Yak neglected to acknowledge my request to terminate with them

Complaint

0
Maria Quattro
Country: Canada
I have been in touch with Yak Communications several times this year.  In that time, I have spoken to countless of CS Reps and their supervisors to no avail.  After letting them know that I would like to cancel with them AND asking what the procedure is to terminate, I was told all I had to do was tell them over the phone that I wished to cancel services.  Well, taking their word for it, that's what I did.  Little did I know that didn't seem to be enough.  

So after seeing that they had been debiting my bank account several times,  I emailed them, went to their 'head' office (which is unclear as to if it actually is their head office) with the intent to put in a formal termination with my signature, thinking that would be a very final and official way of letting them know.  It turned out that the receptionist had no idea what I was talking about and said that Yak consistently makes this error further adding to her frustrations for the day.  Further to this, she called Yak and told them to stop bringing customers to this office, as it is NOT an official Yak HO.

I spole to several CSR many times over and after being put on hold continuously. The average time I have spent on these calls are between one hour to an hour in a half each.  Many times I have requested a cancellation, but no email response, and OBVIOUSLY no evidence of that in my bank account since they are still debiting.  I do not owe these sheisters any money at all.  

I feel I have been deliberately stonewalled and ignored despite many, many polite requests and emails and one attempt at canceling in person.  They now owe me over $430.  The last I spoke to a rep was yesterday (September 26, 2008) and she finally acknowledged that the customer (me) requested a cancellation/termination of services and even read out an excerpt of the previous rep's notes (from way back in July) realizing that this was typed in my history and someone DID acknowledge my cancellation on many occasions and, reading further, there was mention of Yak intending to refund me over $400 of which I HAVE YET TO RECEIVE, and doubt that I will see unless I take more drastic legal options.  Other than close my account, what other recourse is there?  Verbal, written, in person, writing via snail mail are all a waste of time.  Nice try.  All these slimy moves serve to irk the public into taking things further.  But I guess I can surmise that they figure 60% of people won't so it's not much of a loss to them in the short run.

What do I have to do to let these people hear customers' requests and have them cease taking money out of my account???!!  This is bald-faced theft among many other things.

Comments

  • 0
    Kim
    Change you debit card or account number.  They can't take money out any longer without your approval on the new account.
  • 0
    Frustrating
    I understand fully what you are going through. I have a big problem with them since friday (october 3rd 2008) I am a long distance user with Videotron and I discovered friday that my long distance are switch with the Yak without asking me. But the worst is that they put a boot on my phone line so I'm not able to make long distance.

    I spent friday night 2 and a half hours with 6 differents CSR (Anita, Esther, Zara, Camille... ) No body was able to give us the reason why this is happening. Finaly, I asked to speak with a supervisor and I spoke with Youssef Ali. He told me that I should call him back Saturday ( october 4th) and my problem will be fix. I called Saturday and the problem was not fix.

    I also called my phone provider and on their side everything seems fine. I really don't know what to do. Anyway, I have to call them again today and if they are not able to give me answers I will let the police deal with them because I really thing they are a fraud.
  • 0
    Robert - customer of yak
    my name is robert, - keep this in mind before reading... I PAY RENT BY CREDIT CARD BECAUSE AT THE JOB I AM CURRENTLY AT, I DONT MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO HAVE THE AMOUNT I NEED FOR RENT IN MY BANK ACCOUNT AT ANY GIVEN TIME. SO I PAY WITH CREDIT CARD AND MAKE IT UP AFTER I GET PAID. IF I DONT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY ON MY CREDIT CARD I CANT PAY RENT, AND I GET EVICTED. YAK HAS OVERCHAGED ME WHICH HAS MADE PAYING RENT VERY DIFFICULT, I HAVE TOLD YAK ABOUT THIS ISSUE EVERYTIME I HAVE CALLED THEM ABOUT THAT ISSUE. BELOW YOU FIND MY STORY AND NOTICE THE AMOUNT THEY HAVE TAKEN FROM ME, AS WELL AS THE FACT THAT I DONT HAVE MUCH MONEY ON THE CREDIT CARD TO BEGIN WITH AND THUS BEING THE ISSUE HERE.... READ ON..... AND ENJOY......

