Thank you for choosing Midwest Telecom / Midwest Internet Services & Family Of ISPs for your internet service solution!  We hope that you will remain a customer for many years to come!  We would like to take this moment to explain our policies, in the case that you "quickly overlooked" them during signup.  Please take the time to read over this section completely before going on with our service, and before calling into support or the Main office.

Account Setup Process for NEW Customers

If you signup via your checking account or credit card with an Authorized Agent,  your basic connection will be activated automatically, and available to use within 2 minutes.  E-Mail and acceleration software will be active later by midnight the same day, as your username has to settle on our servers.  Feel free to call the phone support office for assistance setting up your internet connection on your computer or use the web walkthroughs available on the CUSTOMER SUPPORT CENTER HOME PAGE

Make sure that you allow 1 business day to activate accelerators and e-mail service.  These services are activated immediately after manual review of your account and in some cases, a confirmation/verification call. If you do not have either service activated within 2 business days contact support immediately with a ticket requesting to activate the services.  We all make mistakes, but we do our best to keep things in order.  Please avoid calling until you've submitted a request online and allowed requested time.

Using the Support Channels

We provide 24 hour connection setup assistance via telephone.  This is primarily to help you get setup and able to connect to the internet.  The Sales & Support Helpdesk will assist with signing up, but if you have the ability, its best, and faster for you to do so online yourself, and then call the helpdesk afterwards.  This way instead of the phone agent having to relay info back to you, when you've submitted the order, all your account info will show on your page, and you can easily print for your records, and having instant access to our system.

If you need to request an e-mail account, accelerator, or anything other than inquiring about your initial dialup connection, we ask that you use the support ticket submission form first available through www.mtgweb.net .  All request are handled in the order received in the same business day, unless submitted after 7pm.  Phone support does not handle these issues, only the main office, and the main office does not do this by phone unless the manager on duty is performing a callback on your issue.  You may call Phone support to submit the issue for you, but this will not expedite the issue.  They will simply enter the ticket for you and allow the account managers to modify your account in the order all requests come in.  Confirmation of non-connection issues is sent by email after completed, if an email address is on file.  If your issue is about your email setup, its best to just try logging into email the next morning after you signed up.  The password will be the same as your dialup account.

If you cannot connect to service, and its a reason other than 691.  Anything outside of the 600 range error code are serious network issues.  We like to know of these immediately.  Call 314-329-3030 Ext. 7 immediately and explain the issue to either a live manager in the main office or leave a message.  We check into outages as soon as we are notified.

Our phone messaging system is not like most.  Our system notifies the manager on duty via Text Message, that someone has left a message.  We will then review the message, and act accordingly.  Please be advised, we do not perform call backs on upgrades.  We simply perform the upgrade, and send a confirmation email to the default email address on file.

Please be sure to check out the customer support center at least once a month to look for any updates to our accelerator, updates, changes to our service, and other news.  This is especially important in December, March, June, and August of each year as these months are when we post quarterly news, and end of year/new year changes.  The customer support center is accessible by going to www.mtgweb.net and clicking "Customer Support Center"

IMPORTANT - DO NOT CALL THE MAIN OFFICE DIRECTLY ABOUT YOUR ISSUE IF YOU HAVEN'T TALKED WITH CUSTOMER SUPPORT FIRST.  THE MAIN OFFICE IS NOT STAFFED 24/7 AND AND NOT FOLLOWING PROPER CHAIN OF COMMAND CAN CAUSE DELAYS IN RESPONSE.

Monthly Billing for Services

ALL PAYMENTS SHOW ON YOUR BILL AS - MIDWEST INTERNET SERVICES -  The parent company is Midwest Telecom Group, Inc and the parent company manages all brands on this site.

Our services are based off monthly authentication and set billing cycles.  We do not offer anniversary or adjusted (prorated) billing for those who signup during the middle or end of a month.  You are charged for the current month at the time of signup, and a payment is processed near the end of each month to cover the upcoming month.  We do offer custom payment plans, but plan pricing may not be the same as those in our regular cycle.

The month-end payments are prepaid on the 24th of the month, which pay for the upcoming month.  This does NOT mean your cycle is the 24th.  If you signup and authenticate our network on the 24th up until the end of the mouth, you will still be charged for the current month, and the upcoming month* Billing cycle, and usage times are measured on GMT +0 Time.  After the first month of service, you will only see a single charge on your account on the 24th of the month for the monthly service fee.

*Premium Level Customers may refer customers to receive either credits or monthly billing adjustments.  Send a support request to request more info on our referral programs.

Setting Up the Service - Compatibility

We have a complete online reference for setting up your computer using windows based operating systems.  Since we do not require software to use our service, you may use any operating system (OS) to access our network that accepts PPP Protocol.  The only thing you need is the FULL username  (jonsmith@mtgweb.net) from our network, password, and local access numbers from our carrier list.  Make sure that you signed up for a plan that has local access numbers for your area.  Premium and Platinum Plus subscribers may user ANY number on our access list.  By using the tutorials, and following our instructions, you should be able to setup your account without assistance within 5 minutes.

