Hawaiian Telcom

Worst customer service! Maybe if I were starting service instead of terminating service they wouldn’t make it so difficult to speak to someone.
Filled out the online form weeks ago, no response
Called and when put on hold, left my number for someone to call me back when available
Got a call back, once they heard I needed to terminate, was transferred and put on hold for half an hour with no option to leave #
Finally a rep answers and says she’s having problems with the system, puts me on hold for another 10 – 15 minutes
Comes back and says she’ll have to call me back later that day or next
Still no call from her, so I call again
Been on hold for almost an hr now, still waiting to talk to someone…
Moving is stressful enough I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to terminate my service? Such a waste of time

Everyone’s bad reviews of Hawaiian Telcom is so true. Tried calling their business sales line 4 times today and just got a recording to hold till someone is available. They must all be drowning in complaints cause I was on hold for 20mins each time with no answer. Can’t believe they’re in business at all. They sure spend a lot of money on all the marketing and advertising but have no customer service. What a waste of time and money… whats the sense of marketing if you can’t help any customers. Good thing there’s options here.

Slow. Broken promises. «Not our fault» mentality.
As everyone knows, HawaiianTel customer support is horrendous. You can’t do anything in-​person as they direct you to phone/​online support. When you call them, you are usually on a long queue.
I contacted HawaiianTel last December on behalf of my grandmother who was experiencing an issue with her landline. She didn’t have a phone service for a month. Everything worked out fine and scheduled a service call. We were instructed that someone should stay at home on the day of service to let the technician in (secure building and on weekend). My grandmother cancelled her plans and stayed home all day expecting a technician to show up. Not a single call. We were promised a follow-​up call but didn’t get any.
Fast forward one month, my grandmother informed me that she still doesn’t have a landline service. I called HawaiianTel again and was informed that technician had «fixed» the problem and cancelled call-​forwarding. I informed the (friendly) lady that at this point, my grandmother had no landline service for roughly three months. She did a remote line check and said there is a fault on the line (again). I refused another service call and asked for service termination along with reimbursement for the duration of no service. Since she was in repair department, I got transferred to the «customer support» department. And that’s when things got really bad.
Apparently HawaiianTel only gives credit for no-​service on days between the day of report and the day of repair. It didn’t even matter if it was documented that my grandmother had no service. They insisted that nothing more could be done since they won’t know if their line is faulty without a report. Ahem. Did I not report this? She said all they could do was to create another service call and get a credit for no-​service between today and «supposed day of service».
I mentioned how unreliable HawaiianTel was from my previous experience (as former customer) and my grandmother’s ordeal. The line was «supposedly» fixed. It was never fixed for all we know. I brought up reliability issues and the «customer support» lady kept on mentioning that a lot of things aren’t in HawaiianTel’s control. When it rains, lines can get damaged. Lines can get damaged from wet concrete, etc etc. I get it. There are certain things that are out of your control. But if the line goes down again within a one-​month time period from supposed repair date, don’t you think that there are underlying reliability/​engineering issues? And HawaiianTel is supposed to be «Hawaii’s technology leader» HAHAHA.
Then she started asking me if I really wanted to cancel her line. She mentioned how secure HawaiianTel’s landline is. Let me paraphrase her: «It’s a secure line because it’s a landline. When you use your cellphone, your signals can get intercepted. That’s why military only uses landline. Our line is encrypted.» I’m an engineer and that made me laugh. What is this? Are you trying to instill fear into your customers? I know that she was sort of trying to convince me away from cancelling the service but wow. This is how you misinform people. And this is exactly how Trump gets his supporters.
Overall, never again with HawaiianTel. Long queue for support. Promises never kept. And general tone that «your service issue is most likely not our fault». It wouldn’t be an exaggeration if HawaiianTel is worse (technology, service) than Comcast or Time Warner from years ago.

