CenturyLink Reviews

After 1 year, I got an increased DSL charge. I was told that my 1-year promotional rate was up. I explained the situation and I was told that this person made a mistake and CL would not honor it! After 30+ years of being a good customer! I told them I would not pay this increase. I have since spoken to numerous agents (rude and crude) and wrote several letters. I decided to file an FCC complaint, but the FCC is useless! I then filed a complaint with the CO Attorney General's office, who then informed me that CL is based in Louisiana, so I sent my complaint there. That in turn brought a response that CL is out of Illinois. Shell game CL? I sent my complaint there.

I received (finally) a letter from the IL AG's office with CL's response. Seems that CL looked into it and sustained that I was wrong! I sent a strongly worded letter back to the AG and copied CL, identifying their false input. I have been paying what I believe to be the correct rate, less building charges and late fees. As far as I am concerned, CL can go where the sun doesn't shine. They are a scam organization. They gave me a discounted 1-year deal. After that, I will be with another carrier for internet service and I refuse to pay their false late and building charges. I have no issue to go to court.

Evidently, this site gives them a "1" in terms of customer service. I think it should be a zero. The more people speak up and let others know what a sham this scam outfit is, the better off. I stand behind my word.

On top of this, those that have the 10 MB service are often getting the lower speed internet but still being charged for the higher speed. This isn't right. Something needs to be done about this. It is a frequent thing to have to call into the customer service department. Suggestions are made and fall on deaf ears. In my rural area, we don't have options for other carriers so we are stuck with this company.

I just don't see how it is right to be charged for services you aren't getting. If I went to a food establishment and ordered, paid for my food, and didn't get it, I would be very upset. I wouldn't just pay and leave. See how this is screwed up? They need to be honest about this. Thank you.

So I told them to turn off my internet and long distance service to just basic phone service with the plans to terminate my phone later. I was told that I would have to pay $13 to disconnect my internet service and that it would take about 15 days to disconnect the service. When I asked for reference to that from the company (in other words where is it written), Debbie (ID **) said, "I don't know".

Now for why I say CenturyLink techs are idiots. Yesterday (4/17/13), a tech came to our duplex to replace a terminal box on my neighbor’s side. This moron disconnected my phone lines (killing my internet) and repaired my neighbor's problem. Did this numbskull reconnect my lines before leaving? Hell no! What business did he have even touching the back of my place knowing there was no service ticket for my address. I guess it was CenturyLink's way of retaliating for me cancelling their service. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I was off work yesterday and my boss (who is in Denver, CO) had asked me to host a Skype video conference call with the other associates in our district. I agreed but then looked like an idiot when I had to call her back and explain that a moron from CenturyLink had disconnected my Socket internet. Next time I see this CenturyLink tech in my backyard, I'll break his damn fingers!

Seriously, you must think I am an idiot. I have spoken with 5 customer service reps and like 6 repair techs and they all have you explain the same thing over and over again and do the same thing over and over again with the same result. I have been told that the customer service rep who originally placed the change order messed it up and every person I have spoken to since has messed it up even more. Why be in the phone service business if you don't have a clue about phones? One simple change and they managed to screw that up.

Now, I get you will have to pay fees. The heck I will pay fees for your screw up. You screwed up my account and have fully admitted screwing up my account. Now my services are down and they are telling me that they can't get a tech out to fix the issue for a couple of days. Seriously, you screw up my services and now you want me to wait while you take your sweet time fixing your mistake. I plan to file a complaint every place I can to tarnish this company's name as they are the worst company in business for phone service. Stay clear of this company. Take your services elsewhere as this company cares nothing about the customer. They have told me that they have cancelled services I did not request to cancel. I do not understand how CenturyLink can still be in business the way they, pardon my language, screw their customers.

We were experiencing difficulty with our modem for the high-speed internet and my roommate called CL. CL informed us that our modem was old and outdated. CL told us they would send us a new one. I had purchased the first modem, and we were billed for the new one. When the installer arrived to install the modem, he did just that... leaving all of the accessory items such as our Blu-ray DVDs, Roku, Netflix not working. Before I could even formulate a question about these accessories, he was gone.

A few days later, the modem ceased to work. My roommate called CL. They sent us another modem. We never received a call tag to return the first new modem. The second new modem would cost $75 to install! $75 for what? We were not willing to pay a fee for someone to come install a unit that would not be compatible with our accessories. My roommate called again, requesting a call tag to return the second new modem. Yes, we're back to relying on the old modem I bought more than 10 years ago. It's not working that great, but it works enough to get by and so do our accessories!

We've been waiting for a call tag. I sent an email requesting assistance. No answer! I responded to an email survey, answering questions regarding our CL experience. We got a call from a customer service representative late yesterday. Because "we" failed to return the second new modem, we are being charged $109. A request to speak to a supervisor was made and my roommate was told to call during normal business hours. An explanation was given regarding the use of phones at DPS and the result was "a supervisor would call within 48 hours”.

A few days ago, I received a phone call from CL, telling me the bill had not been paid. My roommate indicated that she had already paid the bill, so I was stunned. The representative wasn't about to get off the phone until I paid more than $175 along with a payment set up for auto pay at my bank for the balance of more than $175 within 14 days. My roommate had paid the bill. Our bank records clearly show the payment. Another call was placed to CL and we learned that the bill, which was way too high to begin with, included that $109 charge for the modem. Which one? The representative had the line on hold most of the 1 hour that it took to determine what was happening with the account. Nothing was resolved.

Today, 4-11-13, a CL supervisor called per our request. We were informed that the $109 charge is ours to pay because we did not return the modem. They apparently sent a call tag that we never received. Since we never received it, we're wrong and CL is right! Reason dictates that we would have sent the modem back since we aren't using it. It still sits in an unopened box on a shelf in the family room. Now, about the cell phone... When the order was placed for cell phone service, we were advised that the plan was $40 per month. My first question after the call was made by my roommate was “Unlimited text and talk?” No! And $40 is just the service fee. Everything else we needed in order to use the cell phone in the manner to which it was needed had a service charge of $9.99 per month. More than $70 later, I have a limit of 700 minutes and 1,000 text messages. My friends are paying $45 for unlimited plans!

The supervisor that called this morning was not friendly and in a businesslike fashion was accusatory. CL does not take care of its customers. In a matter such as this, I would have sent another call tag, eliminated the charge for the modem, and made the customer happy. CL doesn't have to... they are TPC: "The" Phone Company. Beware! CL is not your friend. This is no way to treat people who have been loyal customers of the phone company since 1973. Through the many changes that have been made over the years, we continued with the new providers of our phone service. It's time to shop for another provider! Century Link has proven to be a bundle of trouble for us!

2) We received our first bill at $123.00 (not right, but we paid it). Now it is our second bill, due 4/18/13, and it is $189.00. Old payments DirecTV ($80.00), landline ($23.00), plus the modem (three installments of $33.00) = $136.00. So the internet is $53.00 per month? What happened to $19.99 for 5 years with no contract? What the heck is going on? We thought we were bundling with DirecTV and adding the internet along with our landline to save (not the case). We are now paying more. We could have changed nothing and went with Comcast just for the internet and paid way, way less without the hassle of going through what we are dealing with. I know we are just small potatoes in your global world, but this is not the way to treat the middle class Americans who are trying to make their lives better.

Anyway my complaint is if this was a problem back in October, why was I not notified by a phone call or mail, but instead contacted in April 2013 by a collection person? CenturyLink, the last lady, said they sent a bill in December which I didn't receive and their policy is not to send second billings or make phone calls on why it wasn't paid. They treated me like I was an idiot. That I should have known and they could care less. I am 66 and this was absolutely devastating for me. Century Link could not explain why they hadn't tried to see why it was paid though. I still have auto pay with them for internet. Very poor customer service training. She still said I owed the money so at that point, I paid it even though on November 23rd I paid them $204.76.

Since I live very close to my mother, I went through the CenturyLink process of providing my address prior to selecting a bundle. The $14.99 Internet is available 3 blocks away - really? CenturyLink has one consistency - they follow the money and I am assuming that they must assume no one will challenge them. I am with Cox Communications, so this was simply a test to verify CenturyLink's claim about the $14.99 Internet special.

Mom is switching to Cox because CenturyLink is misleading in their advertisement. In addition, my neighbors who have CenturyLink have service interruptions at least 2x a month. I know this because they have to access my backyard to fix the issue. I am rather grateful that I have two very large dogs that are territorial... They also leave wires everywhere - I literally have a cord hanging over the fence because CenturyLink cannot provide a permanent solution. Do not go through CenturyLink if you have other options (sorry for those of you who do not).

I called CenturyLink back and they revised the amount they said I owed to $80. I again asked what that was for. They again said that they had paid DirecTV for the month of March 2013. I said again that they should not have paid that because I cancelled with DirecTV. I said that the bill I received was in error and that I wanted to speak to his supervisor. He informed me that the supervisor went home sick but that it didn't matter because he would not have a different opinion. I asked for the supervisor's name. He said it was Jim. I asked him to have Jim call me when he returned to work.

He (Rob was his name) said that he was not going to inform Jim of the situation and was going to turn in the bill to collections. I was furious. I was stuck in the middle of these two businesses and each was saying that they would or could not talk to each other to rectify the charges. I paid my erroneous bill and decided that I would spend my idle time telling people not to use CenturyLink. I am writing this to inform everyone that if you decide to use CenturyLink, beware.

I called Dish Network to see why my phone was disconnected. Dish Network has no record of a phone line hook-up or port. The second line into the house was used for the internet connection and given a new number. Many calls to Dish Network revealed that the phone line and phone number were never part of the order. Back to Century Link, an individual tried to put through an order to reconnect my service and port the phone number back to my account. Of course, in order to do a port, the phone number has to be an active line. The line is no longer active and could be given away to someone else at any time. Calling Dish Network back, I tried to have them hook up the phone line since Century Link said that Dish has my phone number. Dish Network still had no record of receiving my phone number. The phone line was never part of the order submitted by Dish. A further check revealed that the phone number was in use by "another company." Dish Network was not in possession of the phone number and could not hook up the line.

Many calls back and forth between Dish Network and Century Link yielded no results. It is clear that only Century Link can correct the problem. Every day I spend hours on the phone going through menus and listening to a recorded voice telling me I can easily go online to take care of my issue. Supervisors never call back. I managed to get a repair order through with Century Link on the automated system. I never had an opportunity to speak to a person. The recording told me that my phone service would be restored by 6:00 pm on Friday March 29, 2013. Six pm came and went with no service. On Saturday, March 30, 2013, I called repair service at Century Link. There is now no record of my account. A repair person who confirmed she was not in the U.S. could not find any record of a repair order to be completed by 6:00 pm on Friday or otherwise.

The repair person at Century Link did inform me that the business office would have to take care of my issue. A call back revealed that the business office was not open on the weekend so I cannot speak to them until Monday. It is just as well because I cannot afford any more hours on my cell phone on hold and talking to people at Century Link that cannot correct the problem that they caused. According to one Century Link representative, the individual that read the order to transfer the internet to Dish Network misread the order and ported our phone number out by mistake. After 35 years of relying on my home phone line and counting on people I care about being able to find me with only a phone number, they will get a recording saying my line is disconnected. Through the years I have moved and remarried, changing my name but, my phone number has always remained the same. Now what do I do?

Issue #2, when my husband and I initially set up Internet service, my husband ordered a modem, which he decided to return immediately once he received it. Once I started receiving bill again with my correct address, I noticed that we were receiving modem rental fees since start of service, which were adjusted. Five days ago I received a bill, which reflected that my last payment had not been posted. I spoke to someone and gave my money order serial number and was told to call today for resolution. I called today to find out that no action had been taken because it is a holiday week, to call back next Wednesday for a possible resolution, and that the Behind the Scene Team won't know till next Wednesday. Not once did I have problems with Qwest. Wish me luck.

I requested the recording of my order call be pulled and was told it could not as it was from August 2012; thus, would not have been kept or be available. I was then told that the early cancellation fee was also explained to me in a pre-install group call that would have occurred. This call never occurred and I stated so and requested the date of the call so I could provide call records to verify this claim. I was told the call occurred on August 9th and it did not matter if I provided call records. I would still be charged this termination fee as the conversation had occurred no matter what. The rep wouldn't even provide me with an email address to send this proof to.

Mid-conversation the rep changed her story and then claimed the contract is related to cable service and not internet. Again, I did not agree to a contract. Of course after the call I pulled my cell phone records for that date (never used home phone and thus cancelled) and guess what? No calls to or from anyone other than family or friends. Unbelievable.

I have now spent 2 hours using both the internet chat and working my way through telephone "help" menus, talked to numerous people who appear to be contractors, and have been told that (as I already knew) that there is nothing wrong with my line. I am still waiting for a knowledgeable and helpful customer service representative to explain to me why the pause between dialing digits has been shortened so drastically.

After 6 hours, we relinquished to them coming out the next day. Century Link was to add the home phone and Internet on Monday, the 25th, with specific instructions to call us first because my husband was working at our apartment while waiting for Century Link to put the Internet in. At 1:00, no call was received so we emailed the person who helped us set up the date of March 25 and received a response that we are scheduled for today. My husband came by the house around 3:00 to find that the technician was already at our house at 11:00 am with, "Sorry, we missed you". After 9 calls and at least on hold for 45 minutes, nothing was accomplished other than that they will come out tomorrow.

My husband is out a day's work and no one at Century Link cared enough to get a technician out here to resolve this issue. Oh, by the way, again the technician had a wrong phone number. Century Link feels that sending an email to my husband's boss should be sufficient to not be able to work for a day and create more work for his boss. The time that I have spent on the phone on hold (personally, I feel it's intentional to make the time go past 5:00 so there was nothing they could do) and the fact that my husband is not getting paid because he can't work until they hook us up is, I do feel they owe us not just our time but for the harassment that we endured trying to get someone out to the house so my husband could work.

Well, the appointment came a few days later and, once again, the technician never showed up. I called Century Link to complain of this. It had now been 9 days since my initial request of service and I had none. They now informed me that the earliest they could get a technician to come out would be the following Monday, putting me at almost 2 weeks of no service upon request. So I agreed for the appointment Monday. Well, Monday came and the technician came to the house, saw the phone line going to the house, but did nothing else thinking it was already set up.

This time, I was obviously very frustrated and when I called to talk to customer service, they had no notes or records of my previous complaints. It has now been a month and half since this incident occurred. I never received my service and went with another internet company. Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail from Century Link saying I had an outstanding bill of $41.02. I called and had the bill removed. The customer service guy I spoke with showed that I had canceled my service, but said there were no notes about why it was canceled. I have spent hours on the phone with this company explaining and re-explaining my issues, with what seemed lost employees.

It only works 60%-80% of the time. I have to keep rebooting the modem/router to get it working again. CenturyLink has sent me out 5 replacement routers over these 4 months and all have the same problem. Each time I call tech support, I get a tech support person in the Philippines who is reading a script. Arrghh, this is maddening. They have been telling me recently just to put the modem/router in "Bridge" mode and then attach an after market router from Best Buy or so, to get it working the way I want. But, they charged me for a modem/router.

