Question to the NANOG community, Is anyone else being extorted by Zayo? Is Zayo threatening shutdown over bogus and fabricated charges?
The purpose of this message to the group is twofold: 1) to share our experience being extorted by Zayo with the community and 2) to understand the depth and extent of Zayo's less than ethical behavior by getting feedback from the community.
Abovenet was a great organization with quality service, reasonable prices and nice folks to work with. Since being acquired by Zayo we have seen a significant degradation of service quality and responsiveness which is not unusual from a provider, but Zayo has taken things to a level of low ethics that would make Tony Soprano proud.
Most interestingly they seem to identify points where you are dependent on them and threaten a shut down unless you pay them some arbitrary amount. In our case we use multiple Zayo IP, Transport, and Colo Services -- they set their extortion amount at $128,000. A completely arbitrary and fabricated number. They put significant pressure threatening to shut us down by setting their lawyers on us.
Our detailed contract breakdowns, invoice and payment spreadsheets, along with all other commonsense and professional efforts were simply disregarded. At one point their lawyers and accounting people had the nerve to say "our accounting system does not track invoice details -- it only shows the total amount due so your numbers mean nothing to us." All the while they relentlessly levied disconnect threats with short timelines such as: "if you don't pay us $128,000 by this Friday, we will shut your operation down."
We have had anecdotal feedback that we are not alone in our experience and that there are many more like us. If you and your company have had a similar experience with Zayo, please share it with the group or if like us you are concerned about retaliation from Zayo, please respond privately.
If the group shares their experiences the public shaming may drive Zayo to stop operating like mafia thugs. If the problem is as common as we suspect, it may warrant getting the Attorney General involved.
In the mean time, I strongly urge anyone already in a relationship with Zayo or considering a relationship to make sure your are well diversified with other more ethical carriers. Otherwise please consider another organization to work with.
In our case we were better of with Ransomeware, than Zayo as a vendor! Its cheaper and less damaging
In response to the original email they do do this I have experienced it
myself it is usually because of billing issues that they don't know how to
resolve. It's complete BS worse than dealing with att.
Obvious first question would be, have you fallen behind paying your bill? Most service providers will threaten to disrupt your service if you don't pay for the services they provide.
I would expect you're months behind paying for service before they say:
"if you don't pay us $128,000 by this Friday, we will shut [you down]."
And if you're in fact up-to-date, make sure you have *proof* of same. It's
not unheard of for providers to mis-credit your payments and then think you're
behind. Usually showing them proof that funds were transferred to the
provider, and it's *their* problem to fix their accounting system, is
sufficient to make them change their tune *really* fast...
to say "our accounting system does not track invoice details -- it only shows the total amount due so your numbers mean nothing to us."
All the while they relentlessly levied disconnect threats with short timelines such as: "if you don't pay us $128,000 by this Friday,
we will shut your operation down."
[...]
At one point their lawyers and accounting people had the nerve to say "our accounting system does not track invoice details
Are you talking with your SP's lawyers without your a legal team of
your own present and advising you?
I think one of the first things they should tell you is not to discuss
pending disputes in public. Time to get
a consultation with your own Lawyers to assist with billing dispute
resolution, ASAP.
Provided there is a reasonable agreement in place: I think You ought
to be able to at least
temporarily delay your SP from turning off services, while you work
out your billing dispute.
The service provider could be subject to liability by turning off
services which you have not agreed to disconnect.
Your lawyers should be able to refute a SP's claim about their
records system not tracking the actual amounts
due under specific agreements causing the conclusion that the output
from the record system is inscrutible and
infallible.
From: "HonorFirst Name Ethics via NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org>
they relentlessly levied disconnect threats with short timelines
such as: "if you don't pay us $128,000 by this Friday, we will
shut your operation down."
Short timeline or short by the time you became aware of it? It's not
unusual in this business for POCs to fall out of date where an SP
can't communicate a problem to you, or for billing and technical POCs
at an organization to not communicate with each other. If this is a
case of the threats finally got serious enough that the other guy
figured he should mention them to you, that doesn't really qualify as
a short timeline.
As far as raising the rent goes... that's frankly an industry-wide
problem. The SP runs 12 different contracts with you with 12 different
contract periods for interrelated services that from your perspective
are all-or-none. Your contract period on one comes to a close and when
you ask for the renewal price you get sticker-shock. It's even more
frustrating when it's all-or-none interrelated services from three or
four vendors and only one decides to raise the rent.
Live and learn and in the future do the extra legwork to make your
service contracts at any single location co-terminating.
That is pretty close to my experience. I would say nearly all carriers have billing nightmares and some of them have networks that work well. Best carrier for billing is a bit like asking for the best ice skater in hell.
Exactly, It is unlikely they will ever be able to collect on a debt they do not have documentation to support but that does not stop them from disconnecting your service whenever they want. You might have legal recourse to go after them if they disconnect you but it won’t be fast and it won't give you immediate connectivity. Talk to your lawyers and in the meantime I would be shopping some alternative service for when things get nasty.
