Did Google Fiber mysteriously cancel you? KC customers say accounts were ‘deleted’

Some Google Fiber and Fiber TV customers in the Kansas City area say their service has been mysteriously disrupted and their accounts deleted.

It is unclear how widely the disruptions struck or how many customer accounts may have been closed. Customer service representatives have told some customers that the impact is “widespread” and the problem given priority.

“We’ve received your cancellation request — we’re sorry to see you go!” said an email notification Google Fiber sent to one area resident Tuesday afternoon.

Julie L., who asked not to be identified publicly “because the internet is weird,” saw the email on her phone. She had not canceled her service.

She tweeted about her service cancellation email roughly an hour after the email had arrived. “Massive @GoogleFiber outage in #KansasCity,” her tweet said, “including us.”

Another customer tweeted that he’d had the same problem.

“Called and said they have been flooded with calls about this in the last 30 minutes,” Jorge Orta said in his Twitter post.

In an emailed statement Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Google Fiber said the problem hit some customers in Kansas City and beyond.

“Earlier today, we became aware that some customers across the country incorrectly received notification that their service was being canceled. We’re working to correct this as quickly as possible and get our customers back online. We’re still investigating the initial cause and will be taking steps to make sure this does not happen again,” the statement said.

Kansas City resident Rob Perschau said he unexpectedly lost Google Fiber and Fiber TV service Tuesday. After trying to troubleshoot the problem himself, Perschau called customer service and was told by a representative that customer accounts had been deleted.

“He said they can’t do anything about it right now, but they’ve got all these customers that have been accidentally deleted and they’re working on it,” Perschau said.

Perschau asked whether it was something customers had done and the Google Fiber representative told him it was “an error on our part.”

The customer service representative said Google Fiber hoped to restore service by sometime Tuesday night, “which is astounding, really,” Perschau said.

Julie L. used her phone to check on her Google Fiber account’s status Tuesday afternoon and was notified that service could be restored that evening.

She had called customer service earlier in the afternoon and was on hold about 15 minutes, which she said was unusual.

“They’re pretty quick if you call in. The lady I spoke with said it’s a known issue that they were just now discovering. They’ve moved it to a priority one, she said. They don’t know the cause right now,” Julie L. said.

This story was originally published December 11, 2018 at 4:51 PM.