Feeling satisfied I got the best deal available to me, I quickly found out that customers with choices of high-speed internet pay only $25 to $35 a month in Wyoming, Nebraska, and other areas of Missouri. At the time we signed up, we had an Embarq modem. CenturyLink sanctioned the use of this equipment, since (they told me) CenturyLink had just purchased Embarq. Over the course of a year and a half, the internet speed never got up to 10M and dropped us at least once a week. We called repair service sometimes when we were unable to boot back up within 5 minutes. The company has a way of causing me, the customer, feel that the problem must be my fault. However, one of the servicemen discovered a wire a half-a-block away that had evidently been affected by a lightning storm, apparently causing some of our service interruptions. All worked better for a while.

Suddenly, in January 2013, I was being charged $4.63 extra for a federally implemented Carrier Cost Recovery Fee on my long distance plan that I never wanted in the first place. The snarky customer service rep told me I had been informed on my Dec. statement. The announcement says, "Some customers will see a new $2.99 Carrier Cost Recovery Charge" appear on their invoice in addition to the $1 recurring charge. Yes, I remember seeing that. I didn't think it applied to me, didn't even know I had long distance service since we didn't even have a phone plugged into the jack. I never wanted the phone option since day one. I could not believe how difficult it was to get the clerk to waive that fee.

While I had him on the phone, I asked about the disruptions we had been getting in service since the 4th or 5th month of service. He transferred me to the tech support. A really nice tech support person spoke with me at length and decided to send me a modem to see if it would take care of the disruption in service. I was told no charge for the modem or the shipping. On the next bill, it was a shipping and handling fee for $22.99, and a recurring Router Equip. Fee of $5.99. When I called CenturyLink to clarify, I was told that they could not give me that equipment for free. After they waived the $22.99 shipping fee, I was transferred to the escalation department. This rep and I went round and round and round. I explained everything, told her the tech support promised me the modem would be no charge. She told me, "The only thing I can do is counsel that employee to never do that again. But you have to pay $99 for the modem or $5.99 a month leasing fee." She never gave me the option of just sending back the new modem until I brought up that option.

After asking her how this company can treat their customers this way, especially when they have a monopoly in my area, and they are my only choice of high speed internet, she said to me, "Well, if you have no other questions, then..." I said, "I'm not done" (because I wanted to ask her what my total bill was). She hung up on me. I feel this company's right hand doesn't know what its left hand is doing. The customer service I have received has been absolutely horrible. Nightmarish! However, the tech support has been above average. Again, if you live in an under-served area, and CenturyLink is your only option for high-speed internet, I am so sorry for you.

When I checked with CenturyLink, they said my internet service was listed at $46.99 per month (They agreed to reduce that to $28.72 for 1 year.) I went from thinking that I was paying $49.99 for both services to $78.71 a month for both services, which I am locked into for 2 years with DirecTV and 1 year with CenturyLink. I went from trying to reduce my monthly bill to paying $30 more a month. CenturyLink not only misquoted their own billing but they misrepresented their associate's price.

So my bill now is $156.74. They finally closed it. I have written faxes, talked to the highest level supervisor and still have no satisfaction. I asked how was I to know that internet can now be without phone line. They said they routinely put a letter in when every service is changed. I asked for it and no one could find it. I have now gone online to PUC in Colorado to officially complain. I have never missed a bill with them for 13 years.

I explained the situation to the person in the collection department and was told that there was nothing she could do other than to collect the money and close the collection account. I asked how long I had until I would be sent to collections so that I can call Centurylink and get them to clear up what was an obvious mistake on their part. She told me she did not have that information. I called Centurylink and explained the situation to them. I was told that since I bundled my services through DirecTV, I would have to speak to them. I called DirecTV, and they said the easiest thing to do here would be to just to switch my services and ask them to send me a new modem. That way, I could return the one that I was going into collections for.

The next day, I received a notice in the mail from a collection agency stating that I had been sent to collections! Two days after, I had been informed of all this in the first place! Now, I've spent years repairing my credit from all the mistakes I made from when I was young so I was really heated at this point! I called back into Centurylink and asked to speak to a supervisor directly. He was very apologetic and said he was personally going to take care of the collection issue; when the new modem came in the mail, I should just tell them to return it to the sender. I thought the issue was resolved; apparently, that’s not the case! This morning, I got a call from my brother, who has been staying with me, saying that the internet was out and there were two Centurylink trucks in front of my house. I called Centurylink to see what was going on and found out that I now have two accounts with them. My internet is still not working because they now have two lines running into my house!

I am just totally done with this company. I'm sure there is just much more of this to come from me because I've realized that everyone who works for this company just seems to be completely incompetent! My next step is to file a complaint with the BBB and the FTC. I would encourage anyone else who has had similar problems with Centurylink to do the same. If enough people speak up, actions will be taken; maybe, we can even make sure that others do not go through this.

I had also been overcharged for my last month and was due $68 (may not sound like a lot to you but to me, that's a significant amount! And it's mine!) which they were sending by mail. Uh-oh, I realized that this was probably also sent to the wrong address. When I called to remedy the situation, the telephone rep informed me that this incorrect address was listed as my mailing address (okay fine, doesn't change that it was incorrect, but fine.). He also told me that when I cancelled service, I should have been asked for a final mailing address. Wait, what? Yeah, no one ever asked that. Not when I cancelled, not when I was transferred to someone to order my return label for my modem. Not once did anyone verify my address beyond my service address. So now, I get to wait 30 additional days to receive my check. I cancelled my service effective 1/25/13 which means that I will be waiting a total of 60 days for money they overcharged me, because someone didn't follow their script to verify my mailing address.

Now, I have worked in call centers before so I make a point never to be nasty to anyone on the phone, but this person I spoke to was just so matter of fact about "Nope, 30 days. Thems the breaks," it really bothered me. This was Century Link's mistake. They should be apologizing to me, not telling me that there are people out there who were due even more money back (I was quoted $5,000) which they needed for their house payment and there wasn't anything they could do then either. Really? This is terrible customer service. This person should be apologizing to me (I fully understand that sometimes there's nothing you can do) not implying that this inconvenience is no big deal because they have messed up other people's lives much worse. That's ridiculous.

Not explained in the internet package was the up/down rate, which was amateurish at best. I called to cancel within the remorse 30-day period and the next bill included a $200 charge for canceling the service prematurely. I had to work pretty hard on this one to make them see the very obvious, which would be reading the bill I had in front of my face. I can't believe they pay their employees the money that would be necessary to get them to embrace an outright fraudulent business model. These guys are the absolute worst I have ever seen but just for the record, Verizon is next in line. It is not saying much for the industry that from my experience, Comcast is the best.

Today our phone service is out again. I was able to call CL on a borrowed cell phone from where there was a signal. I went through the recorded questions, only to be informed via the recorded message, that "Due to the high volume of calls we are unable to help you at this time. Call again later. Goodbye." In other words, I was blown off. I have no doubt that Century Link will do nothing until Monday, a regular workday. I believe that they do not want to pay their people to come out on weekends, regardless of the fact that being without phone service could cost a customer the life of someone in the household (we've had to call 911 for my husband several times, including his needing a medi-flight on one occasion), or the burning down of a home. It would seem that having basic phone service is a major health and safety issue; however, apparently the bean counters at CL do not agree.

If the company would just tell the truth, at least customers would know where they stand, but the falsehood that a high volume of calls means they won't even make a record of a customer's call for help, just call back another time is egregious in the extreme. The customer gets nowhere until a regular workday, and then the problem is quickly resolved. I dislike saying outright that the company has a policy of deliberately lying to its customers; however, that's what I've experienced.

I called and was put on hold a very long time and hung up. My cell phone plan is only 150 minutes a month. I went to customer service online chat and tried 3 different times and not one helped me out, one signing off before I could even finish typing. None of them could tell me a thing about my bill nor did they help with getting my account set up. I was given phone numbers and again ran into long holding times. I hung up and will use my daughter's cell because she has more minutes and cancel my account with this horrible company.

If the amount that the salesman quotes the customer is not kept on record so that the billing department can view this information, this is not by oversight but rather by design. They will tell you, as they did in my case, that the salesman was wrong and that they will speak to him, but that you are locked into a contract. Oh well. Scream away or don’t pay. They are either going to get the money, or you are going to collections. So, armed with this knowledge, you do business with CenturyLink at your peril. But don't expect the amount that you are billed to be anything like what you were told it would cost you.

When I called to set up the account, I was told that I had existing charges on my account from my previous residence (approximately $80), charges which I should not have had as I had terminated my service in August and was being billed through the month of September. They would not reverse the charge as there was not sufficient documentation on their end. I begrudgingly paid the excess balance in order to move forward and just get my internet set up. They came to set up the service at my building several days later and all they did was leave a note on my door saying that they needed access to a part of the building that they typically would not need to and would have to reschedule a visit.

Again, several days passed before they actually are able to come and set up the service. Turns out they can't set up a successful connection. They did not reimburse me for any of the setup fees, first month, etc. that I had paid (in addition to settling the account). I terminated my service with them. Several months later, it turns out I've been being charged a small $9.99 service fee from MyTech Help, their third party vendor, that is frankly a completely useless service that I was automatically enrolled for. I just called MyTech Help and all they would do is cancel my service and reimburse me for the months of service they had just automatically purchased for me (the bill posted on the 14th, I caught the charge today the 18th).

So in summary, I'm out the mystery $80 account balance; the sum total of setup charges and first month bill for CenturyLink; plus now 5 months worth of a useless service call MyTech Help, which is basically a third party solution that allows CenturyLink to: (1) not provide strong technical service; (2) outsource the responsibility of technical service to a third party vendor; (3) make the customer pay for it; and (4) get a commission in return from the vendor. Utter crap service. I feel cheated. The worst part is this whole time, I was on the phone with actual people. I had a simple objective - install internet. I'm technically savvy, I'm responsible with bills, I'd simply moved and needed internet.

There was no care or concern for me as a person. Everyone was just struggling to follow a policy and when they did not understand (i.e. could not find record of my call log or notes from previous customer service in call tracking regarding my initial service termination call from my move, MyTech Help not understanding that the customer is forced to buy My Tech Help (that it's not an opt-in service, only an opt-out), also the poor communication when trying to schedule a visit only to discover the service couldn't be set up in my building. Plus, I was moving, which just adds to the chaos.

I wish CenturyLink/MyTech Help was human enough to understand what a negative customer experience is from start to finish. Each person was dealing with a unique attribute of my situation. They were not smart enough to pull away and see a larger picture, which was an increasingly frustrating experience met with challenge after challenge. I hope CenturyLink reads this and escalates this feedback as a learning opportunity.

When I called Customer Service, they said they could take off the long distance part of the plan and put my home phone service back the way it had been for 6 years. Oh yeah, for breaking the bundle, they were only going to charge me 31 bucks! After explaining 6 times they put me into a bundle without my knowledge, I still have to pay the 31 bucks. I felt like I was talking to a wall. This company is a bunch of crooks!

I am taking college courses online and cannot keep my internet service up long enough to complete my work in a normal sequence. Like many people, I do online banking. Again, my internet service won't stay up long enough to complete transactions. These, along with many other experiences, are the reason I will be switching providers. My internet service is like a box of chocolates.

The person who I spoke to told me that I needed to get a land line, and that the internet speed would be 10 mbps. I then asked the price, and I was told it would be $43/month before taxes. I thought that was an excellent price and accepted the offer for the internet and phone bundle for $43/month. I set up the account and was asked if I would be renting a modem from them monthly. I said yes, but only until income tax time; we will buy our own and return theirs. I was told the modem would cost $6/month to rent from them; I accepted that. When I was asked if I would need someone to set up my modem when they came to hook up the internet for $85, I declined and said, “I'm very computer savvy, so setting up a modem is nothing to me.” I was told that they would send the modem via UPS, and that it would be here before the guy came to install our services. When I asked if the installation was going to cost anything, I was told there would be no charge. All was well, and I hung up a happy camper.

The modem came way after the guy who came to hook up our services. By the time we got the modem, he was long gone, and we ended up having issues with our internet that made us wait another day for our services to work properly. This is because the modem didn't come when it was supposed to, and the representative that originally set us up didn't mail it out. We called a day before the guy came to hook us up, only to find out the modem was sent the day before I called. It has been less than a month, and I have received my first bill from CenturyLink. My jaw hit the floor, for real, when I saw my $350 CenturyLink bill. You've got to be kidding me!

They charged $99 for a modem they didn't even hook up; I hooked it up. They charged me $22 for UPS to send me the modem. They didn't tell me it was going to cost money to send the modem. Otherwise, I would have drove 14 miles to the nearest CenturyLink and picked it up myself. They charged a service fee for them to come out and turn on their own services. The modem was actually $7/month. When we called to complain about the $99 charge for the installation they never did, they told me that my monthly bill was going to be $66/month before taxes! I told them that couldn't be because when I set up my services, I was told my monthly bill was going to be $49/month, which included the $6 modem fee. I was then told that I was misquoted, and they will not give me the services for what I was originally quoted for. There were no notes on my account stating the quote I was promised, which means they can't help me.

I feel beyond cheated. They baited and switched me, and I think that is extremely unfair. Companies shouldn't be allowed to lie to new customers to reel them in and then change the prices on the next bill. Before I got this bill, I was telling my friends what a great company CenturyLink had been so far before I realized they lied and deceived me. Now, when one of my friends asks me advice on my current internet company, I will tell them to stay far away from CenturyLink because they did nothing but scam and rip me off. I left Comcast for them. Comcast gave me 5mbps of internet only for $70 a month. The only reason we left Comcast for CenturyLink was because they quoted me for a $49 monthly bill, which would have saved us about $20 a month. But instead, after taxes, we are left paying $15 more than Comcast.

CenturyLink, they will probably lie to you too. Stay far away from them and their scam; find a company that won’t rip you off. I plan to leave CenturyLink and go back to Comcast because I don't want to give my money to a company that has to lie and deceive me and other new customers just to suck us in and rip us off. I hope they don't try to make me pay a $400 fee for wanting to leave less than a month after having their services. My plan was supposed to be no contract, but I have read horror stories on these people. Shame on them!

Again, this communication company had difficulty dialing my number - no return call. I was not surprised! I called back and was helped by Kelly - way too nice of a girl to be working for this company! She was able to fix my name and SS#, but still could not get me the service I had been promised any sooner. She told me it was because of the storms in my area - I live in the desert and was not aware of any storms we were having. In my opinion, the ground is quite dry(!) temps in the 70s in early February - not looking very stormy to me.

When they had their old name - Qwest, things were not better - they didn't get anything right then and were not able to resolve any issues. Their name became so bad, they were forced to change to a new name. Now they are ruining that name.

Why can't the contract team seem to get their act together? We are now on our fourth appointment to bury this line. Why can you not get through to the customer service department when you actually need to talk to one? Oh, and when you try to call the corporate office, the COO and the CEO will say that they will just connect you back to the automated service line. When you call back and question that, they hang up on you. When you call back the third time, they send you to a recorded call? Hmmm. There is so much that is broken in this company and it's not just our phone line! Beware. This company is not customer friendly. It does not seem to care if your phone works, and if it's out, you work for them, they don't work for you.

