CenturyLink Reviews

The customer support in tech had us turning off the modem and resetting it every time we called. We found out that the CenturyLink employee who installed didn't do something correctly by what the customer support told us. So the 4 months we had the Internet service NOT 1 day did we receive CONTINUOUS INTERNET SERVICE for 24 hours. We would be selling an our product with a customer online and the internet would "JUST DROP" causing our customer to go and purchase elsewhere which caused us to lose numerous sales, customers and several thousands of dollars and We did NOT RECOVER THE SALES due to lack of CenturyLink Internet service.

We tried several times to rectify the connection which NO SUCCESS and wasted our time over and over! We were so upset at CenturyLink for NOT valuing our time and money lost. We decided to go back to their competitor (COX COMMUNICATIONS) which we have always been valued as #1 and every time we called Cox we always feel like we are being treated priority without a doubt which we definitely did not receive from CenturyLink!! Now we are being hassled to pay a bill of $114.58 for what they call HIGH SPEED BULL CRAP! We should be sending CenturyLink a bill for the amount of dollars we lost due to the lack of internet that CenturyLink neglected to provide and fix. We feel that 1 star is too much... CenturyLink deserves 1 star if it was available! Thank You for Your Time, S.P.S.P of Arizona! M & T.

Now here I am again trying to contact this company. All I'm asking for is some help with this company. How could I pay my bill, get my service restored. The message they put on the bottom of your review like they really want to help that's not true. So I'm looking for me some a new internet service. I'm doing my research and would be contacting FCC and BBB and anyone else who would like to hear about this company. I don't want the next person be treated the way I have.

Updated on 01/18/2019: So the company replied on the same day. Stated feel free to contact them if I had any question. So I didn't respond, because I thought they was going to fix it. I didn't know that I had to talk to them on. So they respond on 11/28/18 and 12/15/18. I replied on 12/20/18, I explained in my message that I'm still having trouble with this account. After writing my review, now my service has been suspended on 12/20/18. Now I'm still waiting on a response, I didn't hear from them until 12/28/18. So now I have been without service for about 8 days.

I was trying to resolve this before my daughter came back off Christmas break, due to she needs internet for her homework. On that message it was a link on the bottom. They advise me to click on that link to verify my account before they start looking at my account. The link didn't work. I mean I had been trying to get my account verified about 4 days. So I came back to this site and sent them another message on 12/31/18. The company replied on 1/2/19. Advised me to send them my email address. Now remind you while I'm going through all this I still don't have service. So they respond and stated they got the information. The last messages I received from this company was on 1/5/19 and they stated that they was about to start their investigation.

Now it's 1/18/19, I haven't heard anything from this company since then. I know they are busy. They could follow up with me to let me know how the investigation is going on. I'm so stressed out and drained with this company. To deal with this any more if it wasn't for my daughter and her schooling I would have been left. If I have I had know it was gonna be this much hassle I to take a home phone off my account I would have left it alone. I still have no service. And nothing has been resolve. So it looks like I'm back at square one. And still going back and forth with this company. The only thing that's different is I'm not speaking with a customer service representative over the phone. I'm chatting with one online. Please could someone help me with this? Thanks.

Original Review: Ever since I have came back to this company I have been having nothing but a hassle. My bill is 125.00. I think that's just too much for home phone and internet. So I decided to take the home phone off. Now this is where the problems starts. I have been calling in for about a month now. Every time I speak to a rep they give me a time and date it's gonna go off. I call the phone. It's still on. The last rep I spoke with set me up a whole new account. Advise me 75.00 a month but I was told it would be 55.00 with taxes. Just got an email, with my bill. Can't log in because the email has a different account number I was given so now I have 3 account. I just don't know what to do. I need help. Don't know what bill I have to pay. I'm so drained. Because I know I have to call them and my problem is never resolve the first time. I will be on the phone all week with them.

Customer service always reads a script, so you know the BS they are giving you even if it is in broken English. We've had multiple phone companies in this area, but CL is the absolute worst. I will say the technicians that come out are nice and they try to help but there is only so much they can do. They have nothing to work with, but they try. If you have another company to purchase phone or internet service from I'd use them over CL. We dropped our phone service years ago because it never worked and if we did have service there was so much static in the line we couldn't hear. Do yourself a favor - stay far away from CenturyLink.

