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Thank you all for 2 great years

Curtis,

Well written post. As a Flashcom user with a virtually trouble-free DSL experience I can believe what you are saying. Maybe I was one of the lucky ones, but I have received good service from Flashcom. I really have no complaints.

Good luck.

jj

reply to Anon
I am one of the few it seems who have enjoyed great Flashcom service for two years. The intermittent billing was a bit of a hassle, but I can't complain about the actual internet connection.

As for the employees, some that I dealt with weren't that helpful, but some were truly professional (Jeff). This is probably true with every company.

So what is to become of the Covad customers? Please spill the beans, I need to know what is going to happen to my line!!

reply to Anon
Curtis: Well said! I loved your Flashcom DSL for the relatively short time that I had it!
ALL THE BEST.....Hope you have an interesting and productive new position wherever you
go. Let us all know....Thanks, Armand Ravizza

reply to Anon
I agree. Flashcom was kickass and very helpful! I loved getting up to tier 2 at 1 in the morning, talkin with the smart guys that fixed my problem in 5 seconds. I got ok rates and was very satisfied. Too bad the company is having troubles.

It just makes me so mad to see this solid company shread apart, watching my speeds go to 20% normal(& intermittent), opening trouble tickets day and night - going unresolved because the phone company and covad can't get through (even during business hours). Frustration! oh well. I too would have liked to be around cutting edge technology, working with it every day. If you have any info about us covad people, please tell! Thanks!
--
"The one who dies with the most ram wins."

reply to Anon
I only had Flashcom DSL for about a month and half before I got switched to EarthLink. The only troubles that I had were not Flashcom but the local phone company. And, these troubles were only during the installation part of this experience. I would not have changed from Flashcom by choice as my service from them was superb.

reply to Anon
Curtis,
Good luck and Godspeed to you.
I was *very* pleased with Flashcom's service. In the 9 months I had your service I only had need to contact Flashcom just once. And that contact was when you personally took my order for service, in a very knowledgable and professional manner. During that time I never had even a single issue requiring tech support, nor did I suffer even a single outage or period of degradation. Your L3 backbone cant be beat for low latency, all the time.
Thanks again for a great ride. Hopefully, the turtle will fly again.

said by bresni:

---

Hopefully, the turtle will fly again.

---

reply to Anon
My five months of Flashcom have been relatively trouble free. You can call me a satisfied customer.(There are a few of us out there!)

reply to Anon
said by cbenton: For you people, I simply will excuse your ignorance in advance..

Well, I do have a very clear picture of how DSL works, and I am insulted by your comment, as I hope others with a mind and those who were affected by flashcoms ignorance in regards to customer service are.

One of your posts on this site said to contact you if anyone was having a flashcom problem, well, I'm still waiting for a reply to an email I sent to you back in March of 2000.

The truth, or my 2 cents of it, is that flashcom had a very poorly planned expansion which kept the money coming in, and many customers with poor service or no service at all. And you talk this up as if it is an accomplishment to overextend your obligations to your customers and leave them with a botched product. The inability of flashcom to run itself as a consumer oriented and service industry led to its demise, and many of us are quite happy to see you go so we can get reliable service from competant providers.

Finally, we can have a bowl of turtle soup. The table has been set for a while.

reply to Anon
Good luck Curtis. More time for paintball.

reply to Anon
cbenton has left the building

Going on means going far, going far means returning.
tao da ching

"Bleeding edge of technology"

Well, at least that much of your post is true. Flashcom certainly bled me.

I'm sorry that you folks lost your jobs and I wish you all the best. But, however exciting it may have been to work there, Flashcom did not provide what it promised to its customers. And for that it deserves its fate.

reply to Anon
You appear to care about your work and I am sorry for your personal disruption. Flashcom, though, was not shut down. It committed suicide. We had very poor customer service from the start. We never received any bills, nor was our corporate American Express card charged. We ended up sending an email to the President of Flashcom asking where we could send a check after a few months and numerous phone calls. We kept our account current but how many customers are going to beg for the right to pay a bill? Is it surprising that Flashcom is bankrupt? I understand that Flashcom never paid any vendors either. The installation itself was a hassle. It certainly did not work when the technician left. Eventually we got it to work after many calls to customer service and hours on hold. Even in its demise, Flashcom is not cooperating with its customers and is making it difficult for them to switch to other ISP's. Since Flashcom won't give anyone a release, this has to be done as a new installation which is more expensive and takes more time. Finally, I do not understand the concern that some have about their contracts with Flashcom. Since there is no service who do you think is responsible for the breach? I would rate this as the worst consumer experience I have ever had.