Their representative told me that it was because, in order to get the internet at the $19.95 price, I would also have to get their phone service which was $24.95 a month. I pointed out that that didn't add up to $64.95, at which point the representative told me that the internet service was not $19.95 but rather, $40.95. I had expected them to try to scam me and that's exactly what they did. I told the representative that I didn't trust them when they were Quest, and I certainly don't trust them now; and I hung up.

Century Link shouldn't be in business. They're dishonest. Their customer service may as well be called customer disservice. And just as I suspected, changing their name from Quest to Century Link didn't equate to changing their business practices from horrible to anything less than horrible. A fair warning, don't be suckered in by these crooks. Do your due diligence. If you call them, ask the tough questions. If you're foolish enough to sign up with these crooks, be prepared for miserable (actually no) service.

On 1/27/2013, there was still no service. I called Tech Support again. It took 15 minutes to get a technician with very poor English skills. I spent an additional 45 minutes on the phone with the technician going though their "dog and pony show" of try this, try this... etc. After 40 minutes, the technician decided to look up the history on my line to discover that an upgrade to fiber was scheduled, canceled, but my line was still marked as upgraded. On 1/28/2013, there was still no internet service (and no phone). On 1/29/2013, I called Tech Support again. I spent another hour to be told that they had my line marked as upgraded but it wasn't and that they couldn't fix the problem and I would have to call the dreaded "Business Office" during business hours!

On 1/30/2013, I took 2 and a half hours off work to call the business office and be swapped through 4 more people, all claiming that is "their" problem like they were trying to disassociate themselves from the company they work for. After they finally owned up to making a recording error, I asked how they were going to reimburse me for 6 hours on the phone and 4 days without Internet. They begrudgingly credited my bill for a whopping $5.65 - big wow! On 1/31/2013, finally, I have internet service and a home phone again this morning. Shame on the FCC for continuing to grant these idiots a license to operate. Maybe Century Link should try changing their name another 2 or 3 times in an attempt to run away from their reputation instead of trying to actually fix such a completely dysfunctional company?

Needless to say, our second bill was almost as high as our first bill. We are just getting back on our feet after being unemployed for 6 months. I wish they would have been honest with us on pricing and billing. New Wave was always fair and AT&T never charged a late fee to a customer for a mistake they made. I'm disappointed in CenturyLink and I hope this information helps someone else down the road.

Finally, a week and a half after signing up for my Internet, I got it! A week later, I was finally able to schedule for DirectTV to be installed. As if the fun was over there! I have been charged at least $20 over my bill (if not exponentially more) every month after. You know what that means? It means, at least one phone and two hours on the phone per month. I am simply connected from one department to the other because, heaven forbid, they enable their representatives, who do try to be helpful, to solve a problem. I am currently looking for my way out of the contract, even if I can't have Internet with another provider in my apartment. In November alone, I spent at least 6 hours total on the phone or having them literally come out to try to fix the problem. January is looking to be the same; December was probably about 4, until I simply just paid because I did not have extra time with the holidays. I am currently trying to get out of my bill if I possibly can, and I will never use CenturyLink again. What a horrible company with horrible customer service.

Every month, we would receive an account statement from CenturyLink showing over $140.00 credit. Later, in December, after it had been 5 months since I had the service shut off, they told me it was their fault and this was overlooked. They said within a week, a check for the end balance would show up. Over 20 days later, we got our check from CenturyLink - 2 dollars and 75 cents! We have kept all the bills, statements and everything. I hope someone starts a class action against these rip-off scoundrels. I warn anyone to stay away from them.

Despite the fact that the customer service guy (the one I talked to on the phone for 3 hours two days prior) should have been able to catch this mistake almost immediately on his computer when he ran his server test (yet gave me the 3 hour runaround), I let it go, thanked the technician, and moved on with my life. So the service was running great for about a week. Then, it completely turned south again. I called customer service, again getting someone with little skill in the English language. I was told that there was nothing wrong with the service and that it was probably a problem with my computer. I am not an idiot. I know when it’s my computer and when it’s the internet service. I can’t play a single YouTube video without it buffering every two seconds on my Windows 7 PC, phone, brand new Xbox 360 S, or my sister’s brand-new Windows 8 PC.

In a chat session I found out that I had been switched to some phone bundle with 'special features'. One of these was voicemail. I was told a price of all the new features but I will wait for the bill to see how much extra I'm being charged. We missed a number of calls since Centurylink’s voicemail settings kicked in after a couple of rings. Now today, I called tech support to get that static IP address. Again I was lied to and the cost of that is $5.95 a month, not free as the sales representative indicated. To top it all off, the chat sessions with a sales representative were mostly attempts to sell me additional services.

How can they change service without some document stating what the services will be and what is the cost? How can they make service changes without informing the customer how to utilize and manage the changes? Don't they communicate with their customers at all? Very frustrating. If the bill comes in too high, I'm switching to Internet on cable and going VoIP on phone to dump Centurylink. Unfortunately, there isn't much hope that the cable providers will be much better.

Customer service representative told us we would be responsible for $200 for terminating service contract early. This was the first we heard about a service contract! Never saw one. Never signed one. Service contract was never mentioned until we wanted to discontinue service. We paid for service through first week of May 2012, but refused to pay the additional $200. Since then, we have been receiving phone calls and letters from lawyers representing CenturyLink to pay up or have our credit ruined. In January 2013, I contacted our mortgage company to lower our interest rate. CenturyLink reported our debt of $200 remaining unpaid. We can refinance, but will have to pay 0.5 percent higher interest rate because of it. If CenturyLink had been open and forthright from the beginning about their service contract, we could have used another service, such as Comcast, who gladly puts service in vacation mode, no problems and no monthly charges while off. Comcast does charge a $35 reconnection fee

I live on Social Security (nothing else), and this year, I spent 47 days in Good Samaritan Hospital and 20 days in rehab, with bills of more than $240,000.00. After Medicare paid (I am 76), I was left with $32,000.00 in co-pays and a company that could not care less about its customers. In today’s Oregonian, it announces that CenturyLink is suing the city because they raised the tax on landlines and they are worried about losing customers. Perhaps I should sue CenturyLink for all the money they make in late charges. I have more honor than they ever dreamed of having, so I am stuck with them for the duration of the 5-year contract.

This rep I spoke with that day did tell me, after reviewing our bill, that it was awfully high and told us she could take us back down to the $19.95 a month. In the meantime, she talked me into speaking with a rep about bundling with DirecTV. I was perfectly happy with our Dish Network, 120 channels for $65.00. When I told the rep this price, she told us about a deal where we'd pay just $33.99 for Choice Pkg. on DirecTV and it'd be good for 3 years. Well, we got our first bill, and for starters, our phone bill was not lowered to $19.95. It was still running the same.

When I discovered that our DirecTV and bundling services were a whopping $222.00 for the month, I called to see what was going on. I don't believe I've been transferred back and forth between two companies like this, ever. Just over an hour later, and 5 transfers, I spoke to a rep at DirecTV who told me that sorry, but CenturyLink has been misrepresenting them by telling many customers about this fantastic promotion, only to the horror of the customers - they find out much too late that no, it's not $33.99. It's indeed the $89.00 with a price lock of 3 years. No matter how much I told them that I never would have signed up had I known this, I was simply told, “Sorry, I don't know what to tell you.” This is a rip-off. It is false advertising. I first want my $19.95 a month for my phone and internet, and I want the $33.99 a month for DirecTV. I never, never would have signed up for this ** if I'd been told the truth!

I have never been late on my bill once, and I was always paying in full. So I then proceeded to tell the rep to shut our services off, and they told me that they were going to charge me for the fee for two years. I have never signed up for two years, and that they needed to take it off. I called back, they took the two-year agreement off, but they never sent the bill out. I then called up several times to pay the bill, and every time they told me it’s in the mail. I never received it from Century Link; I received it from a bill collector. I have never been late, but then they were quick to send it to a collector on me.

Never go with these guys, they don't care about anyone except for themselves. They also never communicate with each other, and they also don't have service that works. We were on the phone with Century Link about once a day. My wife and I were paying for their top Internet, and the Internet was running below the average capacity. My wife and I decided to go with Comcast. We haven't had an issue ever since this happened. Anyone that thinks they want to switch to this company, please think twice before doing it. I have regretted it. This is not a joke. Anyone would be wasting his money.

Original Review: Dec. 28, 2012

CenturyLink is sitting on billions of dollars. I made my payment like I was supposed to and just by missing .61 cents, my service was interrupted! .61 cents! Now they want me to pay an extra $107.73 plus my bill at the end of this month, which is in a couple of days! That is just ridiculous. I have heard complaints from a lot of people around me about CenturyLink. I didn't want to believe any of the negative comments, but now I do. Basically now if I don't pay it, my services will be cutoff I was told. My son is homeschooled, how can they be so heartless? I understand everyone is out to make their money, but damn times are hard nowadays!

Still, I wouldn't be as bothered by it as I am if not for the fact that they are so rude! It's a monopoly for them where I live (Bloomington, MN) and nothing good comes out of monopoly - except for the company that has no competitors. Cable is way expensive, and I can't bundle; I'm in a condo bulk account TV-wise. The only other choice is to cancel my land line and DSL and switch to wireless 4g smart phone plan. This way I'll have all my phone needs and internet access. And more importantly, drop CenturyLink like a crusty ** it is. Some of my friends have already done that.

I have a strong suspicion, when I call and ask them to disconnect me, they'll start kissing my butt as hard as they did when they signed me up for premium services. It’s too bad because by then, I’ll already make up my mind. I hope the same thing that happened to newspapers and the record industry is beginning to happen to land line telephone providers. Only that will make them value each and every customer.

On that Monday at approximately 8 PM, I finally got around to hooking up the modem. It failed to connect to the internet, and after troubleshooting for 30 minutes, I called tech support at 9 PM. The first technician said that my connection was still pending and what the letter had meant was that my service would be available sometime after 5 PM, but probably before midnight. I said that was unacceptable and requested that they push my connection through immediately. After 20 minutes of being on hold, she reported that my connection was now supported and asked me to unplug the modem and try again. I did without any luck.

The technician then asked me to try another outlet as there must be a problem with the one I was using. I did that as well, without any change. The technician explained that I must have a problem with my outlets and maybe they didn't support their progressive technology. I explained my apartment complex was only a couple years old and was pretty sure they supported a DSL connection through a phone jack. No, I would not be paying $85 for their technician to examine my inside lines. That would fall under apartment maintenance. The technician then informed me that I would still need a technician to come out and take a look at the outside connection, and put me on hold to schedule that appointment. At that point, I was disconnected and the technician never called back. I waited for about 10 minutes and then called back myself.

Tech #2 wanted to troubleshoot the modem all over again. I explained that I only needed to set up an appointment for a tech visit. 30 minutes of explaining finally got me put back on hold, and 35 minutes later the tech had still not returned. I hung up and called back.

Tech #3 also wanted to troubleshoot, but at least was having me check things that hadn't been checked before, including a hard reset on the modem. After 45 minutes of troubleshooting, he finally determined that although the outside connection may be the problem, my modem could also be faulty. He set up an appointment for a tech visit for the following day between 8 AM and 2 PM, with instructions to call before they came so I could give them access to our gated community - all of that took until 11:40 PM.

This morning, I turned on my phone at 7:45 AM to a message that there was a problem initiating my service and that I needed to call the business office. I called and they reported that their technician was unable to access the outside box (no phone call was made to my cell so I could give them access) and that my appointment had been canceled. Not only that, they had cancelled the initial work order to connect me at all. My account was back to pending status. After several long holds, the business office said that they needed to transfer me back to tech support to get an appointment scheduled as they didn't handle that.

Tech #4 said that they couldn't even schedule an appointment until the business office took off the pending status on my account and that there were no tech appointments available for another week. I replied that I was having second thoughts about using their service at all and that they would need to find an appointment sooner than next week if they wanted to retain my service. An hour later, tech #4 said that she thought they might have an appointment on Friday, but that she would need to call me back in 5-10 minutes for confirm. Five minutes later, she called back and said that the regional office could only re-initiate my account and set up a tech appointment a week out.

I told her that was unacceptable and that I would like to cancel my activation. She said that I would need to call the loyalty department for that, and I responded that she could make a note of it in my account and I would also include a letter with the modem return. I refuse to waste any more of my life on the phone with this company that never gave me any service at all. Thankfully, they don't have any credit card information so they have no way to auto-bill me for anything. If I get a bill from them, I am going to be so pissed!

I called several times and I just got that whole bunch on nonsense. They promised to clarify something. The next time, I got a bill that was higher because now they added a late fee. I couldn't believe my eyes. How do they get away with this? Is this illegal? Never in my life have I dealt with such an unprofessional company. Dealing with them has been a nightmare. Nobody in customer service knows what they are talking about. They don't try to listen to their customers and their explanation is all about how they can make money out of the customer. It's a horrible experience. They are all about making money at all cost. It's totally illegal. How they can do this makes no sense to me.

Every month thereafter, I have received bills for services I have never used. Some bills have ranged from over a hundred dollars and some are for $37. Five months later, I am spending a lot of tome waiting to speak with Customer service and each time I am assured it was a mistake and I don't need to pay anything. And yet, I keep getting bills. This is the eternal hell I have been condemned to. If I don't stay vigilant with following through with long wait times and repeated emails, then it goes to collections and I get my credit score affected.

CenturyLink is a worthless service. They sold me a package to include fiber optic Internet and they didn't even have the basic information that it wasn't available to me. Stay away from them. Go with a cable Internet if you can. The company's business practices are nothing shy of disgraceful and the harassment you will go through if you have a situation like this is almost unbearable.

I went back to the office and was told that they told me to call the company to disconnect my internet. I told them the day I turned in my modem. I told them when I called the second time and I told them the third time that I do not want the internet with them any longer. They should be able to check my usage to see that I did not use any internet since I turned the modem in (two and a half months ago). They say that I owe them $92.11 to get my DirecTV turned back on. This is the year 2012 and it should have been clear with the company that I did not want internet service when I brought the modem box in because I explained that I was going to Comcast security system. I asked them if they had a security system and they told me no.

It should have been possible to cancel my service when I was in the store, not on the phone, after talking to five CenturyLink personnel. This company needs better customer service-friendly procedures. They still did not credit my account for the modem. What's going on guys?

After 4 months, I finally was able to have them cancel my account and not receive false bills. In November 2012, I qualified for the Internet Basics program. The charge of my service should be $9.95 a month. I just got a bill for $66.24! What the? CenturyLink is the only service provider in my area so I am stuck with them. I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. My recommendation is that if anyone has an option not to sign up with CenturyLink, please do so.

The sales people reassured me that there would be no issues setting up service for phone, internet, and DirecTV. So, a week later, a service technician came out to my house and set up the phone line and internet service. Two days later, the DirecTV technician came out to set up the satellite and TV service. After looking at my property (I live in a townhouse), the technician started to explain how he is unsure of where the satellite could go on my roof, and if we put it up there, he would need to drill through my garage door and then again through my house to put the cable in. After standing there listening to this in total shock, the technician turned to me and said, “I completely understand if you do not want to do this.” I said, “Yes, there is no way we are drilling holes into my property and damaging my home to install a satellite that might work,” not to mention there is no way my HOAs would allow this to happen.

