person knew almost word for word what part of the contract I was talking about!
6 years of business and this is how we are rewarded. Thanks guys!
If you are working in the tech industry and are looking at telecommunications or Internet services, don't bother with Access One. Just a bunch of the same old crooks the industry has come to despise wearing good guy masks.