You do know of course that they were Century Tel and in the past year merged with Embarq (whoever they were) to provide me with a better level of customer service. Well that's what their ad's said anyway.
So last January when I went south for medical reasons and to get away from the cold, we were paying $160 a month for two land lines and hi-speed Internet. Now that is outrageous and we contacted them and suddenly the bill was $130. Then we had the idea of turning them off while we were gone and maybe not turning them back on. So around the end of the first week in January I called and asked them to turn the phones off and leave the Internet on. They said they could do that and it would be a $3 a month maintenance fee. Good to go.
I returned here in April and May, didn't turn the phones on but the Internet was working fine. No worries - then I had to go back to the hospital in June so we were gone until the first of August. We came home and the Internet worked so again, no worries and I just went to work. Then it happened. I was working on a Tuesday a couple weeks ago when my Internet just quit.
I tried the usual stuff and then called Century Link Tech Support who ran me through the usual unplug the router, reboot etc. Nada. So the kind lady says I will put a support order in to get someone out to check it out but it won't be until tomorrow. Okay, I can live with that.
Tomorrow comes and goes and Thursday morning I call in once again to Tech Support. The guy says, "Sir you turned all your services off on Jan 6th and that is your problem." I said, "That's cool except it didn't go off until first week of August. Umm? He says they shouldn't have put in a work order because the problem is your service is cancelled.
He does some more checking and finds out they gave my 'switch' to someone else since I left if off so long. I asked, "Why would you do that if I am paying you a $3 fee to hold the line?" That is one of those questions no one has answers to. He told me he'd transfer me to a sales agent who could take care of the problem. I was on hold for 50 minutes and my cell phone is dead. It was Thursday, third day with no Internet.
Friday I call early and get a nice young lady who tells me that there is a 3 business day period to get something turned back on. I ask, "But I write and sell and am quite involved on the Internet, is there no way that I can get it sooner? Isn't it just a switch you turn on?" Well, like I said earlier, the question of the switch is, well, they gave it to someone else. Now I don't know what on earth that means other than I don't have Internet.
After 45 minutes on the phone she can't answer for where my switch is but she does affirm that indeed it will take them 3 days to 'get a switch' from 'someone' and get my Internet back on. So the bottom line is it was turned on the next Wednesday, eight days without service, but that's not all.
She informed me that if I didn't turn the land lines back on it would cost me more for Internet since the services were bundled. Now I started out at this point paying $130 a month and she has a 'special' for me for two phone lines and Internet for $88 a month. Well, quite frankly that is the cheapest I've seen in 10 years here so I only ask, "What if I just get 1 line since that is all I need anymore?" She says, "That will be $94 with Internet." There was some corporate nonsense behind this reason so I gave up and said, "Okay lets go with the $88."
Service restored, all is well until we drive an hour north to visit my son and his daughter. I'm telling him my latest tale of corporate America being on tilt and he says, laughing', "Dad, why on earth would you pay $88, when I am only paying $29?" Now that was a good damn question.
He showed me his bill and he did come in a year ago as a new customer at $19.95 for six months and then it went up to $29.95. When his year was up a month or so ago he gets his new bill and they are charging him $49.95 a month, still much lower than my $88.
He calls and threatens to go back to Bresnan and a Supervisor gets on the phone and tells him she will give him a $20 credit for the next month for being a 'good customer'. Thus for the next year he is paying $29.95 and get this ... she tells him that at each year anniversary if you call us we will 'reapply' the $20 discount.
Dealing with the phone companies, cell phones included, is like going to a swap meet out in Sturgis. But then that would give bikers a bad name and they don't compare to the deceptions of the phone companies.
Armed with my son's bill from Century Link this week I tried calling customer service at Century Link on two different days to no avail. The first day I was on hold for an hour and fifteen minutes listening to their nonsense about how they are here to serve us and are building the number one customer service company in the world, I put my cell on speaker phone and just worked (now that I had Internet) and the phone once again died. The next day I tried using Skype and after 45 minutes on hold I just hung up.
But I will keep trying and will prevail in getting my sons rate ... if I ever get a human being on the phone that is. We live in sad times when companies are so cut back, leaders are so out of touch and yet, they lie to Wall Street with slick presentations and often bogus numbers. There is a day coming when these dinosaurs of the past, land line phone companies, will be gone. They are too expensive.
Of course then we'll be dealing with the cut throats from the big cell companies ... business is on tilt, lacking good leadership and they don't even know it.
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