As a new customer, that's incredibly disappointing and a terrible customer experience. How can you not keep an installation appointment? How can you fail to contact the customer to let them know in advance? How can you provide "no ETA" for when they'll be out there? And the representative stated he was not able to offer anything in terms of compensation for the trouble - How can you put your reps and customers in this position? I'm seriously considering canceling my request for service. Things happen and appointments have to get moved - but the way this is being handled is really poor. No heads-up, no ETA, no "here's how we'll make it right." Just "you'll have to wait and see, and sorry." Not nearly good enough.

Original Review: I have been talking to CenturyLink and Directv for hours today. They are giving me conflicting information. My Bill from CenturyLink says it for service until 11/22/18. I canceled 11/2/18. I got emails from both of them confirming my cancellation on 11/2/2018. They told me it was for early termination. That's not what the bill says. CenturyLink can't bill me for early termination because I don't have a phone jack and they can't bill me for Directv from 11/2/2018 because I canceled service and have an email to prove it. I called Directv and they told me I owe them $128 because I didn't pay my last bill. I checked my bank account and I did pay my last bill. This is SO screwed up! I'm not paying them a thing until they get together and get my bill right!

Installed router and it didn't work. Called representative to report and got someone else. I had tried my new landline and it wouldn't work. She said that is was scheduled for repair 8 days from that day saying that was the earliest available. I had signed up TV with Spectrum because you have DirecTV only here in Wildwood Florida. I called Spectrum and they installed e-mail and landline phone two days later.

Complaint is you cannot service what you sell in reasonable length of time 8 days without internet in 2018? Complaint is you don't have anyone working weeks ends. After driving 15 miles to Customer store in Lady Lake to return equipment the people in the store were rude. I have explained this to two phone reps and sent one e-mail to what I thought was Corporate office. I have received no contact. No statements of any kind. Now four months later you have turned my account to a collection agency $334.22. 2 weeks service? You terminated the agreement because you could not service your products!!!

How can a company treat their customers this way? Telling them that something will be one price, and then charge you another, and expect you to pay that amount or your service is disconnected. Regardless if the bill won’t reflect the new promotion until the next bill cycle, it has been 3 bill cycles and I haven’t seen anything. Loyalty guy I talked to told me he saw credits on the account that hadn’t been issued and that he would issue them himself if he had to, then comes back and says well those credits were from last year and my hands are tied, after just admitting that he can issue credits to resolve this issue. Totally unacceptable and am considering dropping them for another provider.

They don't even bother trying to suggest what to do and always blame everything on another department. I swear if I could give them zero stars I would. The only reason I have their service is because no other provider is available in my area in rural AZ. I wish I could just call them and curse them out one day for all the wasted time on the phone almost every month. And don't even get me started how many times they screwed up my payment amounts, causing me to have to call in and waste more time to get them to fix their OWN damn errors.

They go in these new neighborhoods and monopolies the internet service so that you have to use them because they install the infrastructure for their service. We are real people that have to be able to work to pay for these services!!! How can you run a business that makes your customer chase you down like a bill collection company “When I’m the paying party“. Does not make sense to me.

When upgrading with customer service, I was disappointed to find out that the price I was paying was same as people who had a connection 8 times the speed of mine and wasn't contacted about an upgrade at any point. They don't respect loyal customers obviously. So, I go for the upgrade because hey, maybe even if I ordered a 60 Mbps downspeed I'd at least get say, 40 down? Right? Nope. That has fluctuated since we upgraded and hasn't stayed stable for more than 6 hours. It wasn't all that bad though, a quick disconnect and a quick reconnect every 6 hours or so isn't that bad, right? Well the intervals got closer and we started getting disconnected every 3 hours, and worse and worse and worse and now we can't stay connected to things for more than 30-mins to an hour.

I call into and they say everything's fine on their end, and I reassure them, it's not, as I have not been receiving the service I've been paying for. On top of the reliability dropping, The speeds now max out at 5 Mbps down. That is MORE than 10 TIMES LESS of what I’m paying for (Or 3 Mbps less than what I was paying last year). Except now, it only lasts 30 mins (if that) until I’m dropped (all Ethernet btw). Keep in mind, this is after we had a tech come out and not identify the problem.