    I have had yak since febuary of 2008 and all i signed up for was a local loop internet priced at $34.95 + the local loop of $9.50. which is debited from my mastercard on the 21st of each month.  thats fine. until they sent me a bil where the balance was $ 250.00 this happened in august, the next month they sent me a bill for $427.00 they had been charging me internet (34.95 + 9.50) twice in a month. over and over and over. i had been calling since august 2-5 times a week it is now jan 28th 2009 and the matter is still not resolved, i kept being told that matter was being fixed, i have been told that a manager would call me back the next business day, and for 5 months i have been lied to. finally after 4.5 months i was refunded $427.00 after which they still owed me $86.00 x 2. then i check my statements and yak refunded me 86.00 on the 22nd of december 2008 and then recharged me $86.00 the same day, on the 25th of the same month yak refuned me $86.00 and the same day recharged me $86.00 again. after calling them back again i got no where, i was put on hold after being in the Q-line for 2 hours to begin with, and then when i was transfered to another department here they couldnt help me, i was hung up on. i had work early in the am the next day so i decided i would call again the next day. i wake up the next day and realize my service wasnt working. (i have viop, -voice over internet protocol- this means if my internet isnt working, neither is my phone.) so when i got home i had to waste mins on my cell phone to call them back and wait 1hr and a half. after getting a hold of someone in tech support, they told me it was a billing issue, at that point i knew they had cancelled my service. when i finally got ahold of someone in billing they told me my service was cancelled becasue i had a balance owing $511.34 and that the payment was past due by 45 days. (question for those reading... how can i have a balance due past by 45 days when money is taken from my credit card every 21st of each month?) i asked that question to the CSR in billing, and she claims she didnt understand why that was. i had been promised my service would be turned back on the next day. i didnt believe this.. what i did was, i called my mastercard company and reported my credit card as lost, so now my account had been cancelled because i knew yak would try to take that $511.34 from me. the next day i see that my serive was turnd back on, i thought everything was fixed, until the 20th of januray 2009 i received a letter from CGC- collections group of canada. yak communications has sent me to collections for a balance of $511.34. i have had it. i am waiting for a call back from the collection agency because i have decided to take yak to court and OGC if they take any of my money. i called yak and told them the same thing, they said they were transfering me to the collections agency, next thing i know im at the welcome menu of yaks telephone line. i got ahold of someone and said they transferred me, and ended up in the wrong place, the woman then told me she was going to transfer me. 3 seconds later she had hung up on me. i have stopped calling, i have done my part in this, i have every bill i need, every mastercard statement to prove that yak has been commiting fraud on my account and or theft. i'd like to see how much money i get out of these liars by the end of the court date that i am hoping comes up very very soon. i will be charging them for interest that has been calculated on my credit card account because the amount they have taken from my credit card, not to mention money for the stress and agrivation they have caused me + the money they still owe me. THESE GUYS WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH THIS .... TRUST ME!!!! ANYBODY WITH A PROBLEM WITH YAK AND WANTS TO SHARE INFO AND POSSILY THINK OF A WAY TO GET OUR MONEY BACK.. EMAIL ME.... problems_with_yakcom@hotmail.com.... my name is Robert.
  • 0
    yak-no- more
    very frustrated with yax and there lack of concern for there customer's and i'm also ready to take legal action,
    i will e-mail you.
    from a very pissed off client.
  • 0
    Marianick
    | 1 reply
    Dear Robert

    I feel your fustration. We used to use yak as our long distance carrier. We would just dial 10-10-945 before the # and the charges would be added to our Telus account. We never had a problem until we switched to have them as our long distance provider. For 9 months we never received a bill. Finally a week ago as I try to make a long distance call. I am advised by a recording to call the collection agency. When I try to call they are closed so I phone Yak and am put on hold for over one hour. I've never had to wait so long to speak to someone in my life. It kind of shows you what kind of operation they are running. Finally I speak to a rep who informs me that we owe 87.00. I ask her if she had our correct address. and they did. I ask if they had our phone #. They did. It would have been nice to have gotten a bill via post, a friendly phone call or even an e-mail. But no, they are to idiotic. I am looking for an alternative right now. But as it stands my line for long distance is blocked because of these [***].
    • 0
      Sylvia Ludwik replies to Marianick
      Dear Robert, Fortunately, I did not give Yak   my credit card number.  This is a round around company that transfers customers from one place to another - distributel to Yak and then they hang up.  I waited 15 minutes the 1st time and 40 the second time.  That's all the time I will give them.  Nobody is that busy.  These are crooks.

