PeoplePC

We switched from PeoplePC a few months ago. Had been customers for many years, since they first got rolling. Started out as good service, but went downhill steadily. New software versions every year or so, never worked quite right, always a new problem that tech support was never able to solve. Eventually we paid an independent computer tech $150 to come to our house and find out why PPC would connect and then disconnect. Turns out it was some setting their software kept changing back on log-in. We had to manually change it to the right setting every time. They were unable to figure it out, so we paid $150 to get some one else to do it. And of course the problems with SLOW connections. There's so much junk on the home page that it took forever just to check email. I asked them for help removing all the junk and they wouldn't tell me how. Just kept saying there was a problem with the computer. Went through all sorts of things to supposedly speed it up, but none of those were the problem... Read more

Wish that I had read the reviews before I signed up. I was told that it was 7 times faster than regular dial-up. Guess what? 7x0=0 When I cancelled, the speed became even slower (as if that was possible). Coincidence?

PeoplePC is the WORST!!! A bunch of crooks. They started billing me and I never signed up! Called the consumer complaint department at my local TV station. They stopped PeoplePC dead in their tracks after threatening to send a news/camera crew over to interview them. Take this route if you're having problems. IT WORKS!!!

Found this contact information in another thread and want to share. They had charged me for months of service even though I never initiated or used it, and when I called PeoplePC's customer service they told me nothing could be done and they would not refund anything. I then called the following number and they refunded the fraudulent charges for me! Finally! Call Earthlink's executive customer service line [they own PeoplePC] to resolve your issue. 1-866-526-2963 corp headquarters 100 pine street 11th floor San Francisco, Ca 94111 Also be sure to register your complaint with your attorney general, the FTC and BB among others!!!

I opened my account with peoplepc in 2006. I can celled my service in June 2008. I had a bad feeling and logged back into my account today to find out they were still billing me for services that I canceled well over two months ago. I called customer service where I was told there was nothing I could do and the collections department was going to start calling me.

Yeah, they are cheap - for dial up. But, they are just as bad as AOL. You call and cancel, they supposedly give you free months to wean you off of the service, then you are charged all over again. They do not tell you that you have to call back in, again, and cancel all over again. DO NOT give them your bank account information. If you do, when you cancel membership, go into a branch of your bank and change your account number. The reps are all foreign, with very noticeable accents. So, it is often hard to have a conversation with them. And, when you cancel they don't tell you that if you have any problems with them charging you in the future, you are going to need to refer to your cancellation confirmation number. Without this number they state that they cannot help you with the wrongful charges. They just plain give you the runaround, so that they can keep getting money out of you, for a service that is not all that.

Do not I say again Do not open an account with people pc ! After I went through there procedures for canceling my account and even getting a cancellation code from some person in India , People pc still has been deducting funds from my credit card !and yes I advised my cc company of the cancellation and gave them the people pc account number . and yet people pc still deducts. I am forced now to cancel the credit card a get issued new ones due to the acts of this fraudulent company!! So do not sign up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CAN NOT GET THESE PEOPLE OUT OF MY SYSTEM. IT IS NOW MESSING WITH MY NEW WIRELESS PROGRAM. AND THEY CONTINUED TO PULL FEES FROM MY ACCOUNT AFTER CANCELLATION AND REFUSED TO REFUND.MY BANK IS DEALING WITH THEM AT THIS TIME.

PeoplePC took on Highstream accounts. There was supposed to be a free trial month of CallWave's Best service, but there was a hassle and a lot of confusion with the service reps in getting it started. As time went on, we couldn't access our e-mails, or there would be delays in sending e-mails. The worst situation was when our ONLY local access number was discontinued without ANY warning whatsoever! Since we had no long distance carrier on our phone, we couldn't retrieve our e-mail from our home! We demanded and received a one-month credit for all of the hassles. When we asked about why our only local access number was dropped, we were told they were eliminating lots of numbers nationwide, but gave no explanation as to why there was NO warning before the numbers were eliminated. I can't trust PeoplePC after being treated this way!