After complaining a 2nd time to customer service about our connection, we were told it was fine. Then mid call we hear it's not fine and that we’re receiving only half of our speeds. Half. We’re told our speeds will be upgraded, our bill will be less, and that will happen in a few days. But they will send a tech to help with whatever he can in the meantime. They sent ANOTHER tech out and they think it’s a problem with the line in the ground connecting our house to the box up the street. He tells us he will inform them and try to get a crew out soon.

Monday rolls around and I call in CenturyLink (late afternoon) to see if a tech is coming out anytime soon. I was told I wasn’t authorized on the account after being authorized in the previous call. Nothing was scheduled. Everything was pending and the representative said it could be upwards to a month to fix it. Now I’m sitting here trying to work from home/go to school on an internet connection that can’t even keep me connected with my co-workers or my teachers. Unacceptable on every level. Now they’re telling me that they have to survey our land to dig up our line and replace it with a new one with no date in sight. Thanks for nothing CenturyLink.

On Oct 29th I contacted Centurylink about moving one of phone lines into my office in town as we still experience times the phones work and times they don't. On October 30th I was sent an email moving of line was complete. I contacted Centurylink on Nov 5 as the phone line supposedly moved on Oct 30th was still not working in my office. I was then told because the Suite number hadn't been included in the original work order there was a work ticket to investigate where the phone line had been connected. I explained there are 2 apartments and 3 suites in my building and my suite number was given at the time I requested the phone line to be moved. The Centurylink representative told me it would be 2 - 3 days to investigate and move the line. One week later, today is Nov 12th, still no phone line at my office.

The next few months passed with outages, more excuses, and no fewer than five missed commit dates. We have been completely offline for three solid weeks now with no end in sight. Every call to the service department results in the same information being regurgitated over and over again. Their "escalation" process is little more than a different person with a more impressive title repeating the same information and that they are sorry but they cannot resolve the issue because it is Verizon or Global Capacity's problem and they cannot get any traction with them.

One customer service person I spoke to remarked that our repair timeline resembles one common to repairing undersea infrastructure. I am inclined to agree. How can it take so long? How can a customer who relies on internet access to conduct business be expected to just wait and lose money every day while being told there is nothing that can be done? I am floored by the lack of concern and progress on this issue and will do all I can to avoid doing business with CenturyLink in the future due to this experience.

When I finally got tech support I gave them my account number [the phone number at this house where I am getting service] the very same one that the debt collector said was a closed CL account. This phone number/account number is how I pay the CL bill online each month. The tech validated that account using my name, address, last four of my SSN. And we went on from there. Two nights later, same password problem occurred. I did the chat thing again [knowing that I could look forward to an evening of dealing with CL's "customer service" again. This time the tech couldn't find my account. Took a while and he had to ask me my full name, last 4 and address and phone number.

So, since I had two weeks vacation coming up I figured I would endure the many hours on hold with CL's "customer service" and get the debt collection rubbish straightened out. I found my old CL billing paperwork and noted in June of 2016 I had called CL to get the misspelling of my name straightened out with CL's billing dept. At the time the young man at CL assured me that there would be no charge to me because THEY had misspelled my name when I opened the service here at the new house.

Recently, I spent several hours being on hold only to be told that I had to call another number and several days later a person over at CL discovered that I had two different account numbers, one under the misspelling of my name. CL had not corrected their misspelling mistake. They just closed the original account and opened a new one with my name spelled properly. They didn't notify me. And I was given ANOTHER phone number to call because this person couldn't correct the situation with the "outside debt collectors."

So I got to look forward to ANOTHER vacation day used to contact this NON-customer oriented, operation. Several hours the next day revealed that the $ 59.47 was a remainder on the account CENTURYLINK closed over two years ago! No-one contacted me to tell me that they were closing the account and any charges remained. Nothing appeared in the online billing. I was never phoned with this information.

So, along with their crappy "customer service," inconvenient methods of contact [most people have to work in the daytime!] they also leave it to the customer to figure out what THEY [CL] have done to the customer's accounts YEARS LATER! The onus should not be on the customer to figure this out. I pay my bills. $ 70.00 a month for internet service [only] should get me a LOT less frustration and BETTER "customer service." I should be refunded the $ 59.47 just for my HOURS spent dealing with this. I would NEVER recommend CenturyLink to anyone! If I had a choice I'd use any other internet service provider than CenturyLink. I cannot emphasize how much I despise this operation [CenturyLink] and their conduct.

