In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the gang are flying from Vulcan to Earth in a stolen Klingon bird of prey when Lieutenant Uhura picks up a subspace message, as she is wont to do. The message is from the President of the Federation, who reports that a massive, unidentified spaceship was wreaking havoc on Earth and no one could stop it. He finishes by saying, "Avoid the planet Earth at all costs!"

I have an equally vital message:

AVOID THE ISP EARTHLINK AT ALL COSTS!

Earthlink is a terrible service provider. I have used them before and had nothing but problems. They called recently when my new ISP (DirecTV DSL) announced it was going out of business and, against my better instincts, I signed up for them again.

I will not go into the entire saga here, but aside from being a crappy ISP technically, Earthlink's telemarketer misrepresented their own service, openly lied about their competitors' offerings, and displayed such extreme incompetence in processing the order that my modem could not initially be delivered by UPS. Their customer service is nonexistent: one must wait on hold for a half hour and then face rude accusations when one is presenting his case. ("We can't trust your word that our representative made those promises," I was told. "Then why should I have trusted what your company said in its phone solicitation?" I asked, a question that went completely unanswered.)

Essentially, Earthlink wants to charge me $150 to cancel a service that I never used because my equipment never arrived merely because I could have used the service if I had had the equipment. Sounds strictly Ministry-of-Truth to me. When I called my credit card company to refute the charge, their representative said that she hears similar complaints about Earthlink all the time.

Do not sign up for Earthlink Internet service. Do not allow anyone you know to sign up for Earthlink. If you already have their service and for some reason are not disgusted with them yet, do yourself a favor and switch away before it's too late.

Avoid the ISP Earthlink at all costs. It may be their fault that the whales are gong extinct, too. Ask Mr. Spock.

(This is my second post of the day. Scroll down to see the one I meant to post yesterday.)