Brainiacs Tech Hub — Local services in Perkins Township

If you have the time, sit back and read the tale of my epic journey that started when I saw a billboard telling me how fast Buckeye Broadband is "now in my area". The sign is within view of the address for which I would require service.. Thinking that perhaps it would be a better option than my current provider, I went and filled out the online forms to check what plans might be available in my area. I got all the way through entering my address and selecting a plan that looked solid enough that I decided to proceed to finalizing an installation date. I clicked on the next available business day.

The next thing that loaded was a page saying "We cannot verify which services are available in your region". You know, the region from which I can see a billboard explaining that their services are available. I'm prompted to call a phone number, which appears to be a test to see if you have the skill and patience to hold long enough and punch enough numbers to be put in touch with a human. Once I finally got through the trials I was connected with two guardians. They had a riddle; one always lies and the other that always tells truth and I had to guess whether to pick the number 0 or the # symbol to talk to a person. I won't spoil the riddle, but when I was connected with a human, they said to go to the website to order and hung up. At this point, I was hungry and thirsty from my quest, so I took some time to rehydrate before considering how to proceed.

Thinking that I probably don't want to deal with a company that puts me in a never-ending loop of contact links and a mythical quest for a human being to talk to, I simply gave up and resigned myself to using my current internet provider. I forget about the whole thing. That is until the next day. There in my email inbox was an invitation asking me to finalize the "order that [I] started". Out of curiosity I clicked on the link in the email and it launched a chat with an "AI that is just learning". After a significant amount of arguing with what I can only assume is a poorly ported chat GPT clone, I was finally connected with what was claimed to be a human via chat. That human posted the phone number on which I had previously quested and disconnected the chat session. Then I got a notification that I had received a new email. You guessed it, this was buckeye inviting me to complete the onboarding process by starting a chat with the AI. Every morning I'm greeted by a similar email informing me that I simply need to complete the online process to set up my new service and every morning the link leads to the same AI.

At this point, I'm wondering if I am the victim of some elaborate prank or involved in some form of sketch comedy. Nonetheless, I am determined to at least see what, if any, services are available, 100 yards from the billboard they paid for. I call the main number which explains that new customers should call the specific number for their region, which of course is the number that directed me to the website that directed me to the chat, that directed me to the number, that directed me to the chat. You see where this is going.

Despite living next to the billboard, telling me how much faster my service could be with Buckeye, I am still at a loss as to how I would go about obtaining this service. Even though I have given up on using this company or the services it allegedly provides, I still get a friendly email every few days inviting me to complete the onboarding process by clicking a link that directs me to..... You guessed it, the AI chat that is "just learning".

I don't know if Buckeye offers internet service to any real human beings, And if they do where they live. But I can say with some level of certainty that they have invested in billboards in areas where the only service they seem to offer is an endless loop of automated phone prompts, AI chatbots, and occasionally, an alleged real person in a chat that gives you the original phone number and...

Horrible customer service and they nickel and dime you for everything! We've had Buckeye Broadband for 2 months after recently moving to the area and are shopping for a new provider. I tried, unsuccessfully, several times to pay our first bill. Tried again a couple days later, as I forgot about it (and now was late). Spent 45 minutes online trying again to set up an account to pay the bill. Contacted the online chat, was asked if I had called them. I responded no (it was 9 pm on a Friday night, I don't think there would have been any available). The response I received was "How are we supposed to know you have a problem if you don't call us?". Hello...isn't that what I'm doing with the online chat? I was finally able to set up the account, put in my payment info, clicked on pay bill, set up autopay since they charge you $18 for paying late and didn't think anything more about it. Two days later I received a bill in the mail that balance was past due. I figured the bill probably went out before my payment was credited. Also found additional charges on the bill $5 for sending me a paper bill and $5 for auto pay on top of the $18 late charge. I put the bill aside as I had paid it online and signed up for autopay, which they are charging me $5 for using. Today I got a phone call and email that my bill hasn't been paid. I called, they couldn't explain why my bill wasn't credited, checked my bank statement and they had not been paid. They confirmed I was enrolled in autopay, they had all my banking info but it could take 30 days or more to be enrolled and they have no idea why the original payment didn't go through. They processed the payment manually and told me to wait until after the payment date to see if it goes through and if it doesn't I'll need to call them again to have it done manually. Yeah, and in the meantime they've charged me another $18 late fee and $5 for autopay that isn't even working. We'll be switching from Buckeye...

Whatever your expectation for customer service may be, lower it before becoming a Buckeye Broadband customer. I had reached 90% of my data cap, so I unplugged my wireless router. A week later, I repower my router, and immediately check my data. To my surprise, it's now over 120% of my limit. I contact Buckeye Broadband (which by itself is a feat requiring tons of patience for wait times). I get a technical representative that states the specific date a "large file transfer" occurred on my account. The file transfer was 80+ gb, and it occurred during the week my router was NOT powered. I don't use 250 gb per month, and this anomaly of an 80+ gb fake single file transfer is being charged to my downpowered router. His only suggestion was to buy an additional 100 gb of data for $10. He said that would help me avoid what would otherwise be a $30 data overage. Reluctantly, I agreed. Trapped with a $30 overage fee or tricked into a $10 avoidance fee....either way, I'm stuck. Twice I called and verified the extra 100 gb of data was applied to my account four days prior to the end of the billing cycle. Last night I see the invoice, and there's a $30 extra fee. I tried calling, but there's a 90+ minute wait time for billing. I call a technical representative, and he agrees that my 100 gb extra is in my account, and it was applied days prior to the billing cycle ending. But, he says he can't answer billing questions, and he admits he can't understand the $30 fee. He states that I must talk to billing, but he knows the wait time is over 90 minutes. If you like extra fees for usage you couldn't have made....If you like fees that can't be explained....if you like not being able to reach representatives when you need them....then, Buckeye Broadband is the service provider you need. To be fair, when you do finally talk with a representative, they are polite (at least the last 3...