I have an account with several BB with Earthlink. We are a small business and do not have BES. All are working fine except one. It (a 7250) "lost" its data service on May 14th. I have called Earthlink's tech support five times and have gotten no where. Each time they apologize profusely, tell me they are personally committed to solving the problem, and that it will take either 48 hours or five days to re-establish the data service. Still no service.

The tech support is Tier 1 and they say they are messaging Tier 2 and there is no way to contact Tier 3.

Any suggestions how to get this resolved other than cancelling the account and going to another carrier?

Thanks

Come on folks I need some help here....

Have been told that I can't cancel the account w/o paying the early termination fee because it is still under contract. Doesn't matter that they are not providing the service.....

That's strange. I temporarily lost my Earthlink 7250 data service on March 23rd. Apparently, at that time, Verizon (the carrier EL uses for its 7250 service) "purged" a substantial number of accounts that do not have a monthly phone plan. I use the "pay-as-you-go" phone plan, because I never use the 7250 as a phone. At any rate, it took several phone calls and 1 week to get up and running again. No problems since then. They even waived my data plan fee for one month, after restoring the service.

I don't know your full situation, but you might want to check with EL tech support to see if this has somehow happened to you. If not...........

Thanks Silentknight. The BB has both monthly voice and data service. The voice service is working fine but still not data service. I have called Earthlink tech support five times over 6 weeks and CS once. Each time the person assures me that they will resolve the issue w/in 48 hours. The BB STILL has no data service. No one from Earthlink has called to follow up so I have to call in again, go thru the rigmarole and waste another 20 to 40 minutes on the phone with them. Yes, they do refund the service fee but still.....

So, I call to cancel the service since they do not seem to be able to provide it and am told that I would have to pay the penalty for early cancellation since it is still under its initial one year contract (ends Oct).

So, if anybody knows how to get this resolved (data service working or service cancelled w/o penalty) PLEASE let me know. If anyone has a appropriate contact at Earthlink above the Tier 1 drones could you please PM with the contact?

Many thanks!

Katya - you might want to try Dave Coustan at Earthling - EarthLink blog. Through him, I was able to receive an answer to a 7250 question from Greg Roberts, Earthlink's Senior Director of Marketing. I got the answer I wanted - maybe you can too. It's worth a shot.

katya - call Earthlink and insist to talk to someone in Tier 2 - or RIM - also, Earhlink should have a tech support department sepecifically for the BlackBerry devicse and any sor tof PDA the sell

be warned - if you do get to RIM they may have to transfer you back to Earthlink if your data plan isn't active across the board - but they may be able to actually get you to the right Earthlink department

and if they refuse to transfer you insist to speak w/ a supervisor and from there - after explaining how many times you've called and gotten no callback or contact from them even though they promised - insist again to speak w/ someone who can fix the issue then and there; or at least follow-up with you asap

Thank you Silentknight! I will give Mr. Coustan a try.

Thanks BERDucky - I have been calling Earthlink's number for BB support. Each rep I have talked to has absolutely refused to allow me to talk to a a Tier 2. Even after explaining how many times I've called and how many weeks the unit has been w/o data service. They say it is impossible to speak directly to T-2 and that the only contact they have is via email. In the six calls I have made I have only been able to talk with a "supervisor" once (got no where) every other time the rep insisted that there were no supervisors available regardless of how long I sat on hold. And, yes, each time I have requested follow-up asap, given them all of my contact info and NEVER heard from them. Unpardonably bad customer service.

Thanks for suggestion on calling RIM directly. I'll give that a try on Monday.

sorry -didn't mean to cause this confusion

can't call RIM directly unless you have a contract w/ them (i.e Tsupport)
If you call them they will tell you to contact Earthlink

Have Earthlink contact RIM for you

So - what happened? Any relief?

Thanks for asking.

Being a glutton for punishment I called for the 7th time. Same old rigmarole BUT at the end of call after the third long hold I was told "Tier 3 says that they have reissued the initialization and that after you turn off/remove battery/reinsert battery/ turn back on/wait for it to restart please enter *22890 and hit send. Then I got an email stating

"Good Day!!! this is regarding with the activation of the Data part of your BlackBerry 7250. Our Level 3 agents already replied for the activation for the data part your device and we would like to instruct to try dialing the activation number that is *22890. this will activate the Data part of your device.
We are very sorry for the inconvience that we have caused you."

And low and behold it worked like a charm. But why it took 7 calls before they said anything about *22890 beyond me. Maybe they have to refund for 3 months of service before you get to Tier 3? LOL