The next day, I contacted CenturyLink and DirecTV to cancel all my services. There is no way this made sense if I could not bundle the services together. After speaking to numerous people at CenturyLink and DirecTV about cancelling all services due to the circumstances, I was reassured that the money I put down would be fully reimbursed and I would not be billed for anything. I literally had these services installed and then cancelled within less than a week. So, this is when the fun begins. Please keep in mind, I now have to have Comcast come back out, reinstall all my equipment for internet and phone, and disable all the equipment CenturyLink installed. In the meantime, CenturyLink sent me a pre-addressed envelope to mail back their modem. When I received this postmarked package, I immediately returned it and have to go to UPS and pay out of pocket to ship this back to CenturyLink.

A week or so later, I started getting bills from CenturyLink for $117.50 to be exact. After seeing this bill and knowing it must be some kind of billing error, I called the customer service line to have it resolved. I called about this a couple of weeks ago, waited on hold for about 15 minutes, got transferred to 3 different departments, and when I finally reached the right person, he reassured me it was an error and I would not be billed for this. So yesterday, I went to the mailbox and got another bill for the same amount! I called back the customer service line referenced on the bill for CenturyLink and actually got someone who picked up in less than 15 minutes. This woman started telling me that the charges can’t be reimbursed because it does not fall within their 30-day money back guarantee and some other nonsense that made absolutely no sense to me at all. After I started arguing this and telling her that I never even used the services and they were cancelled immediately and I was already told I would not be charged, this customer service lady started yelling at me on the phone (yes, yelling at me).

I immediately asked to speak with her supervisor. I waited about 10 minutes on hold and a supervisor got on the phone. The supervisor started telling me that I need to pay for the technician who came out to install phone and internet and I also need to pay for 12 days of phone service that apparently was not cancelled. She began to start going through these credits for internet, etc., and somehow arrived at a new balance of $68.00, which made no sense at all. I spent probably a full hour and a half listening to her be sarcastic, demeaning, and verbally abusive to me. After another total shocking moment with CenturyLink, I decided to terminate the call because I could not take any more of it. I am guessing I still have a balance due for this new amount. This is so wrong and so dishonest I almost don’t have the words to explain it any further. My next step is taking my story to the internet and contacting the CEO. Please let me know the next steps or options I have on this, because there is no way I am calling them back again to go through the same terrible experience I had last night.

Then, the internet went down on a Thursday and they could not reconnect until Tuesday. They nicely offered to credit me the no service days, but that doesn't help with working at home. I then asked to talk to customer service, and they were closed until Monday. On Monday, I told them that I would like to cancel because they cannot live up to their end of the deal on the contract to provide me reliable internet at the download rates advertised. They said I am in a 1 yr. contract and would have to pay a cancellation fee. Why should I have to pay anything if they care not providing the service required in the contract?

While the new order process took me only 10-15 minutes, the cancellation process was brutally painful - six individuals: first one I do not recall, Doug, Mel, Kendall, Warren, and finally Katelyn in Customer Loyalty. Fifty minutes later, I finally got the installation cancelled and the excuses. Maybe someone who reads this review will change their mind about CenturyLink before they too experience the pain I did. While I will pay a whopping $12 per month, the ability to speak and deal with a different provider is worth every cent of it.

Big mistake! In just one week of the change, we had no internet and no phone twice. Then to top it all, we had no internet for over 24 hours over the weekend and no service person showed up at all. It's over. This is absolutely a disgrace to modern technology. Please do not use this provider. They have a great sales pitch but they lack the capacity to deliver the services promised.

The only recourse is to file a complaint against the technician who should have informed me as to the additional $99 charge. No papers were signed, no work order paperwork presented. Regarding the rest of the bill, the basic phone charge is $12.80, related monthly charges is $9.15, taxes, fees and surcharges is $6.70. Therefore, in Portland, Oregon, for a phone (with no long distance or any other features such as call waiting) the true cost is $28.65.

I explained that I was never told about a one-year deal. Never. He said, "We have it recorded here that we did." Well, if they did, someone lied. And, in my opinion it may have said, "signed customer up for the $29 deal" - with no mention of explaining to the customer that it was a one-year special! Now not only are they trying to charge me $59.95/month (and trying to tell me what a great deal I'm getting), but the service is horrible. Unfortunately they are the only service I can get in my location. I can only get the 1.5 meg line and honestly there are times when the speed is barely above my old dial-up speed. Aren't monopolies great? If you can get service somewhere else my advice is to do it. I think this company is guilty of false advertising or at least misleading advertising. I know that they will take you for all they can and laugh at you when you need service.

Today is October 15th, a month after signing up and our bill came in for $123. After I asked for a direct answer on why the bill was so high, the lady in customer care basically told me that there was an activation fee and shipping and handling fee of $37 when we were told it would be $15 for just an activation fee. Then, she said that somehow our charges were "prorated" because we signed up in the middle of the month. She said that the prorated charge plus the month of October was going to cost $60. She claimed that CenturyLink bills a month in advance. She also said there was a $5 charge for the modem. Then she also said there were taxes. Even with everything she said, it contradicted my bill and was extremely confusing. I refuse to pay this and I am highly considering getting an attorney involved. This is ridiculous.

Here is an outline of my bill and several charges I was not made aware of for the first month of service:

Shipping and Handling Fee: $22.95

Don't forget that these charges are occurring after only one month of service! Are they really charging customers these ridiculous fees and getting away with it? This is fraud!

Never in my life have I dealt with such poor service and unprofessional business. If I didn’t go through this myself, I don’t know if I could believe it. If you’re looking to put your business and money in the hands of people who will take advantage of you, waste your time, and screw you over, CenturyLink surely is the place to go. Even during the set up stage of my account, these companies couldn’t even take down my address correctly to get my services started. I was told I could rent a receiver for my internet or purchase my own. I chose to purchase my own. CenturyLink told me they would send me a rental that will cost $5 a month which will be reimbursed once I received the receiver I purchased and send theirs back. Months go by and there’s no receiver sent to me, so it took me calling CenturyLink two different times for them to tell me they don’t know why someone told me this information, and that I’ve had my own receiver the whole time.

To add to the bundle of poor business, CenturyLink and DirecTV were supposed to bundle my services together as one bill, and save me money. They never did that for me, and months after having the TV and internet, I find out I’m not bundled and payments are missing due to this. So, we try bundling my services for a second time. They told me they took care of it and it’s good to go - which now leaves me here, as I mentioned earlier, missing the last 3 DirecTV payments because CenturyLink only billed me part of my bills. They are trying to put it out there that it’s my fault that this has happened. They don’t seem to have any logical answers or anything of the such. And again, now they’re looking to take almost $400 from me for their mistakes. Comcast here I come!

When I spoke to a bank representative, he printed out a copy of all recent charges to my account. There was no indication of any payment to CenturyLink being submitted or rejected in my recent charges, and my account had sufficient funds to cover payment. I have decided to handle future payments through my bank rather than CenturyLink’s website. Their website is confusing at best and seems designed to frustrate or fool customers into signing up for automatic payments. Given the number of times they (and Qwest before them) have added odd fees and charges, I am sure that they would be happy if all their customers would blindly hand over control of payment to them!

If you have the time to call them up and complain to an actual person, you can sometimes get them to agree to drop these added fees or charges that get added. However, they seem to be continuing in the same old tradition of virtual monopolies - provide the worst possible service at the highest possible price! Has anyone else out there been charged fees for supposedly rejected payments? The representative I talked to was never actually impolite, but he took a tone that seemed to be trying to dominate the conversation and to be blaming me for what I suspect was their screw-up!

I am very irate that after several attempts of me calling to fix the issue, I am still having the same problem, even after telling them that I already went through the repair process about 5 times or so and that I was tired of constantly calling them and repeating myself. Well it's 10/22 and I still have the same issue. Since this morning, I have been trying to get in contact with a supervisor as this is becoming unacceptable. This is my 3rd attempt in contacting a supervisor; I have been on hold since 2:38pm. Currently it is 3pm and I'm still holding. I just don't understand that if CenturyLink is a phone and internet business, how can they not send a technician to check on the phone lines or any other repair protocol? I understand that there are certain operating procedures, but how long are they going to be giving me the run-around to fix the issue a different way? I hope to hear from you soon.

On 6/9, I had no internet. I didn't have internet for over 2 hours. On 6/30 it was reset. The internet was extremely slow. It was running at 384/640, not what I paid for. I had to reset the router (unplug/plug back in). On 7/1, it was reset. The internet was extremely slow. It was running at 384/640 - not what I paid for. I had to reset the router (unplug/plug back in). On 7/2 I had to reset. The internet was extremely slow. It was running at 384/640 - not what I paid for. I had to reset the router (unplug/plug back in). On 7/8, I had no internet. I didn't have internet for over an hour. On 9/4, I had no internet. I did not have internet for over 3 hours! I called the technician's (Ed) phone number that he had left me because the tech reps on the phone did not know what they were doing again. He did not answer, so I left a message. He never called me back as of 9/6.

A complaint was filed with the BBB and I received one phone call, then someone set up an appointment for a tech to come to my home without my knowledge. The service not working properly has been an ongoing issue for over a year.

Today, we called because for a third time, our internet was running slowly. The tech, who was difficult to understand, flat out told us that we pay for a 20mbps connection, but her records indicated that we were only running a 7mbps connection. This didn't seem strange to her in any way at all. For 10 months now, CenturyLink has provided us the incorrect service but has been more than capable of updating billing correctly to reflect what we requested and pay for. All they give a damn about is the bottom line.

So they now have a new account number that they are trying to collect on. They called again yesterday and want me to pay on this new account number. I told them no and they weren't getting any more money from us. She said they are going to turn our account over to a collection agency and I said go ahead. I have proof they changed account number and proof they received payment. She wants proof I sent payment to Phoenix, AZ office and wants me to send copies. I've already provided copies of our payments from our checking account last August. They continue to attempt to extort money from us. It's a never ending nightmare. The Phoenix AZ office and the Denver, CO office obviously do not make any attempt to communicate with each other.

After 1 year, I called in to disconnect in my off-season, and to my surprise, I am in a contract that I was never told about. I have no idea how they get away with that. Also at this time, they finally told me about the website features, which I have never used, even to this day, because I already had purchased and made a website on my own. I did try contacting them about transferring the website 3 times, but I never got a call back. So I gave up on that and yes, I have to pay another web-hosting site separate from them because they don't do their job. Plus on top of that, their site stops working all the time. I have issues paying my bill. I have another account as well, and to this day, I have not been able to access it on the site to pay it that way. And they charge me an extra $4.00 just to pay the bill via telephone. I am sick of this. You know I cannot tell you that this gets better because it does not.

I have called until I am blue in the face. The average call is like 1-hour long with them. Here I am, 2 years into a contract that I never knew about. My brother just died, and once again being as broke as I am, I need to cut the phone service for the 6-7 months that my business is offline or I am screwed. I am going to lose my business because CenturyLink won’t terminate a contract I never agreed to. I asked them, if I agreed to this, then I want to hear the recording or see whatever it is that I signed. Here is the issue. It was a regular phone service, not a cell, so why would I ever think there was a contract? Especially, a 3-year off-the-wall one.

I might get lucky and have half a month of internet access. It goes off and on so much that's about all I have; it happens like every other day or so. My business and we rely on the net, and without the net, well, we are going to be out of business. We are a small business that is seasonal. We are open May-October. We rely on the internet to make money; half of the darn month, we have no internet. We are currently paying $1,000-$2,000 extra a year for months we don't use, and we have to pay for it even when we don't have it. I started out with 7 Mbps, and then they called me and said you can have 20 Mbps for $60 extra. But they would credit it back to me, so I said OK. The next month, I called in because there was no credit, and they said, “Oh, they put you on the wrong plan. It is supposed to be 12 Mbps and that’s $30.00 a month extra, but they would credit the $30 back every month.”

So imagine my surprise to find out when I called in for another reason a few months later that I was not receiving the credit and I could not be on that plan. It was supposed to be for new customers only. So here I am, back at 7 Mbps, and let me tell you, nothing loads very fast. It's equivalent to dial-up. I have to wait 5-30 minutes for a 1-hour movie on the internet to load - sometimes longer. But what good is even 7 Mbps if half the month I have no service. I guarantee this is my last year. Interlink will have me out of business because of the loss of internet and the contract I was never told about. I would never agree to phone service all year long when 6-7 months a year we do no business. Thanks to the ever so helpful CenturyLink.

Anyway, now they're billing me an extra $10 on my bill. I can't even see my bill online to see why. You have to sign in for everything. You can't just sign in once and see all of your bill. This is the stupidest website I have ever seen on the web. I find a Contact Us page, Send Us an Email so I try to do that and guess what? I get the internet runaround, sign in to do it. So, I signed in then I tried to find the email them page. Well guess what, it's gone. Century Link is absolutely the worst company I have ever tried to do business with. I'm ready to tell them to take their stuff off my house and I'll go without internet or I'll pay for satellite. This company sucks.

I was recently sent a bill for my router that I had forgotten to send back. So, I know this was my mistake. But when I called in to find out what to do, I was told that I had been turned over to collections, that I'd have to take it up with them, and that it would certainly affect my credit. I was then hung up on when I asked to speak to a supervisor. This was 9 days after receiving the bill. Thankfully, I found a better service rep the second time who took care of everything. (No, I hadn't been in collections; yes, I can still turn in the router.)

This time they came to my house but since I had a fence, they could not install it without me being home. Not only did I not get a phone call regarding the issue, but I had to call again to put in yet another ticket. I was going on two weeks back and forth. All along I felt the customer service to be poor, inefficient and downright unsympathetic to my situation. So, I canceled my service with them. Months later, I received a call from a collection agency telling me that I owe CenturyLink $29. No phone call from CenturyLink, no overdue notice, just straight to collections. I paid it immediately over the phone. 3 weeks later, I got my first invoice from CenturyLink with the same $29 delinquent notice.

I called CenturyLink and explained that I paid the past due amount with the collection agency over the phone and not only did they have no record of the payment I made to the collection agency, but the woman I was dealing with was not able to give me a single name of any of their collection agencies to help me find where my payment had gone. After trying to get something out of the customer service rep, I was hung up on! I had to call my bank and put in a ticket to research the company that had withdrawn the funds from my account. They called me today with the company info, which I had to call and ask for a verification letter of payment and submit it myself to CenturyLink!

I am so glad I will never have to deal with this company again. I have been in the service industry for 13 years and know what good service is! This company's service is atrocious!

After a little more than 30 days of failed attempts to repair the problem, I finally figured out that they weren't actually doing anything about my specific calls. It was always something about multiple calls already received about outages in our area and engineers were troubleshooting it now. What's the ETA? Well, they don't even have to provide on for 24 hours in their process ... For us, it was a DSLAM pedestal in our area and a part needed to be replaced - multiple times, apparently. I've worked in the phone industry for 20+ years, and I know what a DSLAM is. I also know that it is the dregs of customer service not to have repair parts for your deployed equipment on hand. And if you have a box that fails that many times in 30 days, it needs to be replaced. But no...