They are reluctant to cancel you when you ask to be cancelled, and continue to debit your account for services you DONOT want! Then to get your refund? still waiting...They are a nightmare!

I, too, found PeoplePC Online to be shady. I used it for two days in November of 2007 and cancelled two days later or at least, I thought I did. After reviewing my credit card records, it seems that I got dinged in December, January of '08 and February of '08, as well. I googled how to contact them and got an 888 number that seems to have finally worked! I had to mention the Better Business Bureau and the fact that I'm in the IT industry to get the person's attention. Their english was very poor. I didn't stop until I had a confirmation number for cancellation and refunding the money owed. They even lie about their $4.97 for the first 6 months! It's 3! Company is Australian owned by Earthlink. My suggestion? If you want a backup dialup for your high speed, use Juno. I've had it for years and have never had a problem.

Beware of this rip off provider! I cancellled my service last November but my credit card got charged for two months on december 20 2008. I'm just adding my 2 cents to all the other reviewers- see below. And steer clear of this outfit.

I would like to say that people pc is the worse they are so retarded with there service. I got the cd but it would not work for me so when I talked to tech support he tried to help but nothing would work so we both decided it did not work. He did not tell me that they would keep charging me for something I am not using for 4 mos. When I call to get support all I get is people who can not understand me because english is not there first language and they must have took the speedy course to learn it! All people pc want is your money and they find any tricky way to get it! I was only supposed to be charged 10.95 yet my credit card statemnet said 12.00 and I never got any notice on them still charging me or help with why it did not work for my computer or even a notice of rate change. I had just moved after I signed up for it so my mind was on something else not a BACK-STABBING MONEY HUNGRY INTERNET COMPANY! I have never heard of a company that charges you for something THAT YOU ARE NOT EV... Read more

PeoplePC is an unscrupulous company. They have tried to charge me for service even though I was never a customer of theirs, claiming that since I once was a highstream.net customer, I'm now their customer.

I gave peoplepc a 1 because I couldn't give it a 0. Tech support by email can take weeks to send a reply. Then when they do reply they just send a copy and paste of a question from their faq, which of course doesn't answer my question. I'm also positive that the tech support is run by people who failed preschool as they don't seem to have any knowledge of their own software nor of computers in general. They have yet to help my even a tiny bit. They also require that you use their dialer to connect to the internet. This can be bypassed but not without some effort. (if you want to know how to do this go to linuxforums.org and look up all my posts (a10) in linux newbie forum) Also I'm unable to log onto their website with my CORRECT USERNAME AND PASSWORD! Their software leaks memory like no other. It must have been coded by monkeys. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE USE PEOPLEPC!!!

I use peoplepc for email with another ISP's broadband connection, thus am not familiar with its dialup qualities (we got transferred over from highstream.net when it sold its dialup business). I've found a few things: - email connection is functionally steady, tho there are a lot of can't receive POP3 messages - phone customer support is in India and spotty at best, depending on whom one gets (anyone ever meet a "Shirley" in India?) - email customer/tech support is nonresponsive, either simply by not responding or by always replying that one's question requires a call, when it clearly doesn't - WebMail works but its design is decidedly second rate, with standard functions missing, screen placement of links substandard, and some options taking out others (e.g., sort by date and next/previous link disappears).

PeoplePC; ok  service for $11.00 /mo. But..............................if you wanna cancell the ph # will ruin your cell ph budget minutes, wait forever. E mails don't work...........Wanna cancel? Call your credit card co. and report a lost card.......peoplepc will continue to bill but you wont get billed and they're too stupid to cut you off.. Too many damn foeigners....HABBIB, or Khababbdaloub.........as operators....  other option........disguise yourself as a tech and destroy their server room.

