Business ProfileforSanta Rosa Telephone Cooperative, Inc.

Santa **** forced our small business (***'s Cafe in *********) into a multi year contract due to incoming competition (Windstream) in order to stop us from moving our business to a soon incoming competitor. Having no other choice we were forced into this contract at a much higher rate than the incoming provider. We agreed to this and much later into the contract due to extreme staffing shortages we were forced to go out of business, however Santa **** kept ** locked into paying for this account for months until we finally decided to lease this property to a new owner. When we tried to switch the services into the new owners name, Santa **** said they would not allow us out of our contract unless the new owners signed a new like contract (they only had a year lease). When they stated they would be glad to sign a year lease, Santa **** stated they will accept new service but also require us to continue paying for a service that we would no longer have access to as the new owners would have their own service turned on at the property. While understandably upset at this double dipping, we had no choice but to keep the services in our name and have the new business use a phone number associated with another business. In June, a new business took possession of the property and services for approx. 3 months before staffing issues led them to go out of business also. Then in September of this year (4 months later) despite never missing a payment, Santa **** noticing the business closed decided to breach our contract, charge us $3,438.31 and close our acct. After confronting management at Santa **** to restore the services immediately and the funds to our account as it was due to reopen under new management October 1st of this year, they refused. I attempted to escalate the issue to higher management and was told the best they'd do is restore services and give us the next 2 years at no charge for the monies the fraudulently removed from our account, keeping our cafe closed.

Hello ***, we are sincerely sorry that you feel like Bud Cafe's situation has been mishandled. We are always upfront & honest with ALL customers (past, current, and future.) Business customers are not required to sign annual contracts, but they are optional to receive a monthly discounted rate on their services. All contracts signed by our customers include details regarding early termination, billing, and payments. While we cannot publicly discuss specific contracts, agreements, or accounts for privacy reasons, we would love the opportunity to resolve this privately with Bud Cafe's authorized party.

This seems very DISHONEST and intentionally misleading as our complaint has nothing to do with the signed contract, but rather the breach of contract on your end leading to the stolen funds from our account. Also a poor attempt to placate my wife and I as we have been attempting for weeks to solve this privately and have been the only AUTHORIZED party doing the reaching out. As a disabled veteran and retired police officer married to a Christian missionary immigrant to this nation we seem to be the only honest party at this table and still willing to forgive your company's infractions once you correct this wrong. Since no one we seem to be able to get a hold of has been interested in resolving this, perhaps the person rubber stamping this same response everywhere can reach out to us privately if you are an AUTHORIZED party able to act for the company. We will remain vigilant in collecting our stolen funds and continue to keep an open door until this is resolved.