      Sylvia
  • 0
    Robert
    Hi, there, i thank you for your response, that just makes it easier in my mind therefor in my will to end this issue with yak. i completly agree about your wait time on the phone with yak, i couldnt believe it. didnt think it was possible to wait so long. i just yesterday got ahold of the agent who sent me the collection letter. and i have told him that i am not joking around. he has now realized that i will not pay this amount and that if the money is taken from me one way or the other (as the second collection they sent me stated) they will be entering a S***storm of 2009. i am faxing him all the info, including bills that i have been sent from yak. hopefuly at that point this issue can be resolved ASAP. IM sorry to hear that you have had trouble with yak. stress that nobody needs. thanks for your response and feel free to check back for updates on this situation as they come to me. take care.
  • 0
    Eric
    I hate Yak...
    They never send me a bill. I finally called them on it and they said I was getting email bills. So I asked them what my email address was... They did nto have it. How can I get email bills when Yak does not have my email address? Here is what really has Got me...

    I had one of their "people" come to my house to get me to convert to their services... Since I was not so happy with Bell at the time I decided to change over. I asked them about long distance and I was told word for word "You can sign up for the un-limited long distance Canada plan. " I then asked if it was unlimited and her exact words were "It is unlimited, you could call a long distance number at the beginning of the month and leave the phone off the hook for the rest of the month and you would not be billed" I thought that this was great and for the first month I thought I had the long distance plan... I got my first bill and they charged me $86.00 in long distance. I called them and I did not even have the plan!! So they added the "plan" to my service and I got my bill this month. I was billed 28.32 for long distance. I Called Yak (waited on hold for 3.5 hours) to speak to someone and I was told that "the long distance plan has 500 minutes a month, after you use those 500 minutes you are then charged 3.2 cents per minute". I asked what can be done about the flaud that has taken place and they stated there is nothing they can do. On the phone the Yak Rep actually made reference to this happening to other people.... I am getting away from Yak and going back to Bell as soon as possible.  Bell costs a little more but they are easier to deal with. Stay as far away from Yak as possible.
  • 0
    PissedinNS
    Yak also did me dirty.  I was paying for Unlimited Long Distance North America and had this service for almost 2 years.  Just this year, January 2009, they decided to put a "Limit" on the "Unlimited" calling of 1500 minutes maximum per month, without first advising the customers of this.  Therefore, the monthly bill which should be $20.28, jumped to $49.00 .  When you call these clowns, you wait in excess of 80 minutes before speaking to some unqualified "Supervisor" that cannot do a thing for you.  When you ask to speak to yet his Supervisor, their reply: " Our supervisors do not take the phones".  It's a shady business and one to be forewarned about.  There are many other companies that I've found that will offer over and above what Yak offers, all being at a cheaper wait, more courteous customer service, and a wait time of 5 minutes max.  Try Telehop for your Long Distance and give Yak what it deserves.  As far as a head office for Yak, I cannot seem to find any such thing.
  • 0
    PissedinNS
    Further to the above...it should read, a cheaper RATE not wait, lol, although both would qualify!
  • 0
    Jane
    Yak Communications Inc. is every consumer's ultimate nightmare as a company to deal with.  Last year in May of '08 I had inquired into getting home service at Yak.  But after waiting for more than 20 days for service that never came. And speaking to countless unhelpful customer service reps, I called canceled my request for service.  And went with a reputable service provider.  So imagine my surprise when I received notification in Feb '09 when I received email communication from Yak informing me that a line has been activated for me and giving me a new phone number.  I promptly called their customer service and asked them what this was all about.  They informed me that this phone number has been activated as of June '08.  I told them that this is not possible, as I have had another service provider with a different telephone number who has been billing me.  They insist that this is not what their records indicate.  They have not yet billed me.  They are asking me to provide my current telephone number and current service provider to resolve this issue. Especially after reading the vast amounts of customer complaints on the internet, I am hesitant to share more detail with this dubious company.  I will update, as this issue unfolds.  But I hope you will all be hesitant in dealing with this company.
  • 0
    Die Yak, DIE!!!
    I signed up with Yak on January 18, 2008.  Everything went fine for the first 3 months, cheap long distance, reliable phone service.  Suddenly in April 2008, I received a bill with a credit for $93.33 (the amount I had paid to date for Jan, Feb and March).  Since then I have never recieved a bill in the bill from them for my phone service.  I called them, waited 3 hours on hold, and let them know that they had neglected to charge me for my phone service.  I was told that someone would look into it and rectify the situation.  
    Absolutely no bills sent to me.  On January 4, 2009, my long distance was disabled.  After repeated calls and waiting over 2.5 hours, I was told that I owed the company $500 for the previous year's services.  I told them that I had tried to fix this problem months before and I was ignored.  They demanded the payment immediately (no paymeny plan or anything) and then proceeded to cut off my phone service.  I toyed with the idea of paying the bill but after reading all the complaints on this website (as well as others) I think I will just stick it to them and switch to Bell.
  • 0
    yakattak
    I have had nothing but problems with Yak as well. Being fraudulently lied to about internet speeds, improper billing, horrendous customer relations, etc.