Once signed up, people pc is impossible to cancel without a repetitive fight, both directly and through my credit card company. Their phone line is always busy, once I got through they promised to cancel my account but still charging me afterwards. I'm still fighting to get my money back and close this account.

What a scam! Not to mention the poor internet service.

Stupid!!!!Moronic!!!!Worse dialup ever used Thought AoL was bad Don't use

Now I'm no stranger to bad dialup companies. I was in on the NetZero wagon back when they swore an oath to keep the Internet free by never restricting or charging for their service, and slowly going from having an insane (covered 1/5th of the screen) ad banner to only allowing free access for 40 and then 20 hours a month to just plain charging everyone and forgetting that whole sworn oath thing. For a few years I was a happy customer of Bluelight.com, and despite their ad banner being irritating, they still generally provided a nice stable service. For about a year and a half, I had neither computer, nor desire to obtain one, but as I prepared to go off to college, I picked up a laptop to use as both home computer and school notebook. Being as I only paid 100$ for the laptop and was only using it for school, I saw no reason at the time to buy high-speed internet (that and BellSouth's DSL service had still left a bad taste in my mouth), and as I refuse to pay a dime to AOL and due to my... Read more

Earthlink should be ashamed of themselves. This is the worse ISP ever. my dial up speed was never over 20 kphs... They outsource the call center - where people with fake names answer the phone. Customer service is horrible as is technical support. Horrible horrible horrible. Not worth it even if it was free.

Stay away from PeoplePC ! ! ! They have a long history of fraud,deceitful advertising and software problems. Their installation disc messed up my computer, and when I called on 3 different occasions to request a refund they put me on hold and never returned to me. For a great article on them go to: www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp? articleID=10823

called Monday evening (this is Wed. a.m.) to get info and neglected to check this company out. I am disabled and was simply trying to save money; Cust. Srv. gave me the wrong information right from the beginning and talked me into 3-months at $4.97. 1st tech couldn't help with hookup so told me to get local telephone company to help..(where is he from??) and then get a computer tech to do it? (duh..why was I calling *him* and a pc tech would cost minimum of $100 to come to my home??) I called back to cancel order but was ignored, that another tech would help. Meanwhile 1st tech told me to turn Norton AV off; thank goodness it was set to come back on w/in 15 minutes because it blocked FOUR viruses/worms--on PeoplePC's sites!!! Beware of this!! 3 more techs later..and horrible experiences where I couldn't understand them, they couldn't understand me--the tech just told me to uninstall it with "add-delete". That will NOT do it..I went into my files and deleted PeoplePC files. That didn't ... Read more

don't try to cancel,all they do is lie and start to charge you again later. they use the aol pitch. they say you are cancelled then don't charge you for a couple of months,then they charge you again with out your knowledge and hope you don't catch it.

I am so sorry to hear about all of the misfortunes with this Company. I was just getting ready to sign up for it and something told me to check the reviews. Thank God I did!!!! You all have saved me a lot of future stress.

i work for peoplepc. and i am ashamed by some of these comments. i have been involved in coaching there and all i can do is apoolgize. internet service SHOULD be easy. and when i am there, i take supervisor calls as honestly as i can be. i cant speak for everyone there (and there are some call center junkies who are rude, irrogant and MEAN) but i try by best to get internet service to you guys. and i personally think that the internet destroyed modern America. so, to be able to still have pride in selling it must mean i stand behind the company.

I’m on the road a lot and decided peoplepc fit my needs. Things worked fine until they somehow dropped their Dodgeville Wisconsin local access number. I have called tech support and each time they said the problem would be fixed within 24 to 48 hours. After 4 weeks and not fixed I talked to several supervisors and they told me the problem would be fixed. Still it has not been fixed plus the unavailable number remains on their auto-dialer. Peoplepc won’t even reply back to me. When I’m told something would be fixed I expect it to be followed through instead of being lied to. After some research I see their dial-up number was actually earthlinks number and not peoplepc number. I feel this is fraud for not being told the number was earthlink and misled at believing it was peoplepc. They have left a bad taste in my mouth after being a loyal customer.