At this point I will honestly be surprised if I can complete this message and post it without our internet cutting out in the middle. We are no longer able to watch television (netflix) because the internet is cutting out constantly and we have to restart the modem regularly to be able to access email with our computers.
After several times contacting customer service we had a repair person come out on two occasions (had to take the days off of work to meet them) the problem was resolved but only for a day or so before it started up again. This does not include the repair attempt from a year ago when we found out the interruptions (at that time) were due to the fact that we were paying for a more expensive service than was necessary as it was not currently available in our area (whoopsie, thanks Hawaiian Telecom). At this point we are simply unwilling to take more time off of work so we have not attempted another 1.5 hour phone call to contact costumer service AGAIN to ask for a repair person to come out (who will only be available 3 weeks from now).
During our last phone call we were informed by the customer service rep that they could tell on their end that we are having considerable interruptions in service. I requested that they deduct some of the cost for our bill and they said they would make a note. Of course the last bill came out and they charged us in full for their miserable and borderline useless service. I haven’t heard many good things about Oceanic but at this point we are incredibly grateful to hear that it is now an option in our area. We are working on switching IMMEDIATELY.
Unless you particularly enjoy hold music I recommend you avoid this company at all cost. If I could give this company zero stars I would. The last person who came out to attempt a repair for our service was nice so I guess this one star is for him. Thanks for nothing Hawaiian Telecom.

This company might as well be a massive credit card fraud scam, because that is the effect it will have on your life. Three months ago they charged me the price of a DSL router that I returned when I cancelled my service. This is apparently a feature of their billing system and is expected. They still haven’t reimbursed me!
Good luck getting anyone on the phone. I’ve been on hold for 40 minutes now. Horrific.

You will be lucky to get half the internet speed that you pay for, and the service reps will tell you that much themselves. This company rips people off and give poor excuses instead of the service that you pay for.

TLDR: If your building tells you they offer HT only, don’t do it!
I was very excited when I heard my new apartment has HT fiber and I would be able to enjoy a fiber optic connection and speeds at home. Unfortunately that didn’t last very long.
When I called HT I found out that I could get 21 Mbps through the association as it was some kind of building deal. Alright I thought, maybe I’ll see if I can get a speed upgrade. On the website it says you can get 300 Mbps for $ 59.99. However when I asked about upgrading the speed to this they quoted me $ 200/​month!!! They seriously wanted $ 200 a month for a speed upgrade that should have cost ~¼ that much and would be cheaper if I just went to Oceanic instead.
I’d be more than happy to pay $ 59.99 it says on the website or the upgrade cost, but to charge me $ 200/​month for no reason is completely ridiculous!
Now I’m stuck in the slow lane with HT, thanks for the useless fiber.

Office hours is Monday to Friday 8 – 4:30. We had to use Google to find the office hour.
Parking is located on the corner of Alakea St. and S. Beretania St. The parking lot entry is on Alakea St.
We came around 3pm to return the equipments and got serviced right away. There was no other customer in the office at the time.
The representatives was not very enthusiastic in helping us. She was typing and chatting with her co-​worker at the same time.
After 20 minutes, we finally got out of there.
Overall, we got done what we came there for. But I would not want to come back again if I don’t have to.

The customer service is seriously the worst! I called to get my login info. I was on hold for 40 mins to have the rep tell me he couldn’t help me. Then suggested that get a call back from someone who could. I got a voicemail stating that «your login is ******** or something like that.» What kind of customer service calls someone not knowing the right information!
It makes me want to go back to Oceanic Cable.

Hawaiian telephone continues to add consistently to their reputation with slow service response. No response and lack of attention.

Okay, seriously not a fan at this time but since the repair person, Harry was so nice, I’m giving a four star rating.
My internet had serious problems connecting, so slow and I wondered what happened, again. Harry came by and fixed it and it’s running like a Mercedes… for now.
I had so much problems connecting with a live person, my first appointment was scheduled and the installer didn’t bother to show up. I kept calling and was on hold more more than ½ hour each time five times that day plus the conversations with what was going on etc., left me more than steaming… I missed taking my mom to her dental appointment. Rats.
I swear I sat down and argued for so long that I had developed corns on my butt!
Alls good for now but the next review is because of the television going out, time and time again… I’ll leave it for another time.

