8x8 vs Windstream

Windstream refuses to drop contract cancellation penalties (and refuses to respond to efforts to discuss) after we were forced to cancel service due to two years of extremely unreliable internet service to our business. Frequent service failures, over two years of our three-year contract, resulted in many occasions in which our point of sale and other transactions (essentially our entire business operation) came to a halt and our ability to conduct business was often disrupted for a full day or more, costing us significant revenue losses. We extended MANY opportunities and accepted MANY empty promises for stabilized services. After two years of extending gracious patience and suffering revenue losses, we had to pull the plug and secure the stable service of Comcast Business for over a year, now, since we cancelled service with Windstream. Kudos to Comcast Business for delivering very stable service! We have an EXTENSIVE paper trail / record of our efforts to provide grace and opportunity to Windstream to resolve service problems prior to cancelling the contract, and of communications over the past year to provide documentation of Earthlink/Windstream's failure to fulfill their contractual obligations to release us from the contract without penalty due to their persistent failure to provide stable service (multiple extended service outages over very short spans of time). Over the past 12-plus months, Windstream has refused to address that documentation and our complaints other than to offer a reduction of the penalty (why should we pay ANY penalty for cancelling a contract in which Windstream failed to meet its obligations???). Windstream stated that we must provide documentation of the timelines of service failures to justify release from the contract without penalty. We provided that documentation and Windstream has refused to respond. We made a good will counteroffer of roughly 35% of their 50% reduced penalty offer; but received no response to that counteroffer, other than hostile and unprofessional calls from a collection agency to which Windstream then turned over the full original amount ($3600+), rather than responding and countering our settlement offer. For nearly a year, the rude and hostile collection calls continue and Windstream's customer service, customer relations, escalations team, and executives continue to ignore us. I suppose, though, that Windstream's current BANKRUPTCY case and their petition to Bankruptcy Court to extend their Chapter 11 protections into late 2020 occupy too much of their time. Perhaps if they'd taken better care of their customers, they wouldn't be in BANKRUPTCY Court …