Mine is a complicated story, I haven't cancelled yet, but all the comments here aren't pushing me towards doing so. They gave me a 2 month free trial, and the service was slow and I called and they wanted me to pay $2/min for 30 minutes tech support calls! She gave me an extra 2 months and I pay a discounted rate of 8.95/mo. I noticed several dollars worth of erroneous charges on my local phone service bill all made to directory assistance, which I have never used in my life. I just bought internet safety software and guess who put their "smart dialer" on there and has been hiking up my local phone bills???I love it...

Tech & customer support is in India, neither can speak english very well, tech support can't fix anything and knows even less about computers. However are very adept at appologizing and finding reasons why they cannot help you. You'd better have the credit card number you used to pay for the service or you're screwed. The ATM card I paid for the service with broke 8 months ago and I was issued a new one (different card number)but without the card number, India wouldn't help my 76 YO mother. PeoplePC bought GBR Online (great service) and destroyed them. After two weeks I cancelled PeoplePC and moved Mom over to Toast.net, possible the best kept secret on the internet.

PeplePC has recently quired GBRonline.com and all their account are being tranferred unless reqested otherwise. I have outstanding time left on my prepaid year. Despite this I was charged 10.95 and then when I requested a credit to my card, I was instead issued a check which I have still not seen! I complained about this and how when one uses a credit card it is policy to credit on same card. Second, the software I was mailed and installed did not work properly intalling acess number as 555-555-5555 and not a password. Tech support was awful and they did not listen or settle my request to get things up and running. They do not understand basic things like the difference between the pronouncing of the number 9 or 5. Can't spell basic English words. Very frustrating!!!!!!!!!!!!! Last, after NUMEROUS call over many days speding 2 hours on phone I have given up as I still cannot acess my account information. THIS THE WORST ISP I HAVE EVER USED. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME AND ENERGY ... Read more

Frances, if I were you, I'd do two things. First, call your credit card company (there is an 800 number on your statement) and dispute the charge to PeoplePC, reversing the charge to your credit card. They will reverse one month's charge to you and let the magazine know that you've lodged a dispute. Then, I'd look up, in their magazine, the name and business address of the editor of PeoplePC, and copy/paste what you've written below, asking for any help he can give. Send it via e-mail, and follow it up using snail mail, requesting he respond to your letter personally. Then, I'd keep my friends on RIA posted on what's happening. Good luck.

I am going through a Nightmare... My husband died the first of the year. I sat down with all my accounts and tried to decide where I could save a penny. PeoplePC is only $10.95/month - but $131.40/year is a help when money is tight and I didn't need it, so I picked up the telephone as per their instructions for cancelling... Very nice man answered. He was little 'hard-sell' but appeared to be professional and caring. Talked me into suspending the account for a couple of months to see 'how things were going to go'. Unfortunately, I did not write down who I talked to. 3 months later, the charge is on my credit card bill again. I let it go a month, then called to cancel. Unfortunately, I did not write down who I talked to again. So I called this morning - my first day off from a new job - the first chance I've had to call. Spoke to 'Frankie' who told me I would have to call back next week as my account was in 'transition' and he could not access it. Seems they are updating their billi... Read more

All the reviews that state you MUST use the PeoplePC software are lies. I just signed up 2 days ago, and did not use the software. It was very simple. In the username field, put (yourusername)@peoplepc.com I suppose most people don't include the @peoplepc.com? Could this cause a problem? Anyway, this ISP is satisfactory, for me at least. I don't fool with the email, I prefer my Gmail account. The point is that PeoplePC offers a low-cost option that does what it should, and only that. Connect to the internet. No fancy software or browser required.