I work from home and came - literally - one day from losing my job because of this issue. I was forced to go back to Comcast, but I'm sure you can guess the rest of this story. I am now screwed for a huge fee from DirecTV for cancelling that, as part of bundled service, because the cancellation was just beyond the 30 days. I called CenturyLink to cancel my triple play bundle. They can't do anything about DirecTV because it's not their service. They have nothing to do with it except billing for it. Really? Because I distinctly remember getting a big sell job from the CenturyLink rep I was talking to before signing up. So yes, they could cancel the internet service, but if I wanted to port my phone number back to Comcast, they couldn't do anything but wait until the port happened and I would pay for service through whatever that day was. Oh, and here's the number for DirecTV.

What? No relief with a $440 cancellation fee that CenturyLink is responsible for my incurring? Nope - not even an "I'm sorry, here's the number of someone who might care" or whatever other lie they could have told to try to appease me. Their position, the fee is imposed by DirecTV, not CenturyLink. It doesn't matter whether you're cancelling because of not liking CenturyLink or DirecTV itself, or if the service isn't performing as advertised - the fee is owed because that's what DirecTV does. And CenturyLink takes no responsibility for it even though they didn't keep up at all with a full 1/3 of the triple play bundle they sold us. Comcast service unbundled isn't affordable for us, so we had no other choice. Screwed by CenturyLink...

I just finished paying the DirecTV fee with my credit card, and I'm not happy. I am going to find a way to get this complaint in front of someone that can do something about it, or I will go to the local TV investigative reporter. People should not have to incur these kinds of huge fees because CenturyLink spends all their money on advertising to compete with Comcast instead of having an adequate equipment repair inventory on hand and having a US-based support staff. Take your business elsewhere. You'll be happier no matter whom you go with, and you'll keep more money in your pocket over the long haul. This was a $1,000 exercise in futility for me after all is said and done, and I still have a satellite dish on my roof that DirecTV doesn't want back and won't remove. Thank you, CenturyLink. :(

When I said that I would be working all day tomorrow, it was suggested that I take they day off. I said that I would not take another day off because I did not believe that they would show up. On top of all of this, a fee of $85 is associated with this type of appointment. In the end, I said I could take a 3rd day off work if this fee was waived and I was told that was not a possibility. I will say that the woman I spoke with was sympathetic and pleasant; however, the problem was not solved. Extremely disappointed.

So, tell me how to recover our address list back. These are emails from family members that are no longer with us. That's really a ** hit below the belt. So after being a customer for 10 years, they just delete us. My wife is just devastated. This is pure **. I think they should at least keep your information for a month anyway. The customer service ** sucks. Next problem we have, we are stuck with them because they have the area we live in locked up so we have no choice but to use them. No other company is allowed in Lewis County. It is just not right. We should have a choice to what company we use and I thought monopoly was illegal after the big phone company break up. So now, what do we do? I think they should try harder to retrieve our information instead of blowing us off. If anyone has any ideas, please email me.

They did tell me that if I could find someone to take over my service, they would consider dropping the fee. I was so appalled by their lies and lack of customer service. I would never recommend anyone to do business with them. This was a theme for the last three years I was in business with them. They would quote one price and then charge me significantly more. I spent more hours on the phone fighting their overcharges then I can say. They are the worst company to do business with.

However, when we switched to Comcast, we were charged over $400 in disconnection fees. CL claimed that in agreeing to the $4 extra long distance fee in order to control our long distance costs, we had changed our contract with them and were, therefore, obliged to stay with them another three years. At no time did we sign anything agreeing to a new contract or high disconnection fees nor was any new terms explained to us.

The internet is replete with egregious stories regarding CenturyLink and other service providers. Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in response to discrepancies in the law, it's almost impossible to file a class action lawsuit at this time to help control egregious fraud. Companies are raking in millions and millions of fraudulently earned dollars, while the consumer and small businesses horrifically suffer during this economic downturn. However, there's recourse. Contact the Attorney General's Office/Consumer Affairs and file a complaint. Contact your congressmen to change the law - that's all that we need to do. It's up to the consumer to take action. A democracy only works if you participate and take action. Americans need to clearly define a law that puts a stop to this blatant fraud!

I drove to a local CenturyLink store to be told that if I pay $85, it would clear the account and all would be taken care of. So that is what I did. Another six months later, I received a collection bill from CenturyLink for $375. I again went to the retail store and the service rep there could find no cause for such a bill. I returned home and called CenturyLink to be told that Dish Network had billed them on my account so they were just recouping their money and that I would have to deal directly with Dish to get it cleared up. I called Dish and was told that it was for the equipment that had not been returned. I explained that I had bought the equipment from a local satellite installer and was not aware that it needed to be returned. But if it would clear this up, I would gladly return it. Dish promptly sent out a return box and I sent it back.

Almost two years later, I received a collection bill from CenturyLink for $375 again. I called and asked what this was in regards to and once again, was told that it was for unreturned equipment to Dish. I informed the rep on the other end that the equipment had been returned and once again, was told I would need to deal with Dish Network. I called Dish again and was told that it shows that the equipment had been received and that my account was clear. I called CenturyLink again to be told that if I would pay another $85, it would clear my account. I asked what the $85 was for and never got a straight answer.

In the meantime, the $375 collection hit my credit report. I have been unsuccessful in getting CenturyLink to get it together and clear my account so I disputed it on all 3 credit reports. Recently, the $375 collection was removed but they turned around and put a $450 back in its place. I have been unable to get any help in getting this cleared up. CenturyLink is the most inept group I have ever dealt with.

When I called customer service over these issues, they said that it was a problem between me and the salesman and they would do nothing. She then said there is a separate department at CenturyLink for dealing with disputed salesman promises, but that they don't have a phone number. They can only be reached through email (what a joke from a phone company). Fortunately, a complaint website pointed out that way down hidden in their ads is a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. I can cancel the service during the first 30 days without being liable for the $200 cancellation fee. Of course, this is well before the new delivery date of the $150 gift card, so I'm still on the hook for at least $50 install fee and some other miscellaneous charges that I have yet to figure out.

Bottom line, don't do anything with this company unless you have it in writing. And even then, I would advise every person I know to avoid this company like the plague. They will say or do anything to get your signature and money, then pretend like they don't know what you're talking about.

Qwest... I miss your wonderful customer service people and the kindness you have shown to your customers. As it turned out, our service was turned off again because I do not get paid during the summer months and my husband is on disability. My dear brother called them and paid the bill for us. Shame, shame on you Century Link, turning off my service again and refusing to help us after numerous calls to your customer service.

I advised the agent that I wasn't sure that was the problem and thought that there might be a problem either with the modem I already had or with the line coming into my house. The ticket was closed without anyone coming out to check on the issue. Then, after getting a little behind on my bill, I proceeded to pay over half of the past due amount, which would usually get my service restored until I could pay the remainder. After making the payment, I still didn't get my service restored. So, I decided to wait until my next payday to make further payment. In the meantime, I received a call from IC Systems, a third-party collections company, representing Centurylink. The person I spoke with told me that if I set a repayment plan with him, he could keep it from hurting my credit by not having it reported to the major credit agencies. I voluntarily set up a three installment repayment plan.

Two days after the first payment clears, I received a letter in the mail from Centurylink notifying me that they are charging me an additional $204.80 for an early termination fee. I immediately called Centurylink and spoke with a supervisor regarding the issue, but was told that I didn't follow the contract and that is why I was charged the termination fee. I advised the supervisor that I was in a voluntary repayment plan with IC Systems and that I had even made the first payment and then received a notice about the termination fee. The supervisor did absolutely nothing to try and rectify the situation. I told her that since I made repayment in good faith with the collection department representing them that I should not be charged the early termination fee. She still didn't budge on the issue.

At that point, I advised her that I may be forced to take legal action regarding the matter at which point she told me that she could no longer help me if I were to pursue legal action. I advised her that she apparently wasn't going to help me anyway and hung up. Next, I contacted the Better Business Bureau regarding the issue. I went back and forth with Centurylink, who claimed I voluntarily terminated my service. They also stated that when I called in for the trouble ticket that I said I had a third-party modem, which was not the case. Apparently the agent I spoke with at Centurylink couldn't think and type at the same time. Anyway, after two or three exchanges with Centurylink, the Better Business Bureau closed the case due to the fact that Centurylink was unwilling to resolve it.

The other issue I have is that I cannot get service of any kind except for Centurylink in my area. Comcast is on my street, but they are not down far enough for me to get service from them. I know Centurylink knows this and is trying to use this to their advantage in offering lousy service and to close their technical support tickets without ever sending a tech out. I have also notified the FTC and the FCC regarding this complaint.

For many years, I've paid between $84 and $89 monthly for local phone service and DSL internet. Last month, they charged $218. This month's bill is $191. Last week, the local CenturyLink office reduced the bill to $106. This morning, I received an email stating they reduced the bill to $51. They said the bill is now $106, the same amount as indicated last week. These people don't know what they are doing. The lady in the local office even said someone changed my email address and the type of internet service was changed. There are only two of us and my wife has never contacted CenturyLink by phone, email or in person.

Gulf Telephone was great. A few years ago, they were sold. This new company made changes to make it look marketable. Then they sold it to CenturyLink. I could write a book about this company. Incidentally, I haven't been able to pay CenturyLink online without problems since April 2012. On the other hand, I pay the electric bill online within 90 seconds.

I stated back, "So, I can sign up for this trial and as long as I cancel within 30 days, I will not be billed and I will receive a $100 gift card?" The rep stated that I was correct. So I figured I would go for it and if I didn't like it, I will not lose anything but if I liked it, they would work out getting rid of Dish and either way I got a $100 gift card. So I signed up. They came out the next week and installed the Prism on one of our TVs on June 11th. Three weeks later, during the week of June 25th, I received my CenturyLink bill and on it was an extra $75 for this Prism TV. I immediately called and asked why I got charged and the customer service rep stated that I am supposed to get charged for the service and then they will refund it if I do not like it and cancel within 30 days.

So that would mean that if I did like it, then I would pay both Dish Network and CenturyLink for the same service for one month. That is a disincentive to continue on with them right there. That makes no sense. Anyway, I told them that was not what the sales rep told me and I specifically asked about being billed and they assured me as long as I cancel within the 30 days, there would be no charges. I told him to cancel the service immediately and I don't want to have anything else to do with. The customer service rep canceled my service and he stated that it would be discontinued as of July 6th and I had 30 days to return the equipment (they would send someone to put it in my house, but not someone to pick it up). So it got canceled and I told him I would not pay it. He said it is fine, but it may up to 60 days to show a credit on my bill.

I asked about the $100 gift card and he gave me a website to check the status. I did and it showed that it was on track, just not mailed out yet. No mention that if I cancel within 8 weeks, I would not get the card. Come July 6th, I was working from home and as I tried to log in for work, I realized I cannot. I come to find out it is because I did not have any internet service. So again, I called CenturyLink and asked what now is going on with my internet. A customer service rep informed me that because they did not have their equipment back, they cut off my internet. I explained that the last guy stated that I had 30 days to bring it back and I asked how they could cut my internet even though I am paying for it. She said there was nothing she could do and until I returned the equipment, they would not turn on my internet. I, of course, asked to speak to someone else and she transferred me.

By the end of the conversation, it took me over two hours to get my internet turned back on. I, of course, was livid but decided to move on. Then on around July 15th, I received my next bill. Not only did they not refund me all my money, but they charged me more for some weird promotion. So again I called and another customer service rep stated that they received the equipment after the billing cycle so they did not refund the rest of the money and some sort of computer glitch caused the overcharging of those other things. On top of that, they had the nerve to charge me a $5.00 late penalty for not paying the Prism even though he stated that was fine to do.

So anyway, she fixed it and removed the miscellaneous charges and late penalty. I asked again about the $100 gift card and she said I should receive it by the end of July. So here we are on July 31st. I called CenturyLink again to find out where the $100 gift card was since it was not the end of July and I have not seen it. The customer service rep stated that I would not be receiving this gift card because I canceled within 8 weeks. I let him know that was not what the sales rep sold me on and it was very clear that if I canceled within the 30 days, I would receive this Visa gift card and I had asked several other reps up to this point who knew I had canceled and no one said anything about this. I asked him to pull the tape so they can hear and I was informed that they do not keep them this long.

To make another long story short, he said there was nothing he could do and passed me up to his supervisor, who also said there was nothing he could do, who passed me to his supervisor, who said there was nothing she was going to do about it. I told her that I am seriously considering canceling all my services with CenturyLink and she said that would be fine. At this point, I am in the market for new phone and internet service and the moment I find it, I am canceling all ties with this company. I do not recommend doing business with CenturyLink. Their customer service is awful and their business practices are very shady.

On Monday, I called Florida - checking on my 19-year-old daughter who was traveling. On Tuesday, I had no long distance service. It took them 5 days to restore it and now, they are charging me a long distance service change fee. I didn't change my LD service. I wanted and have the same as I've had for years. So, 3 things needed transferred: phone, long distance, and Internet. They ** up all 3. I asked them, "Is there anything else you could have done wrong?" They had no answer. Now, I am being billed more than $20 a month more than I was billed for 10 years. I've talked to half a dozen trained monkeys. Why should it be my responsibility to get upset and call these idiots repeatedly to get them to fix their mistakes? I am 61 years old, been through chemo twice and this stress detrimentally affects my health. CenturyLink does not give a **. They have taken the opportunity of my moving to gouge me and overbill me, and they ignore my calls. Don't use CenturyLink!

The credit answered with Alyssa on the line and the other person was rude (not only to me, but Alyssa also) and said, "Well, you're going to have to call billing." Alyssa said, "I cannot transfer you to billing" (I guess the on-hold while she filled out the form was a waste) and gave me 877-348-9002. Renee from billing answered and I could tell right away that she wasn't going to help me. She said, "Well, you need to talk to retentions" before I could hardly explain my reason for calling. She would not listen to what I had been through thus far (I am about 1 hour into it now). She said and I don't need to be rude to her and could I lower my voice. I was upset, but was not yelling at this point.

She put me on hold without asking and then hung up on me. I called back to 888-285-6829 and spoke with Patricia. She said, "Well, we can't help you as this is your daughter's account and you are not authorized." 1.5 hours on the phone with them and still didn't get help getting my money back. My daughter is going to have to call and waste her time. All in all, they were Melinda and Renee (and the woman from credit - I did not get her name). Just very unhelpful people. Why do they work in that line if their goal is to see how unhelpful they can be?

In addition, the internet service they promised never worked the way they said or at the speed we were paying for. It's constantly cut out which was very inconvenient since both my husband and I were in school and we homeschool our children. The customer service people refused to talk to me unless to take my money even though my husband told them on 2 separate occasions to add me to the account because he was getting deployed and I would be handling the bills. In addition, their own website never worked right so we couldn't even pay online and their customer service was less than helpful every time we called and everything they said always turned out to be a lie because they never kept what they said. It is the worst company I have ever dealt with and I would never recommend it to anyone or use them again.

