Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/11/2022

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We are franchised hotel called the Clarion Inn & Suites UT210 (Choice Hotels). We are a customer for their wifi guest support and have been since 2019 at which time we provided them access to our wifi equipment and passwords. Hospitality Wifi is a qualified vendor for Choice Hotels International. On June 30, 2022, we contacted their customer service department and were transferred to **** ****** in the accounting department. We let her know that we were no longer a choice hotels property and we would like to cancel our service. **** canceled our service before the end of the day and locked us out of access to our own equipment. At that time, all our internet was down and we were no longer able to use our front desk computer to operate the hotel. We contacted a local IT company (Symtec) to help us get the internet back after not getting help from the technical support dept of Hospitality WiFi. Symtec contacted Hospitality WiFi on multiple occasions that day to obtain passwords to our access points and switch that Hospitality WiFi locked us out. After 3 full days of troubleshooting by Symtec, We were told that we would have to replace all the equipment which would have cost approximately $4500. A final attempt was made to obtain passwords to Hospitality Wifi at which time a manager at Hospitality WiFi was able to provide Symtec with the passwords. We are displeased with the incompetence of the Hospitality WiFi technical support department. We were charged $2067 for the days spent to regain access to our access points that could have obviously been resolved within minutes. We are seeking reimbursement for the costs of obtaining access to our own equipment to get internet on for our staff as well as guests. We refunded our guests for the downed internet issue which cost us $1750 in lost revenue over the long 4th of July weekend. It seemed that Hospitality WiFi was more focused on leaving for the weekend than helping their clients.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/03/2022

  [BBB Transcription via Email]

  From: **** ******* <****************************>
  Date: Tue, Aug 2, 2022, 5:16 PM
  Subject: FW: Response to ID: ******** Customer Complaint to the BBB - Investigator ******** ******
  To: ***************** <*****************>
  Cc: *** ******** <*****************************>, ******* ****** <***************************>, **** ******* <****************************>, ***** ***** <*************************>
  
  
  To whom it may concern:
  
   
  
  Hospitality WiFi received a cancellation of services request from ***** **** on 6/30/2022 (email evidence attached).
  
   
  
  The two people who would have normally reached out to try and save the account, ****** ****** (Sales Rep) & ******* ******** (CHI Program Manager), were both out of the office that day.  When Alicia heard about the situation…she was on vacation but, she attempted to call ***** back anyway.  However, the call wasn’t going through (email evidence attached).
  
   
  
  It’s important to note that the customer network was already in place before we took over the management of the network in 2019 (we didn’t install it).  There may have been intricacies to the network that we were unaware of.  For example…they could have had their front and back office connected without our knowledge…or they could have had VLANS setup on the switches that we were unaware of.  Thus, the potential for network issues…especially if they had a 3rd party IT company come in and start working on the network, who was unfamiliar with it.  Just a simple move of one cable or another could have caused all of these issues to happen.  Since we were not onsite…we would not know what caused these issues.
  
   
  
  As you can see from the trail of emails attached.  At the customer’s request to cancel that day…we followed his request to cancel that day.
  
   
  
  You can also see that when accounting reached out to the tech support team, they confirmed that they just removed their info from our Control Panel and changed the status of the property to “Not Supported”.  This just removes the properties network from our Control Panel and tell ours Support team that the property is no longer supported.
  
   
  
  We may have turned off the network authentication through our radius server…but that is part of the request to remove them from our support services.  If we turn off radius server authentication…the gateway should still authenticate locally.  So, this should not have shut off the network either.  They could have just removed our gateway from the equation and installed another one…if they or their IT company knew what to do.
  
   
  
  So, in short, we did not lock them out or keep the passwords from them in any way.  If they would have asked for the passwords ahead of time…we would have provided them.
  
   
  
  Most of the time, when a customer is cancelling services…they either get the passwords ahead of time…or they have a plan in place to re-acclimate the network to a new provider after it’s removed from service (like swapping out the gateway etc…).
  
   
  
  In this case, it sounds like they cancelled service…and when they brought in a local company to help them…they didn’t have a good plan…and ultimately ended up calling and asking for the passwords…Which we provided.
  
   
  
  Unless they provide names, dates and times of who didn’t give them passwords…or who locked them out of the network…I can only go off of the documentation I have currently…which is attached.
  
   
  
  I don’t see any reason, in this situation, that we would be responsible for something we didn’t cause.
  
   
  
  In fact, if we wanted to be bad guys, we could have charged them for the remainder of their contract which would have been over a thousand dollars for the remaining 9 months.
  
   
  
  In conclusion:
  
  They were imperative that their services needed cancelled immediately that day to avoid future billing.
  We obliged them, by cancelling their services that day.  We usually drag this out and try to convince our customers to stay with us…but this wasn’t the case, due to their persistence in cancelling that day.
  They did not ask for any passwords prior to cancellation.
  If they would have, we would have provided them.
  The voice mail said they had 2 internets…their personal one for the back office and their one through Hospitality WiFi (I’m using their words).
  That is not correct.  They had 1 Internet…and the guest network just had access to that Internet through their Guest Network equipment.  We never turned off anyone internet connection.
  They didn’t notify us of any issues onsite until 2 days after cancelling service.
  By this time, if they called into support…they may have not been provided support initially…because we had marked them as “Not Supported”.  This should have forced them to reach out to Alica, Cheryl, ****, Darrell…or even myself.  It looks like they did reach out to **** while she was on vacation…and she connected them with the support team to help…which they did.
  After they had trouble resolving their issues…they asked for the passwords.  They say a “manager” approved this…however, I haven’t been able to locate that manager yet.  Who was it?
  Regardless…when requested, we provided the passwords.
  Finally, after receiving their costs from the local IT company, and issuing refunds for upset guests due to not having Internet…they just went directly to the BBB instead of trying to resolve things with us.
   
  
  Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns!
  
   
  
  Sincerely,
  
  **** *******
  
  Chief Operating Officer