When I call to get some info about if I'd needed any thing special to get this service. The first thing they asked me for is for my credit card number. I told the lady that before I'd sign up is there any software needed to be installed, would my computer be able to handle it. But she ignored me and kept asking for my credit card number over and over again. So I hunged up on her and said to hell with peoplepc. I've got Verison and am happy with there service. I also reccomed to all my family and freinds not to bother with peoplepc. Screw them!

I think their tech people are high school dropouts

I am the IT Director for a small IT Consulting firm based in Florida, so I have deal with ISPs of all sorts on a daily basis. I was so disgusted with People PC that I felt it my civic duty to post this thread. I was tasked with servicing a clients laptop who had People PC, much to my dismay the software can not be downloaded unless you have there login credentials. If it were up to me I would just set it up with DUN and be done with it, but I have been told that you need there software to connect but I have not verified that because my client would like there dialer software (all I can do is think to my self, WHY!). So I went on my quest for there software, I was lucky enough to get some one on the line for there customer dis-service line, and was thrilled with there total lack or professionalism and sense of technical knowledge when it came to answering a question that was not on the display in front of them. So I was transferred to there technical support line. Again, I was fortun... Read more

I, too, made several attempts at installing the PeoplePC software from the mailed CD and never managed to make it work. But, unlike AOL, it didn't give me such problems as to have to reinstall Windows completely. I called them, got the Dial-Up number and was up and running in minutes. You do NOT need to use their software (nor with MSN, AOL or any other isp that uses a Mickey Mouse browser). WARNING: PEOPLEPC CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH YOUR CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD NUMBER! I accepted the free trial for a month but found it difficult to connect. When I did connect, I was lucky to get much more than 20kbps and the connection was dropped frequently. I found an alternative isp and called to cancel PeoplePC before the end of the trial period. The lady who took my call was friendly enough and offered me a further two-month extension but I declined. Now, almost four months later, I get a call from an annoyingly rude man in Pasadena telling me my payments are being bounced. When I start to explai... Read more

type business location and detailed complaint Peoplepc internet service. My complaint started apparently back in October. My husband and I live in a very ruraly area. We decided to look for a new ISP. Well, we saw the commercial and started to download peoplepc. The download was acting all messed up, so we cancelled the installation and then cleaned our PC of all other people pc software. Since then,on Dec. 13th, we have cancelled service, dealing with a customer rep that would not take no for an answer until she realized that there were no local access numbers for me. I then re-explained that I wanted a refund of my $15.95. Well then she said that because the account was cancelled, they couldn't refund the money. Well then I asked to speak to a supervisor. When Danielle got on the phone, she told me the same story. I told her that wasn't in the terms of agreement. She continued to refuse my money back after I explained to her that I NEVER logged into the account. She then told me tha... Read more

Alternative to America Online you asked? Well, this one of the few I can find thanks to TV commercial overplay. Unlike Gateway which had the Gateway.net Internet service installed in their computers, former personal computer maker PeoplePC got out that business to provide the people an alternative. This must explain why the name PeoplePC remains in use. Either that or the heads of the company viewed a name change as something too risky. Now to the ISP: New customers begin their journey with a half price discount, $5.95 to be exact. We were also given the choice of the basic service or People PC Online Accelerated. Most would likely choose the basic service to be on the simple, easy, and cheap side. Yep, there's a welcome screen (news, local weather, horoscope) but it's not your browser to explore the World Wide Web. Internet Explorer handles that job, along with Outlook Express. Members can also send their electronic mail online, an extra alternative mostly for those who have trouble w... Read more

PeoplePC wants you to use their softare, which I don't like, but overall, this is a stable provider. The only reason I don't rate them higher is they are VERY pushy if you decide to leave. Similar to the big guys.