Premium users also have access to SlipStream SP accelerator.  This, along with an e-mail account, is setup within 24 hours of signup.

E-Mail is web based only.  If you plan to use e-mail make sure that you are checking your mail often, and not using our e-mail account as an external storage area.  Make sure when you delete e-mails that you also purge them from the server as the trash can does count against your mailbox capacity.  The mailboxes will max out once capacity is reached, and new e-mail will not be delivered.  All primary e-mail accounts are provisioned with 20MB.

By Default, our services have been setup to work with Windows Based operating systems.  Experienced users who can setup a Dialup Networking account in Linux, Mac, and WebTV can also use our service, BUT we only support windows based systems.  If you signup with an authorized partner that supports Mac, you may need to consult them if you need assistance setting up your computer.

Acceptable Usage Guidelines

We expect that you will only use the internet through our servers for lawful means.  Enough said on this matter.  Users are expected to use the web and disconnect with not using the service.  At no time are you allowed to login and leave your connection on, or use an auto-dialer to force your computer into a "keep alive" action.  We monitor our network for usage patterns, time used daily, and byte transfers.  Unless subpoena is issued by the government, we do not watch monitor actual use of service.

Midwest Telecom provides service to RESIDENTIAL (Home or Personal Use) users only, we do not provide accounts to businesses, nor allow an account to be used primarily for business.  We run an unmetered access shared port pool, which means when you aren't using the internet, you must disconnect to allow sharing of the modem pool.  If you are found to be leaving your connection on, and you exceed 8 hours a day, we reserve the right to cap your account.

Please do not misinterpret unlimited internet as "Stay connected all day long even when not at the PC"  as this is referred to as DEDICATED SERVICE.  Users that attempt to use the service on a dedicated level will be terminated, or given the opportunity to purchase a dedicated level account at $45 per month.

As of 2/14/2008 the national average user is actually online around 1-2 hours a day for non business and non school use.  We take this into consideration, in addition to allowing a generous additional amount of time when monitoring accounts for misuse.  Accounts online more than 8 hours a day total will be monitored.  Our session limit is 4 hours.  The service will disconnect at this point.  If you ACTUALLY need to be online a bit more, you can always reconnect.  But please be courteous, and only be connected when actually at your computer.

Canceling Service - IMPORTANT

We hate to see you go, but if you must make sure you do so properly to avoid complication.

Cancellations that are not in before the 20th of the month are not guaranteed final processing before the upcoming billing cycle on the 23rd.  All of our customers are charged around the 23rd of the month for pre-billing.  This is about 7 days before the end of each month, and allows clearing of payment for the upcoming months service.  This is standard for all customers regardless to when they originally sign up for service.  Service is billed on a per-calendar month basis.

Per our policy, we REQUIRE that you cancel by the 20th, to avoid being charged again.  Once we receive your request via our support system, a ticket is automatically created, and the account managers are made aware.  We may not cancel the account immediately if you complete this early in the month, but it should be cancelled, and you receive a notice by the 21st.  Sometimes mistakes do happen, and if you haven't received cancellation notice by the 21st, call us and leave a message with the management department.  ( 1-800-868-1934 Ext. 7 )

To Cancel Service, It is easiest way is to use the cancellation form on the support website.  This is the ONLY way we accept cancellations.  The support center does not have access or authority to terminate an account by phone, and neither will the main office.  There is no way around this.  None.  No cancellations will be accepted by phone via ANY department.  For more than 7 years, we have done it this way to avoid problems with "he said she said" cases when things are done by phone.  Per our terms, you are required to use our methods of cancellation in-house.  We do our best to reduce risks on both the customer and our side, and in order to keep this balance, we ask that you cooperate with our terms.  You will be held responsible for all actions when it comes to properly canceling your account, including financially responsible if you improperly do so.

Charging back with the bank. 

Due to issues with customers who claim to not recognize our charge for their service in the past, or someone else paying for service for another person and forgetting about the obligation, we have added this section.  This does not pertain to our longstanding customers who have taken care of their accounts properly.  A Chargeback is when someone uses their bank or card issuer to reverse a payment.  This is unlawful if its done falsely.  This is also an expensive thing to do for the person processing the payment, so it is taken VERY seriously.

There is absolutely no reason with Midwest Telecom DBA Midwest Internet that we should receive a chargeback notice, since we confirm every account, and our order form, confirmation page, and all agents let the customer know the name of the charge, and the amounts.  Our billing, cancellation, and usage policies have been developed to meet Payment Processing and Fair Credit Reporting Guidelines.  We will automatically suspend an account, upon receiving such a notice, and additional actions may incur, including pass-thru to your account of any and all penalty charges for the payment reversal.  We will suspend the account pending investigation.  You will still be liable for the account until properly cancelled.  This includes during suspension.  Any charges we are changed by the processor for a chargeback will be passed on to you.  The charge is $25 per incident on payments reversed with Visa and MasterCard, and $35 incident charge with AMEX.  We may also report to credit bureaus as Key Derogatory.  Checking account payment reversals can and will be reported to ChexSystems.