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From: jamess@news.freenet.msp.mn.us (James Sturdevant)
Newsgroups: mn.general
Subject: More Winternet Customer Service
Date: 10 Aug 1996 02:56:25 GMT
Organization: gofast.net -- ISDN ISP for MPLS/STPL
Lines: 40
Message-ID: <4ugtop$qfe@scream.ing.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet.msp.mn.us
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]

re you ready for another Winternet customer service story?

Last week I canceled my Winternet account.  I did it in the proper
way, by writing cancel on my invoice (in big red letters) and mailing
it to them.  I set up a .forward file for my mail and a pointer to my
FreeNet account in my Web area.  The notice in the Web area was as
follows:

    Due to the drop in service quality at Winternet, I am changing 
    providers. I have not yet decided which to choose but will
    present any information I have on the Champlin Mayors race
    and city council elections on my Twin Cities Freenet account. 

I then left for a vacation.

When I returned, I had a message from my brother, also a Winternet
customer.  His account and his wife's had been terminated that weekend.
He called the next day to find out why and was told that the accounts
had been "terminated by orders of the president" and that he had made
postings "representing himself as an agent of Winternet" and making 
statements against Winternet.

My brother made no such statements, never posted any such statements,
and has never even created a web page.  His sole offense was to have
the same last name as someone who had canceled their account.

I had not planned to make a public statement against Winternet.  I had
canceled my account because the service I was paying for was no longer
being provided to me.  I am now making this statement because Winternet
has demonstrated that they have no regard for their business or their
customers.  They are doing nothing to improve their service and are
making bald faced lies about current paying customers.

I brought three customers to Winternet besides myself.  Only one is
left.  I will now be encoraging that account to move as well.  Winternet
is no longer a respectable name on the Internet.

JamesSturdevant
jamess@freenet.msp.mn.us
ssss