    I am going to be checking into the possibility of launching a class action suit against these yo-yos because the CRTC, CCTS, BBB are all either unable or unwilling to do anything about these fraudulent hucksters.

    I am especially interested if anyone is actually receiving the full 5 mbit connection that they say is possible. From what I have seen or gathered, they do not even have enough bandwidth to be able to give these speeds and limit connection speeds and blame it on the lines or distance from the CO. When you first start the service, they give you an intentionally low speed, and hope you won't notice. When you complain, they will raise it slightly, but then say the lines aren't capable of more.

    I would also be interested in hearing from any disgruntled ex-yak employees who could shed some light on the internal practices and what they are told to tell the suckers err... customers to sign them up.

    Please send any "horror" stories concerning Yak to the e-mail address I created for this purpose. Don't send any names, addresses, or telephone numbers. Just an e-mail address so I can get back to you if I can get this suit to go ahead.

    An extremely disgruntled Yak customer.
    yakattak@live.com
  • 0
    YAK-OFF
    I too am a very pissed off at YAK and for how terrible they treat customers.  I will never do business with them again.  They told me incorrectly how to use the cell phone call back number which resulted in my cell phone provider charging me double something that YAK assured me would not happen.
  • 0
    Happily rid of Yak
    I have had a horrible experience with Yak and they're deplorable customer service.  Like others, I for years had dialed 10-15-945 and was billed by my regular home service provider with no problems at all.  Last year I decided to switch over to them as my long distance provider because they offered a good deal on long distance rates for cell phones.  I was especially interested in this feature as I have a cabin on the coast with no phone and cell phones are usually so expensive for long distance calls.  After explaining in great detail how and where I would be usuing this service the sales rep assured me there would be no additional charges from my cell phone provider, all long distance would go through them.  He explained that I would call a Toronto number but that number would be busy and I would get a call back at which time I would enter my long distance number and presto my cell phone provider wouldn't bill me, YAK would. I switched over for them to be my long distance provider for both my home and cell phone.  After going to my cabin and using my cell phone for lots of long distance calls much to my horror I received my regular cell phone bill and I had been charged over $50 for incoming calls while using my phone the way YAK had directed me.  It has now been 8 months, many times on hold for painfully long periods of time, fax's and numerous e-mails to them and I am madder than ever.  When I first talked to them back in Sept. they told me it was their mistake and they would put a check in the mail, no check ever arrived.  I started pursuing it again this year and when my long distance bill arrived I e-mailed them to say that there must be a mistake as I should have had a credit put to my account since I never received any check.  As soon as I didn't pay my bill, $13, they cut off my long distance service from both my home and cell phone and I started getting daily recorded messages that my bill was outstanding and e-mails from a collection agency threatening my credit rating and requesting I call them to straighten this out.  A few bricks short of a full load, duh, you cut off my long distance - remember!?!!  I e-mailed them asking for a supervisor to call me since they had made it impossible for me to call them, it never happened.  I got an e-mail two weeks ago saying someone would contact me in the next 48 hours, it never happened.  Then this morning the phone rings at 7:45am and of course I'm still in bed as it is a holiday, well a man - no name left - wants me to call them, must be the guy who is short a few bricks as I CAN'T call them, remember!! no long distance.  I e-mail the guy from collection, Aldo Gomez, to remind him of this and would they mind calling back at a more decent hour as I am in BC and they are in Toronto.  Well I got back a very nasty reply from Gomez, appears he was the one that tried to call me this morning, stating that I was at fault for using the service incorectly (wait a minute, didn't you guys tell me that I was supposed to do it that way?) and they owed me nothing however they would write off the $13 I owed them and don't expect anything else from them.  Customer service is very weak with this company.  Turns out this collection agency is just YAK under a different name, I guess it's the guy down the hall.  I called the 1-800 number and much to my surprise not only did my phone work but I get through to Yak right away and I also got to speak to a supervisor, very robotic, but a supervisor none the less.  He was not at all sympathetic to my problem he told me there was nothing he could do because Gomez down in collections made it very clear that I was not to get any sort of credit, period. I guess all my e-mails must have pissed him off.  I used the system exactly the way they told me to which resulted in tons of incoming long distance calls, from them, which I was then in turn charged for by my provider.  I don't think my cell phone provider is the problem, Yak misrepressented the service they were going to provide me with. It was once of the most frustrating and annoying phone calls I have ever had,I might as well have been smashing my face against a brick wall, maybe the one that is missing a few. He even went as far as to acknowledge that there had been a problem but they have fixed it, so where does that leave me?  Let's see, it's their fault but I am left to pay for it.  I have cancelled all service with them and am happy to vent this out to anyone that will listen.  For me it was not so much about the money as it was about the fact that I had done everything just as they had instructed me and I got burned.
  • 0
    I can't believe its a phone company!
    Yak is about THE WORST company I have ever dealt with. "Customer care" is non-existent, wait times are long, and on occassion you will connect with a customer care rep who is not completely capable in either official language. Only one customer service rep (out of the perhaps 15 or more I have dealt with) provided any meaningful customer care - to his great credit, the guy went above and beyond the call of duty to resolve what  had become a ludicruous situation - he even had me call his personal cell number so he could see what my outbound caller ID looked like on his phone, AND he actually called me back to follow-up with a prgress report - Now that is customer service!)
     