This month I just got a bill for over $400 with $170 being past due. It should be the $130 like they quoted me. I have so had it with this company and their inept/criminal billing process. If you make even one slight change with them your bill is messed up for months. I am going to call in again and spend another couple of hours trying to get this all figured out only this time I am going to back charge them my hourly amount of $150 an hour. I blame myself because being a customer for over 18 years I should have seen this coming. BUYERS BEWARE, DO NOT USE CENTURYLINK FOR ANYTHING EVER!!!

So how can it possibly be my Connection at home? When the internet speed starts to slow down, the speed drops from 11 Mbps down, 756Kb upload, to 1 Mbps down, .004Kb up. So slow I can't even download a picture. And I need at Least 11 Mbps download speed to play online games, and watch movies. It just sucks that I work hard every day, and the internet is my only form of entertainment. Meanwhile gamers in China, Russia, Canada, are all laughing at my connection. Even gamers here in the USA laugh at my connection. I just tell them that it's my ISP Centurylink acting crazy again.

The apartment manager and CenturyLink were ok, the appointment got push two more times until I finally got a tech to complete and get the internet working. As a bonus, the tech was going to make my internet faster because of all the troubles I went through. In the end, I was told countless times that I would be credited for the three months where I had no service (NEVER HAPPENED), and now I'm being charged for the "faster internet" that I was "given by the tech". I phoned customer service just now and was told I'm trying to scam them. I'M DONE, WILL BE CANCELLING MY SERVICES. DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY.

CenturyLink then sent me another bill (claiming it past due and with a new amount due) and I decided to talk to someone as to why I kept getting bills and CenturyLink kept sending credit checks back to me. It took almost an hour to talk to someone who had no answers. She couldn't give me a breakdown of the new bill, and just told me to pay it. Needless to say I wasn't impressed.

I've spent two days calling CenturyLink trying to find someone who will give me a breakdown of this new bill. After an hour on the phone, I was transferred five times. Representatives one and two had no answers, connection was poor and transferred me to another department within billing. The third CenturyLink representative refused to transfer me to a supervisor, the fourth representative just transferred me back to the department I was transferred from, and the final transfer representative claimed to be the supervisor. Throughout this round robin, 85% I could hardly hear the individual because the connection was so bad. Needless to say I am exhausted and have no resolution. Worst customer service I've had since Comcast cable company in Michigan. And that was equally as bad.

Now I've moved and transferring my service... this is where the frustration really starts. I chose a 1pm-5pm time slot to take the least amount of time off work. I asked that they ask the technician to call me when he is 30 minutes out so that I can meet him. I'm off work at 4:30pm; why would I take off half my day only to have the Tech show up at 5pm? I asked they have the tech call me and the gentleman I spoke with notated that he would do this. I called the day my internet was to be installed in my new home to check that the tech would call and the woman I spoke with said there was no guarantee that tech would even see the note to call me and if no one is home, they will leave. I do not have cable and use internet for my TV entertainment.

As an internet provider, how do they not have the systems in place to effectively communicate to the technician? This is absolutely absurd and there should absolutely be a file sharing system in place so that this can be communicated. I understand that if the tech chooses not to call, that is beyond the power of the customer service rep, but to not have some sort of system in place so that they can 100% guarantee that the tech will see the notes is absolutely ridiculous. If you can, go with Cox High Speed internet. I worked customer service for 6 years and now work in the mortgage industry. Communication is key and guess what? I know how to do it effectively. As a company, CenturyLink needs to do better for their customers and their employees. It's a terrible possession to put your customer service reps in. Do better.

Original Review: We have been CenturyLink customers since it was Qwest, and had the maximum available speed in both houses for many years. Early this year (2018), CenturyLink offered "Guaranteed" monthly cost for life. We took the offer for both houses, never imagining it was an excuse to slow our already slow speed down. Both houses would just occasionally meet a sufficient speed to operate our security cameras before we signed up. Now, in both houses, our speed is so slow that streaming Netflix or Amazon results in shaking images and timing out. We have lost connection with our remote apps in our 2nd house in the mountains, and the speed is so slow we can't restore ANY of our monitoring apps - including our Nest smoke alarm, and have access to our security camera only about 50 percent of the time.