My landline phone hasn't worked consistently in two years and I haven't gotten a dial tone for the last month. My internet drops out 5 to 10 times a day. That's daily. I'm not joking, come here and monitor it for yourself. It's down for 10 to 15 minutes each time. Never have I gotten the DSL speed I'm paying them for. Regardless of the rate I'm paying for, I only get about half the MBPS. They constantly add charges and services to my bill. I have to check it every month. I cannot trust them. They are thieves. They have never refunded or credited my account when I call them out on it.

Calls to the tech support line (after the hour on hold) end up with someone from India telling me I need to unplug everything and wait 5 minutes, or my favorite is, I need to pull all my cables and replace them or better yet, turn the cable around so the ends are reversed. They are serious when they tell me that. It takes screaming to get Habib to put the script down and listen and then a second argument to get someone out here to "fix" it. A day off work, maybe they'll show up, maybe not, about a 50/50 record so far.

The last guy (in May) put a note on my door saying "sorry, he missed me" and didn't even knock. I watched him from a window. The front door was open. Never once has the problem been on my end. Oddly, they have my address wrong every time they come out to repair but they have it right when they send the bill. I've replaced the phones and the modem (twice) at their insistence and I still have the same problems. Even now, my phone says both "In Use" and "No Line" and my net connection has dropped once.

I'm tired of spending an hour on the phone every time I call, so I just stop calling and asking them to fix something. More than once, I've had to make a payment (with added charges) over the phone (cellphone) because of problems caused by CenturyLink or Qwest or whoever they are this week. I'm going to start complaining very loudly now.

On calling their "customer disservice" department and demanding a floor manager, I instead got a low-end supervisor, who tried to lie to me about his status and left me on hold for over 15 minutes once I forced the issue. On finally reaching the floor manager, he had to call the installation manager. The customer service manager relayed to me that CenturyLink would not be honoring that commitment, in spite of having on call staff. It was further intimated that the work would wait until he felt like getting to it, on the assumption urgent need for the phone would leave no choice. In spite of the installation manager being such a complete and utter chicken ** with regard to being identified that I had to force his employee number out of the customer service manager with threats to his job as well, he seemed quite eager to "call my bluff" on CenturyLink's behalf. No doubt because their apparent policy is to prevent phone contact with anyone in authority and to pass the buck wherever possible.

This was a grave error, as I do not bluff. The consequences of leaving a frail, elderly woman without a phone during a time when the lack of this resource placed her under undue stress was clearly communicated to the staff of CenturyLink during my final attempt to get them to honor their commitment. CenturyLink was given every opportunity to honor their commitment and demonstrate a small degree of humanity and compassion. As they have refused to do so, the full consequences of failure that I specified to their staff will now be implemented. Only now, after realizing that I will be more than happy to give them the war employee ** has declared, have they shown any interest in doing the right thing. That ship has sailed. There will be no "do over." There will be no negotiation. There will be no quiet "resolution" of this issue.

I just received my first bill which is actually a disconnect notice! It claims that I'm two weeks overdue on my first payment. (I've had service for one month.) When I called to find out what was going on, they said they would send the bill in the mail. I didn't want to get my service disconnected so I asked if I could pay it. They said yes, but for a $4 convenience fee. I couldn't pay over the internet because that system was down. They connected me to the phone system which couldn't take my payment either. When I talked to the representative, he said there was too much background noise for the system. (I've never had this problem with any other voice activated system.) Of course, he could take the payment and charge me $4. This company is absolutely incompetent. I will be canceling my service.

When I called to talk to a customer service rep, he was rude and said why should I get 3 months free when my service was only down a month and a half. I explained to him that since I started service, it has been bad and that finally, it just completely stopped working and that I had to spend many hours in a month and a half on phone with reps, as well as I had to leave work to meet them at home and took a vacation day to be home all day for one day since they couldn't give me a time that they could be there. I asked to be released from the contract and they said I would be charged a fee if I cancel the service. I wish I had never taken Dish Network's referral and gone with this company.

I was having a problem with my DirecTV not reflecting our discounts. They made me call Direct (who were very nice and much better to speak with). I got everything figured out and called CenturyLink back and their customer service rep argued with me about what DirecTV had just told me. She was yelling over me and not letting me get a word in, so I had to hang up on her. I called DirecTV back and they told me I was correct and they would solve the problem on their end. CenturyLink isn't even worth it. Their internet sucks and is slow and streaming movies can be a joke. Wish I hadn't signed a contract with these jerks! Don't ever get CenturyLink! Comcast is way better.

Of course, after the first phone call, I had made each of these requests, although, if they are promising these incentives as a way to gain new customers, they should be forthcoming in the very beginning! I do understand that sometimes businesses require customers to jump through hoops to receive discounts but at this point, CenturyLink is just plain being dishonest! A word to the wise if you decide to become a CenturyLink customer, beware of the promises made!

I asked then 6/5/2012 and on 6/19/2012 the same questions and would they please put notes on my account, so I wouldn't have to explain all over again. Sure we will, both customer service folks said. OMG, now I see I have charges on my account. I called and spoke to Mark. He said I cannot do that for you. I have to transfer you to my supervisor Janet. Janet said she can only credit us for $50.00 out of the $99.99 they are charging for the modem. I am very, very, very angry at their lack of customer service. I will never, never promote them! They all need to take Customer Service 101 once again! After all that, I still don't see the credit on my account. I have sent in 3 complaints and will not pay them until they credit me for the full $99.99!

I called back to talk to a supervisor. This representative was somewhat nicer, but she wanted to know why I was calling. She explained the policy again. However, as I told her, any other utility company will set a new due date. Finally, she said that she wasn’t going to argue with me and asked me if I wanted speak to a supervisor. Duh! I think that's what I asked for in the first place. It makes no difference to Century Link that I have done business with them since 2006. Customers beware! If you have any choice in using a different company, go with another and do not sign up with Century Link.

Warning to Century Link: Century Link please get your act together. Have your customer service representatives monitored and provide a way for your customers to provide feedback with surveys, etc. Also, please for goodness sake, change your policies! In general, care about your customers, otherwise if you don’t, you will lose customers and profits.

Last fall, with high winds, my phone line had been pulled loose from the pole causing interruptions. I contacted CenturyLink and right away, the company tried to make it my fault saying they would have to charge me for a repair service. I was told that if it turned out that it wasn't my fault, they would return my money. A serviceman did finally come out to reattach the line to the pole and I was not charged because I had refused. I asked for credit for lack of service which took more than 8 months to show up on my bill.

This May, I got a bill claiming my service had been shut off in March. I admit I do not use my phone much and I would never have noticed. I was never contacted despite what CenturyLink claims. No one from the company ever left a phone message and I never did get a disconnection notice in the mail. I asked the company to remove the charges from my bill, which they refused claiming the charges were valid. For many months I have noticed that when I send in a check, it took around 20 days to process and the company would add a late fee the next month. Frequently, bills would be dated a week to ten days previous to when they arrived in the mail giving me only a few days to pay them, which only added a late fee. Recently, I called complaining about this letting CenturyLink know I had contacted the District Attorney's office. When I sent in my payment, it only took around 4 days to process and I don't believe it is a coincidence.

I ride the bus with a gentleman who runs a business. He has told me that for nearly a year, the company has been over charging him by $5,000 each month. He had to hire someone to help with this matter as CenturyLink refuses to correct the bill or send a refund. The company has over $50,000 of this man's money and is earning interest on it. Should they ever finally get around to correcting this, they will never properly compensate this man or his business.

This Monday past, June 18, 2012, I got a disconnection notice. This notice was printed on Monday, June 11, 2012. I know the mail doesn't take that long to deliver letters. The disconnection is scheduled for Thursday, June 21, 2012. I was not able to call the company right away as I had other engagements. I did contact the company Wednesday, June 20, 2012, informing them if they wish to disconnect my phone, to never again turn back on my service or charge me another fee. I also informed them I would be sending a letter to as many people as possible to inform them of my experience. I believe if this company is properly investigated and audited, there would be many more cases of fraud and extortion. I wish I had another choice as competition would force them to do a better job and not take advantage of its customers.

We are scheduled again for tomorrow and I called CenturyLink to confirm the appointment for tomorrow and was told by customer service that they didn't see the order in the system and for me to call back tomorrow. Customer service emailed me last week and told me that the order is in the system, but today, they can't see the order and for me to call back tomorrow, day of service. I honestly don't know who is running CenturyLink because customer service is out to lunch. No one seems to know how to get an order in their system, how to check on an order when a customer calls or how to make sure the order gets to the department who handles the requested service. We have spent many hours on the phone with CenturyLink customer service and getting no customer service or satisfaction at all.

We inquired about cancellation of our CenturyLink service because the service has been horrible. The customer service rep said we can cancel, but we would be charged for the services rendered. I find that hard to believe. Most businesses give you a satisfaction guarantee, but not CenturyLink. CenturyLink is the worst ran company I have ever encountered and I don't know how the business is surviving. When asked to speak with a supervisor or manager, they are never available and if by chance you do speak with a supervisor or manager, they are no more helpful than the customer service rep. Speaking with their customer services leaves you angry, frustrated and wondering how hard could this be.

Bottom line, CenturyLink does not have a clue about customer service. For CenturyLink, there are no consequences because you can never seem to get in contact with a supervisor, manager or someone who really is concerned about the problems you encounter with their company. I have yet to speak to someone who knows what is going on. We have received horrible service from CenturyLink. Thank you.

I was told someone would be out to repair or install the phone services the next day, Friday. I was scheduled to work from home Friday, so I had to call out of work and miss a day's pay. The technician was supposed to arrive then, but still yet did not arrive until 3 hours later than what I was promised. The phone line worked until the next morning, Saturday, when I started getting static on the lines. I again called Century Link, again having to call out of work for my Saturday shift. I was promised a technician to arrive between 8 am to noon. Well, as I am writing this, it is now 1:28 pm. I have been on the phone with Century Link over 10 times, on hold and on the line with representatives for over 5 hours for the past 3 days. I am now being told that I cannot speak to a manager, and I must wait for him to arrive sometime between 3 pm and 4 pm. Do yourself a favor, go with anyone but this company. I am currently at risk of losing my job, still with no working telephone number.

I honestly believe they are purposely trained to not listen to a word the customer says. Every time I call for support, they can't find the problem. They sent a guy out last January. He installed a new modem and disconnected what was left of my home alarm system. The internet worked great for 2 whole days and then would run at a snail's pace when more than one computer was in use. Tomorrow, they will send another tech guy out because my modem has no signal. They told me when they upped my speed to 20 that I would have fiber optic and we could run 5 computers on the network and all get fast speed. I found out a few days ago that they didn't even have fiber optic in our area and are just now adding it and they will charge me more if I sign up for it.

So, I got a call today and yesterday saying the phone and internet will be down for a little while while they work on the lines. Well, guess what? I didn't have phone most of the day and it is after midnight and my internet is down. When I called CL, no one even knew that they had been in the neighborhood. I'm sitting in a parking lot at Staples using their internet to write this. CL either needs to get it together or get shut down.

Had I known that they charge all these fees and cost, I would have never signed up. I only had the service for about 2 weeks. I then contacted a manager and the best he could do is take $15 off my bill. He then said the following bills in the upcoming months will have an extra $5 charge on them. How is that benefiting me? I believe this company has deceptive practices and lies to the consumer about costs and fees. I refuse to pay for costs and fees that I was not told about. I since canceled my service. I would like my bill to be adjusted to the amount I was told, $59.90 + tax.

Our small business was solicited by Qwest to switch from standard copper lines to their T1 service, which is phone and internet service. This service was to be billed at $517 per month. To my surprise for the first six months, Qwest billed me $1,500 per month. Simple mistake? I don't think so. I was forced to spend countless resources and hours and hours of time to correct their billing errors. They'd never admit to the error but give the account a credit. Really? Why don't they call it for what it is? It's a correction!

As a small business owner, nothing is more important and critical to me than my phone and internet system. We live and die by the performance of our phones. So it's absolutely critical to me that we're provided good phone service as my livelihood along with my employees' livelihoods and clients depend on it. Because of this, I grew very tired and frustrated of their incorrect billing and the cost it created for our small business. So I did what any smart business owner would do, I switched carriers.

According to Qwest, we switched eight months early. Had we continued, it would have been about $4k for the service but since I cancelled early, Qwest is demanding $12,000, three times what it would have cost to continue! Wow! Now I could understand that someone could make a claim for an actual loss because of an early termination, but to charge three times as much? I believe this to be a punishment for quitting their service as they're using the wrong start date to figure the termination charges.

Now I deal with a lot of faceless and dumb corporations every day but Qwest is by far the worst company I have ever dealt with, period. They are so unorganized it's an absolute nightmare to work with them. I would warn any business thinking of or currently doing business with Century Link Qwest to have a huge team of attorneys because you're going to need them to figure out the contract and to hold them to their end of the deal, and it would help if you really enjoy getting transferred around through a huge mess of people that don't want to help you and are confused as to why you're interrupting them.

So let this be a warning to all businesses everywhere when you do business with Qwest that you're playing with a very large, dumb, faceless, corporation that wants you to lose.

To make a long story short, it turned out to be an endless debate. However, they, CL, was not aware I was recording our conversations and transcribing the conversations to a hard document of which I mailed to CL those documents with a return signature receipt documenting they, CL, did receive said letters. This went on for four months without resolution. Finally, I reached the end of my rope and filed a Federal lawsuit for deception including fraud under interstate and intrastate clauses. Again, to make a long story short; it ended in arbitration which I won the argument and was awarded a settlement of $15.5K. In essence, I got them, Century Link, by the short hair because of all the documentation and recorded conversations. Yes, you can beat them at their own game but it takes much work and aggravation!

By this time, it's early February 2012 and I got a call from a "service agent" from CenturyLink, who asked me questions about my service, apologized and told me that I will receive 4 months' credit because this is how long I had been charged with no service. Two months later, I'm getting billed again. I called their helpless desk and asked them about my billing and they proceeded to give me the runaround until I asked to speak to a manager. The manager was rude, insulting and thought that it was fine that I had been paying for a service that I was not receiving. I then asked to speak to his manager and he said "no!". Then he proceeded to give me a bogus address and told me to write CenturyLink's complaint dept. I then filed a report with the Better Business Bureau. CenturyLink told them that I was a liar and that brings me to where I'm at today. I'm currently looking for another company to satisfy my telephone needs.

Currently, I pay two monthly bills: CenturyLink internet of $34.95 and DirecTV for $60.00, for a total of $94.95 or $45.07 more than I should be paying for their advertised bundle. When I called DirecTV to see about bundled subscription, they told me that they had to handle them separately, but not to worry as it would be billed as a bundled package. When DirecTV transferred me to CenturyLink for internet service, the first thing I told them was that I was transferred to them by DirecTV and was looking for the internet part of the bundle. Everyone told me I was getting the lowest advertised bundle. Everyone lied. I would like to have the difference paid to me or at the minimum, have the CenturyLink internet part of the package canceled without penalty. These are first-rate con-artists, be very cautious when dealing with them.

If you are the sole provider for DSL in an area, shouldn’t you have at least sufficient facilities to provide for the amount of people living in that area? I am extremely angry at this point. I have 3 children, 2 of which are in high school and need to be able to access the internet! As if this isn’t all bad enough, I am a Sprint mobile customer, and get no cell reception at my new home. Sprint was very kind to overnight me an air wave to solve this problem. Too bad, it has to be plugged into my DSL!