After my most recent interaction with Hawaiian Telcom I’m convinced that they’re competing with Time Warner for the award of «Worst Customer Service.» I’ve spent years working in the customer service industry and am continually shocked at the lack of professionalism exhibited by the support staff at Hawaiian Telcom.
Let me preface this by stating from the get go that I’m not your typical angry or combative customer. I’ve been on the other side enough times to know that a lot of these workers deserve the benefit of the doubt.
That said, I called customer service to inquire as to why my internet speeds consistently lag under the advertised speed I purchased with my package. After waiting on hold for a ridiculous amount of time, I was finally connected to someone. I informed the customer rep that in numerous tests over the past few months the internet had consistently been 35%-50% slower than advertised. Her response? She began by reminding me that I «only pay xx. xx per month,» and insinuated that because I’m getting promotional pricing I should be happy with whatever I get. Never mind the fact that their killer promotional price is the same as Oceanic’s standard pricing. She then went on to say that their marketing material clearly states «Speeds up to…» A tidy little disclaimer in my opinion. I asked her if her company was using the same tactic as sly retailers do when they set up a clothes rack that says, «Shirts as low as $ 19.99,» but when you excitedly begin looking through you find that nearly everything on the rack is $ 39.99. She said she didn’t understand the comparison.
Realizing we were going nowhere with that line of questions, I decided to ask about my bill. I wanted to know why there was a charge for a «Wireless Gateway» on my bill. She told me it was for a wireless router. When I told her that I don’t use their wireless router and that I have my own she said that I get charged that fee either way. Seems totally legit, right?
At this point in the conversation the rep decided to try to up-​sell me. Apparently this is the only logical choice after doing such a stellar job of addressing my concerns. She told me that if I want faster internet speeds I should consider upgrading to the High Speed Fiber and TV package. I asked her why I would pay for a more expensive service when their advertised speeds were purely hypothetical to begin with. She assured me that Fiber won’t give me the same problems. When I told her that I don’t want TV service, and that I only want internet, she said that you can only get Fiber with a bundled TV package, so if I want faster internet I have to pay for TV too. At that moment I was looking at their website which showed multiple Fiber internet packages which did not require a TV bundle. When I told her that they clearly have packages that don’t require TV, she got flustered, told me to «hang on,» and then promptly hung up on me.
Needless to say, the only time I plan to call them back will be to cancel my service. After a quick glance at the other reviews on Unilocal,its evident that my experience is hardly unique. Hawaiian Telcom management should consider making some drastic changes in their hiring and training practices.

I’ve had the worst experience ever with this company.
First of all, my internet service goes down at least twice a month so I would call them to fix it but they put me on hold for AT LEAST (I’m not exaggerating) 30 minutes Every single time I call them.
You would think they would fix the problem after making you wait for that long but no!
They give you a promising date that it would start working again by, which is a complete lie.
I don’t ever write reviews but I signed up to Unilocal just to let people know so they don’t have to go through the experience that I had to go through with them.

I give them one star only because my TV cable box is actually working. I called them to find out about internet speed since Netflix seems to always be buffering. I called them two days in a row, on hold for over an hour both times, did the chat option which said I was next in line but kept disconnecting me, and this lasted for 45 minutes before finally sending them an email. Still waiting for a response from my email.
I don’t know why I switched from Time Warner, the extra money I’m saving isn’t worth the hassle of being on hold all the time.

The customer service at HawaiianTel is SO BAD that I just had to post a review. For God’s sakes HawaiianTel, I tried calling you three times in the past two days to get someone to fix my aunt’s phone service (which has been unavailable for like two weeks) and I’ve been on hold for over half an hour every time! Tried using the web chat and as soon as the queue put me at «next in line» I got excited because FINALLY, I was on the phone for HALF AN HOUR and waiting for the chat rep for another HOUR. Went to put my phone away and came back literally 30 seconds later to «Chat service is unavailable»; just my luck, right? Tried again and every time I was «next in line» I got disconnected. Why even offer the web service if you obviously aren’t going to answer anyone through it? I’ve been leaving messages through the chat service page asking them to call me back but I haven’t even received a single email.
Currently on the phone AGAIN to just cancel service and it’s been 7 minutes; no wonder you guys still have customers, it’s because you won’t let them leave!