I think this is a plain example of just why flashcom is dead, even the employees were blind to that facts. The only good thing I can say about flashcom is that my service never crashed. For that I am gratefull. There are more than enough other things that completely negate this fact however. It seems to me that I would not be taking to much of a leap of faith in saying; not only has flashcom killed themselves, but likely the entire marketplace for dsl as well. I say this simply because they were the largest dsl provider and didnt pay any bills. SO not only did they bring themselves down they have financially ruined anyone associated with them. Look at covad stock in the last few days. Yeah the market has slowed down, but just imagine how much better of covad alone would be had flashcom paid for services rendered ! I think hes correct in saying that cable will eat up dsl. I think its a shame and a travesty for dsl had significant promise but thanks to the great working environment at flashcom we can all say good bye to dsl.

I knew this was coming back in june when I called about a 3month bill on my charge. When the lady told me they hadnt billed anyone in 3 months I said " how can you run a company without collecting from your customers". Her response was ohh well its all fixed now..... and finally it is. Good night flashcom, I am sorry to see so many ppl loose their jobs, but I sure as hell am glad to see a company who provided terrible customer service go the way of the dodo.

reply to Anon
Flashcom has been great.

Sad to see them go just as I was going to go back to IDSL from cable

reply to Anon
uberares
"I think this is a plain example of just why flashcom is dead, even the employees were blind to that facts. "

Just realize that the above employee had nothing to do with marketing, customer care, billing etc. He's the one that kept your service from crashing (at least after it got to the CO). "my service never crashed. For that I am gratefull"

Also you can't blame Flashcom for DSL demise. That you can leave to the Telcos. No one has claimed otherwise, and you can read all about it in the ZDNet article on the front of DSLR.

reply to Anon
I have been using the flashcom/Covad DSL service the 144/144
since last Nov. and I would say, except the installation, everything is so smooth. I do believe the tech support is one of the best i have ever had with any tech company. I always get my email back in 2 hrs and whenever I ask for the explanation or those tech term they use, they will give me a very easy and detail explanation. The customer support is the worst part i think. After i have the DSL installed, I was supposed to call the flashcom up and get my 2nd Ip and setup my account. I was wait on the phone for 2 hrs and no one seems likely to pick up the phone. i tried it for 3 days and eventually give up and just wait for them to call me until now. well, what can i say. i am still not paying for the DSl i have and i do mean i want to pay for it. And now, the speakeasy.net's pricing is so expensive, 80 dollars compare to the flashcom promotion for 59.99 dollars.
I think i will just go back to dial up since cable isn't here and my house is way too far away from the CO and no other company seems can provide me DSL service.
Alex

reply to Anon
As alluded to in a post above, building/growing a business from 30 to 600 employees in 2 years is NO accomplishment if it's a crappy business! With financing, any business can do this.

The right to call a business a success lies in that business' longevity, which in the case of Flashcrap...I mean Flashcom, is pitiful.

Re: tech support.....a bunch of morons. I personally spoke with 3 different "techs" before my issue was 'escalated' to the escalations team over the course of several weeks (not to mention countless emails). Was the escalations team able to solve the problem? No. After about 3 more weeks (!), I finally posted my problem in a webmaster forum. Within hours of this post, I was supplied with several possible solutions, and armed with good information (finally), was able to resolve the problem myself.

6 weeks, 5 Flashcrap "techs"....nada.
3 hours and a couple posts from real world techs....bingo.

This is why Flashcrap bit the dust. They hired non-tech people to be their techs. Apparently they didn't want to pay real salaries to get real techs. Really intelligent.

Any business that goes into business placing customer care and support last, knows absolutely NOTHING about business. And Curtis Benson considers this a success!?

reply to Anon
Flashcom was great for the 15 months I had it. They were the first in my area to offer broadband and everything went smoothly. While the speed was a little less than promised everything else was perfect. I dare say that all the complainers will find it worse with other providers. Thank you Flashcom for the great service and good luck for the future!!!