Now, 8 months later, I got a call from a collections agency saying that they are going to turn this debt over to credit reporting agencies. I told them that I had all of the documentation and the call reference number from CenturyLink stating that I owed nothing, as well as the bill from Qwest/DirecTV stating clearly: "No amount due.” The collection agent then became irate with me and tried to state that CenturyLink wouldn't have known about the bill because it had already been turned over to collections. The agent then refused to tell me what date the bill had been turned over to their company for collection and said that if I was unwilling to pay, they would just go ahead and report it on my credit and hung up.

CenturyLink tried to debit my mother's bank account (which was closed) again in March and in April. Both times their debit attempts were returned because the bank account was closed. So they tacked on $60 worth of returned check charges and sent a new bill this month. When I called today, the woman in financial services was unapologetic and became belligerent with me, ultimately she hung up on me. I'm glad I am not a CenturyLink customer, never will be and I will tell this story far and wide.

I called CenturyLink to discuss this matter, and the financial services was extremely rude regarding this matter and stated that my check had been kicked back for "insufficient funds" and that I needed to send CenturyLink another check for the same amount in order to clear this up. I was directed to call the original collection agency before the financial services person I was speaking to actually hung up on me! This was not a dropped call; she actually hung up on me.

I contacted the collection agency, and they told me that their paperwork stated that I had in fact overpaid on the bill and that they sent me the reimbursement check because of this. I called CenturyLink back, and I had a customer service supervisor sit in on a 3-way call with financial services supervisor. At one point, we thought the financial services supervisor had hung up on me again! Even the customer services supervisor was surprised and slightly embarrassed at the way I was being talked to and treated.

They spoke to me in such an insulting way, and she said that "On our end, it looks like you probably don't have any money in the bank and can't afford to pay this...." and later, she said that "You should call your bank, because it seems like you don't know what's going on with your finances." Can you believe it?! Even when I had the cancelled check and deposit date right in front of me plus the reimbursement check from the first creditor!

I faxed my paperwork with the cancelled (February 2) check from my bank. I called back later that day to see if they had received the fax. They stated that they needed to check on that but that my balance was 0.00, and that I didn't need to worry about it. Today, I received another CenturyLink bill, which stated that my original check (that had been cashed) had insufficient funds, yet I had a credit of the mysterious amount of $35.68 on the account. I called again today, and the financial services department was rude again and told me that I had to pay them the $104.61 over the phone in order to have this cleared up. Apparently, they had not received my fax, and the fax number they gave me was incorrect. Who knows where my cancelled check went to! So, yet again, I have to go into town and send another fax to this financial supervisor!

This is affecting my credit, and I am completely disgusted with this service and the disrespectful, snide responses from CenturyLink's financial department. This is even outside of the issue of them over-charging me my service. When I had DSL hooked up, they said I didn't need an L/L for DSL and didn't have one. Yet on my bills, they were charging me L/L fees plus 911 emergency and line protection in the amount of an extra $17.00 a month! I had tried to plug in a phone to the L/L to see if it worked, and it didn't.

I am on fire regarding this matter, and I won't rest until I see justice and my credit adjusted. But I wonder, what if this happened to an elderly person or someone who was home-bound or even less persistent than I? Horrible service, disrespectful, and insulting. Beware!

I am in a very intense 3-year long distance learning medical graduate program. I have multiple large projects and finals that are due this month and I am required to stay in the grad program in order to keep my current employment position. I am in danger of not only having to quit the grad program (summer is required as well), but am also in danger of losing my job and my home because Century Link either doesn't care or has no idea what they are doing. The case supposedly has been "elevated" and work orders are pending; however, I have no faith that this problem will be remedied. I had better service in Alaska!

I am just as angry at Sprint. They promised 4-5 bars (even showed us on the map) when we moved to our home here in Lehigh Acres. In actuality, the service was so bad (0-1) that they had to provide an Air Rave so that we didn't have to stand outside in the driveway to get service. Of course, now that the internet is down, our cell phones, for the most part, are also completely useless! I have no idea if a lawsuit would fix these problems or not, but this is ridiculous!

Anyways, this statement I have says I owe $42.62 more than I have paid the whole time! Regular bill has always been $60.12. All of a sudden, I got this with no kind of idea it was going to happen! I live on disability! I was smart enough though to send them back “a different envelope” which clearly stated on the envelope how I disputed the bill. I enclosed a letter stating that if they cashed the check I sent, then I have paid in full! And by cashing, I would think that was all they would receive and I owed no more!

Well they cashed my check. Then I called today, Saturday 04/07/2012 approx. at 1:30 pm and the automated system said I owed them the $42.62! I am livid with them! I want to cancel! I also think I wrote in memo line of check disputed amount! So I am hoping this makes a difference! I do watch a lot of TV being disabled and home a lot. Also being from MI and living in FL, the internet helps me keep in touch with all of my friends and family (including 3 granddaughters).

The only reason I have the phone is because they (CenturyLink) told me I needed it for internet! They claim to have given me some super speed internet! **! Sorry for that but I'm angry with them! My internet sucks! Something fierce! Then "prism TV” goes out tons more than when I had DirecTV (in MI) during ice storm, snow, cold, rain, etc. DirecTV rarely was affected. I can't tell you how many times I have called for tech support for my TV, internet and even my landline phone, which many times have not rang for incoming friends and family members. My fiancé and I are actually broken up a touch to do with that issue! He wouldn't believe I was home when I told him I was because the phone never rang for me, only on his end. He's in MI that's why this was an issue for him! He convinced himself I was cheating. All due to inadequate service!

So here is one more thing, not one time in over 10 years while having DirecTV did we need to call for anything! Never! I have had numerous repairs here from CenturyLink, I lost count. But then I would call for repair man to come out again. (This also really angered me) Instead of sending someone out, I would be on the phone well over 30 minutes with tech guys while they told me what to do, running from room to room, over and over again. And of course nothing is easy to reach (the wiring). I live in severe pain 24/7. My eyesight is not good and I swear if it thunders here, my TV goes out!

I was supposed to get a double credit this month because of last month's screw-up. But I am being told it will be applied in 2-3 months!? So basically, I owed them nothing this month, but they already auto-debited $94 out of my account. Who does business that way?! I have stopped the auto payments, as they clearly don't know what they are doing. I know for a fact that they could make it right and issue some sort of refund/credit to my current payment, but they must be too lazy or greedy!

This is the worst company I've ever had to deal with. They do not know what they are doing; they are billing incorrectly and giving you a runaround when you call. I hope they go under. Is there a way to break a contract that we just entered into? They are breaking the contract by not providing adequate customer service and blatantly charging me double each month. Someone needs to look into this company and all its complaints. They are clearly doing their customers wrong and getting away with it!

Today we got a bill in the name of someone that doesn't live here and also got sales mail through the U.S. Mail service in this unknown person's name. We called Century Link and they were unwilling to talk to us about the service since we were not the person named in the mailing. We just want our address to be taken off their mailing list and want them to stop sending us mail that doesn't belong to us. The mail is being sent to us at ** Gilbert, AZ in the name of Robert **. How do we make CenturyLink get our address off their list so we are not bothered by them anymore?!

Now, I am told that I have to go in and drop my price for life so that I can get what I was already paying for. The guy kept cutting me off and when I told him that it was apparent that he knew more about me than I did, he just started talking again. I told him that he was pompous and he paused and continued talking. I believe my home phone service will be dropped soon and work only off my cell phone which has faster internet than what I get at home. I'm completely dissatisfied with Century Link. Bring back Qwest.

Again, all I was offered was a monthly $5.00 bill credit. I specifically asked if the $5.00 bill credit was the best promotion offered and told yes. I filed a complaint with the BBB and CenturyLink stated they told me about the Visa card when I purchased their services. That is simply not true and how a company that prides itself on being a good corporate citizen in communities it operates in can fabricate the truth, is beyond me. When the landline service was connected on 3/3/12 along with the internet, I received no hard copy of how to use the phone and internet services. After requesting it four times, a CenturyLink store manager emailed PDF files. What kind of nonsense is this? The installer didn't know how any of the services worked (landline) and I told him as I'm disabled, I need voicemail.

He called someone and we figured that out. Call forwarding and the rest? I don't have a clue. I had an internet issue and had to call a friend for CenturyLink's technical support phone number. What kind of company operates this way in a global economy without a sense of urgency and a lack of plain old follow-through and a lack of respect for its customers? This is not a consumer-friendly company and far from being a good corporate citizen. I didn't switch to CenturyLink for a month of aggravation and wasted time on the phone. I switched because when I inquired about it, I was led to believe that I was getting the best promotion offered and believe I was intentionally misled about the bundling offer.

I still don't have any "How to" booklets on how to use their services. If the BBB cannot resolve this between CenturyLink and myself, there's got to be a next step and I'll find one. Finally, I never ever thought about researching CenturyLink as everyone was so "nice" and "trusting". Never, ever again will I make that mistake. With customer service like this, no wonder so many people are so cynical these days. You cannot trust anything you're told by a company like CenturyLink.

I was told by a CL operator that I could block this number. But when I went to do that very thing, it didn’t work. I should have known better than to try. After calling CL back, I was told the system wasn’t finished yet. Again, I should have known. Century Link seems to me to be a very small company with no clout in the industry, even though they act as if they were as big or bigger than AT&T. If it was possible to use another phone company, I would. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best), I give you a (negative) -9.

I even had her tell me the cost of the two: separate and together without the cost of TV. She did and said no problem. Again I mentioned more than once I don't want the TV. To me it wasn't worth $70 plus dollars for the few stations I received , mostly infomercials. She told me it would be on in an hour or two. It was...the TV was on also. I didn't really realize what was going on and waited till my statement came to see what I was being charged. It was the same as before $170 a month with the Dish TV on the bill. I immediately called CenturyLink to tell them I didn't order the TV, and asked for them to take it off my bill. No luck.

I spoke to a supervisor and she said I needed to talk to Dish TV, that they were a separate company and they would take care of it. I called Dish TV and got nowhere. I asked to speak to a supervisor. I explained what had taken place in CenturyLink store in Ft. Myers on Daniels Pkwy. She was really very snotty and said there is nothing she would do, it's not her problem. The next day or two I personally went to the same location to explain Dish TV wouldn't do anything. I explained how I priced the services separately and all . He told me that when you pay up your account, they turn on the bundle or services that you previously had on. I explained more than once that I didn't want or order the TV service.

I was given the explanation that Dish and CL are two different companies, that CL pays Dish TV, etc. He said I should have told them to disconnect the TV. I thought saying I don't want it was clear enough. Evidently not. And he would in no way give me a credit on my account. The manager wasn't in so I went back today, one week later, to speak to her. I again explained what had happened in their own store, me in person, specifying no TV. Again I got the 'we are two different companies' thing. The store manager then went in the back and ran my billing report for the last 4 months, coming out and saying I hadn't paid for 3 months. I explained my employment situation, etc. and $800.00 isn't easy to come by when you don't have a job on unemployment.

And after all, I did pay the entire bill off without any collection action taking place. She even commented on me not paying my bills along with other holier than thou insinuations right in front of other customers standing right there. I told her she was rude. And she was, you just don't say those kind of things to customers. I've paid for the last 4 years with no problem, until I lost my job. Now the bill due is the full amount for the package. She told me my account was suspended, not disconnected, and that I have to pay the monthly amount even if it's not coming through, because they 'suspended' it, and the reason for that was due to the fact that someone else could have had that line if it were disconnected, but not suspended.

She said that even under suspension (when you can't see, hear, call, or any of their services), you owe the amount. That means if it's not actually 'disconnected', and suspended you still have to pay it! I can't believe this. To me the consumer, I either have it or I don't. I was never told or explained when I bought my bundle that I was dealing with two separate companies. And that I should have contacted Dish TV. She said, “Don't you look at your bill? It says Dish TV. It's itemized I should have known that,” belittling me further. My checks have always been made out to CenturyLink And I really had no clue to the logistics of their operation and their business relationship with Dish TV. Again I was turned away and even humiliated publicly by the store manager.

All I was asking was the $70 taken off my bill. She said the billing was correct. How can they charge you for a service that was cut off, suspended, disconnected, or whatever you call it? I shouldn't have to pay for it. Especially when I go in in person to re-up it. I was led to believe I would have phone and internet only, with no TV, in the first place. Now this is turning into a joke, which of course will be on me if I refuse to pay? They turn it to collections and my credit score is blemished. By the way, my credit is excellent and should remain so. I have filed BBB complaints against both . And I will contact the attorney general's office next. Now I can see why these two companies are getting the bad reputation they deserve from many, many people.

A year later, I received a letter from their attorney for an outstanding bill of $373.75 that I do not owe. I think it is so in professional of a big company like Century Link to try to rob the little man. I am aware that times are hard but you can not force your service on anyone. I would like this matter to be investigated down to the recording of calls made by me to Century Link.

A Century Link employee came to my door selling bundles from Century Link and DirecTV. After his 2-hour visit, I told him I would think about it and give him a call in the next several days. He then showed up at my door, unexpectedly twice more. On his 3rd visit, I thought I had all the info I needed and signed up for their bundled service. He once again stated that I had nothing to lose because I would have a 30-day period if I changed my mind. I made him go over the terms one more time. I told him that I was not a technical person and did not have the knowledge, and that I needed to ensure that all installations were included and that everything would be totally functional the day the installation was completed. He assured me that this was the case. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Trouble started the day of the installation. My phone had horrible reception and they installed my computer modem in my kitchen, away from the computer and DirecTV hookup. To make this long story short, I had a phone that had so much static that I couldn't hear the dial tone and I had no TV service. CL technicians came to my house a total of 4 times over the next 4 days and couldn't solve the problem. They told me several times that the problem was with my phones, even though my phones had worked fine prior to their involvement. It worked fine again after going back to my old service provider. DTV also had to make another visit to rewire since CL had installed in the "wrong" place. The following day, we got about 6 inches of snow and I lost both phone and TV services from about 8:00PM until midday the following day.

I am a 62 year old woman with arthritic knees. There was no way I was climbing a ladder to the 2nd story of my house, especially in a snowstorm to dust off the dish on my roof. Because the reception on the phone was terrible and my TV kept going out and didn't have all the channels promised, I decided that I was going back to my old service provider. This occurred on the 4th day after installation. This is only a summary. In addition, a CL customer service rep named Stephanie showed up at my doors that evening wanting feedback on the installation. She was there for over an hour. She listened to the static on my line and saw the poor reception on my TV. After seeing and hearing the problems I was having, she said that there was too much that had gone wrong and there was no way that this could be remedied, and that she would have done the same thing that I did.

Things got much worse after that. I called DTV to inform them of cancellation. The gentleman I spoke with attempted to change my mind for about 20 minutes. I kept insisting that I would not change my mind. His attitude then changed. He told me I owed $2,000 for installation and another $480.00 for early termination. I told him that I owed them nothing since I cancelled with Century Link. He said that CL might have that policy, but DTV does not and he reminded me that he had my credit card number and they would take what they were owed! In a panic mode, I called my credit card company and told them what DTV had told me. They quickly put an alert on my case and would contact me if they heard from the company. I then called CL back and told them that their salesperson had lied to me about the 30-day guarantee as well as a few other facts that I learned about after the fact. I was informed that any dealing was "not their problem" despite the fact that it was their representative who was acting for DTV also.