Hawaiian Telcom appears to give ypu good service, promising great customer serivce and bundle service. it was great until a few months ago our tv programs ftoze and dvr was not recording. After many attempts to contact their customer service via phone, we went in person. By the way (if ypu go in person @ downtown location, be prepared to be ignored while workers chat amongst themselves while there is a. line for help)
If you want to be frustrated with intermittent wifi and extremely poor service, Hawaiian Telcom is the one. We are gonna complain to the BBB as well. Btw be prepated for being on hold for hours and $ 20 for parking with frustation in tow.

This company has no service at all! Terrible. I was on hold for three hours I was trying to start a conversation through chat online. But all agents was useless. I wanted to transfer my service, but now I want just shut it down, if I ever will be connected of course.

I would give Hawaiian Telcom zero stars if I could. I switched from Oceanic to Hawaiian Telcom a few years ago because my Oceanic connection was slow.
Hawaiian Telcom was great until I wanted to switch back to Oceanic due to the increased speeds (which HT admitted they could not match). While I understand that no business wants to lose a customer, the ordeal of cancelling my service has made me actively warn people AGAINST using Hawaiian Telcom.
1. Called to cancel service. Hold time was something ridiculous like 25 minutes, however there was an option to get a callback (yay!)
2. Was called back 40 minutes later. When I told the rep I wanted to cancel my account, the line went dead.
3. Called back again and requested a call back again (25 min. wait again).
4. Was called back 30 minutes later. This time the rep helped me cancel the account. I was told I would be emailed a shipping label to return my modem.
5. Three days later, still no shipping label. Emailed Hawaiian Telcom support, where they claim a «representative will contact you within one business day.» That was three weeks ago and I haven’t heard back.
6. Checked my account online today, and it appears to have NOT been cancelled since I am still being billed!
6. Tried to call them five times today. The first time the line went dead as soon as the call was answered. The 2^nd-​5^th time, after entering my account number, a recording said that they are having «technical difficulty with our voice response system» and the line goes dead.
I have no idea how to proceed at this point. But what I do know is that you should avoid Hawaiian Telcom.

I have no idea what’s happening at Hawaiian Tel but, it’s not good. I’ve had installers that said they contacted us but, they didn’t. My proof is caller ID on both my landline and cell phones. Not only that but, how can you contact someone when you disconnect their phone to move it??? REALLYYYY!!! So I call customer service and after waiting 30+ minutes on the phone they contacted the installers and they said that they are working on the issue. So let me say this. I moved from one condo unit to another unit in the same building and on the same floor. It’s not that hard to move the service and it shouldn’t take ½ a day.
No on my second issue. I come home from a short vacation and now my internet is slow, there is static on my line and I cannot break dial tone. Meaning I cannot call out but, can receive calls. WTH!!! Come on guys lets get it together. I’m still waiting on a call back with my repair information.
The third issue is it’s been 5 weeks since we placed the order to get services in the old condo unit. The first time they said no one answered the phone and reschedule. We’re not happy but did. Now installation was Sept 28, 2015 and we find a note on our door please reschedule because of no access!!! WTH again? Yes no one was home but, the instructions given to customer service was to contact my family NEXT DOOR. They didn’t call either and they were waiting all day. Looks like Oceanic is going to get our business because they’ve had 2 chances and blown them both.
Come on get it together people!

Hawaiian Telcom
My experience– not good!
I have had personal phone service and when there is a problem after paying years of my normal phone bill– no help. Customer service is horrible when I needed something and no apologies from the person on the phone or the company.
When I had to help get a business line, they were more than happy to set up automatic payment — even before the guy installed the phone jack in the wall but it took forever for the guy to get the normal installation done — and who was stuck paying more for the bill? The guy had so many problems installing a normal jack in a normal building that they have installed hundreds of times before.
Unhappy with all of my experiences– problems have even more problems. Anytime I have to deal with them for problems it is 10 X worse talking to customer service.
You are like a public utility– be helpful every-​time there is a caller with a problem.