    It took alomst 4 months to switch from Bell to Yak on one of my two lines; the outbound caller ID was wrongly changed, and then completely removed for a time until it was changed back to what it was with Bell; I too had long distance service suspended for not paying an invoice that was never sent. Yak's invoices don't list each long distance call made, only those calls made beyond the 500 minute mark. Want a convenient record of your long distance calls each month and think that you can just use Yak's monthly bill? Nope. Sorry. We can't do that.

    Want your kids to be able to make a collect call home in case of any emergency? Forget it. Yak no longer allows collect call (I'm serious!)
    I just found out that Yak has changed my service - without advance notice to me directly via email, letter or -god forbid- broadcast vociemail- or even indirect notice via a posting on its website. I didn't find out until I tried to call home collect from a payphone at the airport and was told that my number no longer accepts collect calls. Surprise, surprise.

    In sum, Yak ( a communications company) has horrible customer communications and service. Stay away from Yak.
  • 0
    Yak sucks
    I've had similar experiences with Yak.  Customer service is horrible and billing department is not able to give any answers and need authority from their managers to do anything.  When trying to sort out an issue, the manger never calls back either.  So issue never gets resolved.

    Now, I have closed my account.  But they still owe me $25 and I'm getting harassing automated calls saying my account is overdue and I need to pay it off immediately!  Yak has "no record" of any calls made to me.  What a joke.
  • 0
    Akiva Goldberg
    Yak charged me $529.94 for services not rendered and I have been in constant contact with their 'customer service' for over 4 months (around 50 calls, each lasting approx. 1/2 hour)...they have promised me on several occasions to remove the charges and have even called me to confirm that they processed a refund on my VISA...but when I call VISA (even after 5 business days) they tell me that no such refund has been processed.  I want my money back and I want nothing to do with this awful company ever again.  If there is any class action law-suits, please e-mail me akivagoldberg@hotmail.com, so that I can join.
  • 0
    not impressed
    I too have Yak, I too have had nothing  but issues for God sake's I no sooner then two days after receiving my bill start getting phone calls saying I am over 30 days late HOW the heck can this be if I only got my bill two days ago.. STUPID PEOPLE.. I tell them when I AM GOING TO PAY THIS and they still go ahead and start suspending service's, I told them I always pay when I tell you I am going to and they suspend service's anyways. Then they ask me for a credit card hell I don't have one sorry I am a female who like's to shop so for me to have a credit card it would be a bad thing i tell them I do not have one they cut me off.. what kind of BS is that?
  • 0
    Rod Hemeon
    Well, I have had enough of Yak.  They were charging me for a long distance overseas call each time I dialed a number. You all should check your bills cause I figure I am not alone. When I would dial an overseas number and receive a busy signal or no answer I was charged $.29. Now 29 cents does not sound like a lot but over a 5 year period it adds up.

    So I have decided t launch a web site dedicated to Yak Communications and Globealive.  Now when someone steals from me I take it back....with interest.

    Visit the site often it will be periodically updated.... http://yakcommunications.angelfire.com

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