They said that they had wiped clean all monies owed CL, but they had nothing to do with DTV. I maintained it was their employee who had lied to me and was representing DTV in this transaction. I spoke to 2 other people during that conversation, both supervisors. The first supervisor again told me it was not their problem. I then asked to speak to the supervisor's supervisor. The second supervisor called DTV for me while I was on hold. He got back on the line with me and informed me that DTV was only trying to scare me and in fact, he was able to get the charges reduced to only the early termination charges of $480. By this point, I was losing my temper so I told them this was not over and hung up. Since I had seen the salesperson on our cul-de-sac, so I then checked with some of their neighbors and found out this CL employee Kevin had also informed them that they had nothing to lose because they had a 30-day trial period.

At the time I signed up with CL, I remembered asking Kevin about the clause in the contract that talked about trial period. That's when Kevin informed me that if I were having trouble with DTV, they would release me from the agreement with no punitive fees. My husband witnessed this statement by Kevin and my neighbors said he had told them the same thing. I was still trying to get this mess straightened out when I got an even bigger surprise. I received a bill from CL for $137. I called immediately and wondered why I received this bill when they had previously told me I owed nothing. She said it was a clerical error and I owed them nothing. A week later, I got another bill from them saying that I owed them $1.52 and that payment was due immediately because the charges were past due. I called CL and informed them that they still had balance owing, they said it was another clerical error and would be taken care of immediately.

Imagine my surprise on 2/20/12 when I got a Notice from AFNI Collection Agency (attached) demanding $137 from me because Century Link had reported me as a delinquent payer. The letter said I had to make arrangement to pay this $137 or suffer the consequence. I was livid over this whole mess and contacted CL and demanded they straighten this out immediately. I told CL that I was getting ready to cosign a home loan for my son and if they screwed up my excellent credit score (over 800) with an erroneous negative credit report, they would be really sorry. I then demanded that they send me a signed letter stating the collection agency referral was erroneous. They refused. After going through 2 additional supervisors, they agreed to send this letter. Two days later, I received the letter from CL (attached). The letter was on a plain piece of paper, no letterhead and did not have a signature on it. It looked like it was typed by a 2 year old. It had different size type and did not look at all, official.

The letter was not even signed by anybody. The letter did not state that I was erroneous referred to the collection agency. It only said that my balance is zero now. I saw this letter as a snub, CL simply trying to humor me with a rinky-dink letter that admitted no responsibility for my predicament nor any apology for all the problems they caused. I am at my wit's end. I have contacted everybody I could think of about CL's incompetence with no success and now they're trying to ruin my credit. On numerous occasions, I asked if Kevin, their representative, had ever been asked about what he told both me and some of my neighbors. Surprisingly, their answer was always no. So apparently, they weren't addressing the training issue of their employee giving out inaccurate, sometimes blatant misinformation. After my comment about this seeming a little strange that they had not escalated this to a training issue with their employees, after over a full month, they finally asked for Kevin's last name and telephone.

I had given them that information on at least 5 other occasions, but they never tried to speak with Kevin. It had, by then, been over a month since the fiasco occurred and nobody had ever tried to contact their employee about what had happened. Kevin never gave me his last name because he told me the company would not allow it, but he did give his cell phone number, which he gave me at our first visit. I again gave them his phone number and name. The conversation was ended with the promise to speak to Kevin. The following day, I got a call from CL and said they have no Kevin working for them and that phone number belonged to an employee with a "Chinese sounding name". I told them that Kevin was of Asian descent and that must be the same person. Up to this point, according to their own statement, nobody saw any need to contact Kevin concerning what he had said to both my neighbors and me. I am appalled by this apparent lack of concern with what their employees are telling their perspective clients.

All this happened because a CL employee gave out erroneous information. Meanwhile, DTV is starting to bug me about the $480 they say I owe them and Century Link is trying to ruin my credit. Is this fair? Can a company get away with misinformation or should they be held accountable for any wrong information that their employees pass out, especially when this information and additionally, attempting to ruin my credit? I have contacted CL a total of 27 times, sent numerous emails and spent many hours trying to get this matter straightened out and still the company does not respond to me, choosing simply to refer me to a collection agency! There is much more information I can provide including dates, who spoken with and the number of times CL technicians had to come to my house, as well as what each of the technicians told me. It is a jumble of misinformation and conflicting information from different CL employees. They also dug a hole in my backyard, which left their wiring exposed. That hole is still there as of today. Yet, they do nothing.

I want to make it clear that I intended to switch to Century Link, it was only after so many problems were not resolved after installation that I decided I was just getting brushed off and decided to switch back. I am sending a copy of this letter to the executive offices of Century Link, but based on the company's responses thus far, I am really not expecting a response. Can you help me resolve these issues? Thanks for taking the time to read this "novel" I have sent you.

Today is March 3, 2012, 106 days since that fateful 11/18/2011 date and I have not received my deposit back. I, however, in that time received another visit from one of your sales people (on 1-21-2012), trying to sell your service along with three (3) mailings trying to sell your Prism service. Yes, that is correct; four (4) efforts to sell service to an address that you have already ascertained cannot be serviced.

By way of this communication, I am requesting for the refund of my deposit within fifteen days. Failure to meet my request will result in further action. First, I will contact the State's Attorney's office for this jurisdiction requesting criminal charges be filed for "Theft by Deception," in as much as you took funds for service that you knew or should have known you could not provide along with the doubling of any penalties in as much as I am over the age of 65. Should the State's Attorney fail or refuse to institute criminal proceedings, I will file suit in small claims court. Please guide yourselves accordingly.

I told him that is why he was here. He left, saying that was my problem, not his. I called Century Link, cancelled any service, sent back the unordered modem, and told them what I thought of them. Today, I got a bill for $88, for the service that was never hooked up, and was advertised at $35 a month. I never had service with them, and I tell you now, I never will. Buyers, beware.

CenturyLink's version of customer service was non-existent. I shared the phone number that's presently out of order and was told that because I didn't own the account there was nothing the representative could do for me. It was an issue of security, I was told. Truly unclear how my reporting that one of CenturyLink's valued customers has a phone line that is out of order can possibly be a breach of security. The representative's refusal to place a work order or even make a notation concerning the non-operating phone line is a mystery. CenturyLink needs to put a new spin on their lame slogan - "Be stronger connected to our customers by providing true service.” It was maddening to try to help out a friend by reporting a downed residential phone line, only to have CenturyLink refuse to assist.

I have all my paperwork in hand to prove that they were given the modem back. I followed their instructions, payed all my bills on time and all the cancellation fees on time. I've never heard anything good about them. They screwed us over when billing us and our $89.99 a month turned into almost $200 a month.

When I called to activate the service on 2/2/12, I was told by CenturyLink that the receiver/service that I wanted through DirecTV HMC (HR34) would not be available until 2/9/12. They said that I could activate my internet that day and they could "go back and bundle late, not a problem". I called on the 10th to activate the DirecTV service. Now, the receiver/service that I wanted would not be available for an indefinite period of time and now I was not able to bundle my services since I was already locked into an internet contract. Unacceptable! I stated my case to the customer retention department and she said she would apply a discount to my bill to make up for the difference.

Now on bill date 2/10/12, I received a bill for $119.45 for on-site installation and service for 8 days! I called like any concerned customer would to resolve my billing issue. After 10 minutes of back and forth around the issue, the only solution the billing department rep could offer was "just pay the bill in full so your service is not at risk to be disconnected". Unacceptable! So after nearly 6 total hours on the phone, during my business hours (8AM-5PM), I'm stuck with a huge bill and because I must/I do not have a choice to go directly through DirecTV, my bill is higher. I don't have the same discounts available, my internet bill is wrong (still) and they still are not bundled (internet/DirecTV). However, they still want to sell me more services every time I call. Someone needs to stop this madness!

I should have it Saturday (another lie). Saturday came, and no modem, but after finding out I could pick one up at the mall, I called and they had the modem. So I pick it up (I was needing my internet for business and school) and install it which was a horrible experience trying to find a good signal. So, we return the modem that finally came on Monday the 6th. My bill comes, and here is the S&H charge. Very angry at this point because I have had nothing but issues with these people, I call. I am told by the girl on the phone (that was very unprofessional) that there was no record that I was told I was not to be charged for the modem. Then she starts arguing with me on the dates. I had my calendar, and told her the dates I was told. Then she had the nerve to tell me UPS does not deliver on Saturday (big lie). I know they do, I have received packages on Saturday, there was a UPS truck that day in my area, and even a package recently delivered Saturday in the apartment complex office. I was with Cox Communications for over 20 years, and had my issues with them from time to time, but never have I experienced such horrible, unprofessional service.

What makes it even worse, is when you call and try to talk to someone, the background noise gives the impression of a boiler room, which does not bring confidence to me that I along with countless others are being lied to. I have yet to hear one positive thing about Century Link, only complaints. I do know that in the future, when I am able to move again, if Century Link is the only internet provider I will look elsewhere. DSL is not nearly as fast or efficient as cable. My son has to plug in an Ethernet cable directly into the modem, so he can play Xbox live. With cable and a wireless router, his game was downstairs and the router was upstairs, yet he never had a problem. I have yet to be satisfied with Century Link in any way.

We called the company in a panic, and after not even being able to find our order for about ten minutes, the rude associate told us that the order was on hold for some reasons, and the soonest they could get it to us was Wednesday. After re-verifying the social security number on the order, we were transferred to a supervisor who told us that we would have to wait until Wednesday, no matter what, for our service. She then stated that she would call us back in ten minutes for other information. She never called back, so this morning we called again. Once again, it took them forever to even find our order. Then the associate went through all the sales questions again, and I told him we just wanted to make sure we were going to get our equipment and service tomorrow.

He asked to put us on hold, and hung up on us. We called back again, and asked to speak directly to a supervisor. He was hesitant, but did so. The supervisor looked up our order, and said that the order was not complete, and that we would not get our service on Wednesday. She then said that she needed a card to put on file for our account. My roommate explained to her that we specifically refused to give a card number over the phone, and that the associates from a week ago had told us that if we sign up for the phone line, along with the internet, it would be the same price monthly, and it would bypass any deposits. The supervisor claimed that no associate had any power to bypass a deposit, and it was told to her that not only one, but two associates had confirmed the bypass of the deposit, and holding card information. She said it didn't matter. We then told her to cancel our order, and that we would be reporting this situation.

We finally reached an amount that was still higher than the original agreement. My neighbor also added internet service and was lied to concerning the amount the same month. i am shocked at the morals of this company and cannot understand how they get away with this kind of treatment.

Earlier last year, my office called Qwest/CenturyLink customer service because we were having problems with our router and we were in need of a new one. At that time, I spoke to one of the sales associates because my office was trying to reduce overhead by minimizing the number of phone lines we had. The salesperson explained that we didn't have to get rid of any lines because they could give us a discount and we would be able to keep the same number of lines and pay less. At that time, we had no long-term contract with Qwest, a fact that I specifically stated to the salesperson. I explained to the customer service person that our business would be closing by the end of the year so we were not interested in signing a long-term contract. I stressed this to her at least a couple of times and she assured me that the prices she was quoting me did not involve a long-term contract. She specifically told me that we would continue on a month to month basis. She explained the pricing but told me it was best for me to see things in writing, which I agreed. She told me she would send me an email with all of the information so I could see the price breakdown. I never received such email and, in fact, I had to call her several times to request the email and to request a service technician to have us back and running on the following day. I left several messages for her and when I did not hear back from her, I left several messages with her manager. No one ever called me back! The customer service tech eventually came to our office late that week and I did not continue to call.

My office paid the bills on time, as we had always done for the past 12 years, and we continue to do business as usual. Last October (2011), I called Qwest/CenturyLink to terminate my service and I was told very rudely that I was still under a three year contract. I assumed someone was making a mistake so I asked to speak to one of the managers in the customer service department for small businesses. I explained to him that I was told specifically told there would be no long-term contract, but he just referred me to the back of my bill which states that I was under a three year contract. I insisted that I had been told otherwise, but his replied was that it was basically "my word against the word of the customer service person." The message was clear; shame on me for not reading my bills carefully. By the way, I never saw my bills because these were paid by our office manager, who - like most people, did not read the back of the bill. Even so, he did agree that a contract should have been sent to me and that the customer service person had failed to follow up with this information. Despite their failure, I was still told to pay.

He told me that because I had been a loyal customer, he would let me out of the contract but that I would have to pay the amount that I was originally paying ($335 monthly). I told him I did not feel this was fair since my intention when I had initially called was to disconnect one of the lines and lower my monthly bill. He told me this was the only thing he could do for me and I told him I would be appealing this by writing a letter to his superior. I sent a letter to the small business department last November of last year and never heard back again. I had assumed everything was resolved when, surprise! I received a phone call earlier this evening from a collection agency. The person from the collection agency told me in a rather rude manner that CenturyLink had turned our account to collections since they had not received any money from my (now closed) company or me personally.

I wrote again to CenturyLink and will continue to fight this. I may need to get an attorney and will definitely report their business practices to the BBB.

Is all this true? I thought a consumer could freely choose which every phone company service they wanted. Does Century Link/Qwest have the so-called corner on the market here in this community? Is that legal? At the very least, I feel (if that is true) I should be availed of a significantly reduced monthly bill just for their phone service. Basically, competition for consumer phone service doesn't exist here. I find that very unacceptable if this is true.

Now, I got an alert of my credit score; and your name was on it for $62.00. Now, I will pursue this with my veterans' lawyer. I am a disabled gulf war vet and will be posting this on the web to all vets about how you treat your customers and further will try to recover the cost of the re-sodding and labor.

So, here is the deal. I think its high time we Coloradoans contact our state reps, our state senators, our city council reps, and our mayors and tell them to end any exclusivity agreement they have with this company. It is high time we have an alternative before someone gets killed because they can't dial 911 during an emergency.

I wish I were joking. Bad phone service can be deadly.

Since the install I have lost this connection, numerous calls to CenturyLink to no avail. According to my security system (Foresight), CenturyLink needed to open port 50000. Again after numerous calls, they said this couldn't be done remotely and according to a supervisor (in the Philippines), I would physically have to be at the residence with a laptop plugged into the modem and they would then guide me as to what needed to be done.

On 1/14/12 I arrived in AZ and spoke to Rick, then Matthew (in the Philippines) who didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about. I then asked to be transferred to a US rep and spoke to Andrew. He did try to help but told me they weren't trained to do this. 1/15/12 I spoke to Alena, a US rep who researched my initial call from mid October 2011.

She told me that the rep from the Philippines misrepresented himself as a supervisor and the information he gave me was totally incorrect. She stated she would document this incident and give it to her manager. I now want to cancel CenturyLink and go back to Cox. I was told by Kathy on 1/30/12 that I would be charged with a cancellation fee of $200, yet I never signed a contract to that effect. Please help.