Was an Earthlink customer for past 12 months, sought something cheaper. Heard about PeoplePC but I wish I had first read reviews here. The bad reviews listed are all accurate. They do make you use their software to access internet, and yes it is full of advertising and spyware. I use dial up when away from home, and DSL when home. However, the PeoplePC software interferes constantly with my DSL connection when at home, and when away from home it is useless because you cannot find out what numbers they have available to dial without first having an internet connection... forget about trying to call their customer support, particularly after hours. I spent six calls and was on hold on each for an average of 45 mins. They only answered the phone during 2 of those calls. The shortest I was on hold was 20 mins. Overall very poor customer support, very poor service, loads of spyware... I'm going elsewhere. (Oh, did I mention that they have the gall to charge $1.99 per minute for customer sup... Read more

If your paying them for service, and they also force ads on you, it means they are getting paid for the sevice twice. Once by you, and once by the advertisers. Also, why do they require you to install thier software, ANY dailup ISP could offer you connection with the simple Preloaded internet software that newer versions of windows and Macs come with. beware of any company that forces you do do things, lets keep in mind who the customer is here. Bellsouth provides dailin access fo 5.95 a month, and it uses a simple dailer with NO popups or other unneeded, / unwanted software required. Some people may not realize it, but all that software allows them to closly monitor your activities,,,why??? Lets just say, there is more than one ISP that is less than 10 bucks, and a good share of them do not serve popups, or for that matter ANY unwanted material.

Service has gone downhill since they started advertising on TV. Frequent disconnections are the norm. Recently they suspended me with no warning. Saying I was sending out spam mail-- which I am not. The 10.95 is for a 12 month; otherwise it is 12.95 per month. After 8 years we are parting ways.

This company loaded my system with spy and ad-ware. No excuse for such deviousness. And they want me to pay for the priviledge? I've cancelled my account with these characters.

I have signed up with a free trial period with PeoplePC and have been trying them for about 2 weeks. So far no problems. The software installed easily and caused no problems with my system. I am still on a rural 56k dial-up and the connections I achieve are always 45+ to 50,666. No busy signals. Cost is 1/2 of my current ISP. So I am strongly thinking of switching over.

Stay away from PeoplePC!!! I had lots of trouble with their software. After the installation could not connect, but the computer was transformed in their own fashion. UGLY! Dumped everything and will cancel the subscription tomorrow!

Even though this service is not near as good as AOL or even MSN, it is definately #3. Not bad for what you pay for. They need more phone numbers, and they need more billing options. Other than that, they would be 4 stars !

Don't even get me started on PeoplePC. This ISP server is the worst nightmare I've ever had the misfortune of coming across. When I prepaid my full year in advance, there was no mention of being flooded with pop-up ads! worse yet one third of those pop-up ads are to teenage porn sites! I can't even allow my children to use my computer any more because of these ads. Also like the other rating on here says PeoplePC drops carrier on you in one hour, and I have lost money because of this. I won a jackpot bingo one night and just as I was about to cash out PeoplePC dropped carrier on me, Thank goodness the bingo site I play at was very understanding and paid me for my jackpot. I have been in the middle of making a purchase online and again PeoplePC drops carrier on me, screwed up my whole order. When I e-mail my complaints to PeoplePC they don't even bother to anwser my e-mails. Does any one know of any way I can get them to refund the remainder of my years payment, I wouldn't have sign... Read more

I've had PeoplePc for 3 years and until recently I was happy with it. I set up my dial-up connection by myself without installing their software, and everything worked just fine. However, in December they decided that people would no longer be able to log on without downloading and installing their software. There is no way around that now becasue as soon as your computer connects, the browser pops up and the PeoplePc download screen appears. It basically locks you out of the internet until you download and install their software. I went ahead and downloaded the software against my better judgement. I don't like giving control of my PC to anyone other than myself, and their software pretty much took over my PC. In fact it made so many changes on my computer that the computer no longer ran properly and had to be reformatted because just uninstalling didn't take it out all the pieces from all over the computer. For anyone who doesn't mind companies taking over their computers (AO... Read more