We had Qwest, then CenturyLink in one house for about 25 years. The other house had another company (also starts with a C, which we streamed with no issues, then CenturyLink took over the area and slowed everyone down permanently, and then since signing up for the permanent monthly fee, we are disconnected to our two heaters, hot tub, smoke alarm, and to our Roku on occasion.

We purchased the new style modems for both houses, hoping our tepid speed we experienced last year would be improved. That, too, was temporary. Then, once we signed up for a committed lifetime price, our speeds are regularly so slow that internet times out or doesn't connect, and at the least takes many seconds to open up a website when it does work. We used to LOVE CenturyLink. They are obviously not being led by people who believe in customer service in exchange for money. It's all about the profit now. We don't have any other options - CenturyLink is all we have for both houses. So, my goal is to share my message as far as I can for those people who DO have options - do not use CenturyLink. They aren't the company they used to be.

Original review: Their service is terrible from internet line to their customer service online to their live on phone. They don't share data. They can't solve the terrible service and then ask for a 10 rating. Plus now are closing their stores so no more immediate help.

Today, I had two technicians come out to work on it from out of state and I was told the equipment was so old and the lines so unreliable that I would always have issues. I have called numerous times for the name and contact info for my district manager but nobody is allowed to give that information out I am told. As a last resort I am reaching out to the utilities commission for help. Unfortunately, this is the only internet provider in my area! So frustrating to have 1-2mb in 2018!!

I get my new bill and it said payment denied and I get charged $25 extra for this. And then yesterday over 20 days later I get a letter telling me that my payment was denied by my bank. Why couldn't they have just called me about this in the first place and it would have saved me the stress and extra money. I don't know if I will continue with them or what? If their payment center worked on their website, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Very upset right now.

I got an email a couple of days later saying everything was good and ready to go. An appointment had been scheduled for the following Friday 8-5 time frame. I drove more than 1 hour to get to the house at 7 AM and stayed until 1 PM. I called customer service trying to get a better grasp on when the tech would come. The lady told me that I did not need to be at the house and asked me if I had received the modem. I told her yes and that it was in the house, did I need to leave it outside but she said no it would be fine. I left and the tech came later.

I went to the house with someone to help get the modem set up on the following Wednesday as the people who were doing the security system were due there on Thursday and they needed either the phone or the internet working. Nothing had been hooked up. I called customer service who had a heck of a time finding the address as I did not know how the lady had set up the account. I finally asked for a supervisor and got Tracey. Meanwhile, another person in our party called the "special number" we had been given on the delay. She got Wendy. Wendy set up an appointment for the next day, November 1. Tracey confirmed this and both said it was for a morning call. I explained that I would need to cancel the security people if that was not the case but they felt sure a tech would be there.

I went to the house at 7:00 AM again. The security guy came and stayed until 3:00 PM waiting. I called both the special number and the customer service numbers all day. I knew the work had been done on the delay but most of those folks knew about what they were saying so I felt better talking to them. However, at one point, John, in this department told me that this really was not his issue and would not help me anymore. I spent more than 3 hours on the phone with CenturyLink today.

At 5:00 PM, I called customer service and was on the phone with them 1 hour and 7 minutes. I spoke with 2 different ladies and both tried every way to get the tech to call me, to call them, just let someone know. He never did and since he had not all day I never had much hope. I will mention here that I had to go outside and up the hill to a neighbor's house (she was not at home) in order to get cell service to make these calls.

The last call I placed at 5:05 PM and at 5:23 it started pouring rain. I had been at this house for more than 10 hours. I had not brought lunch so I had nothing to eat all day and now I was standing in the pouring rain at 50 degrees. No, Eric the tech never responded to anything and I stayed at the house until it got dark. The lady in the expedited department told me she would call back with some information after I got home. It is now 8:30 and I don't hold out much hope for that either. CenturyLink should be forced to shut their doors but unfortunately they are the only game in town for some areas.

T-Mobile Line Link only adds $10 a month to my existing bill and connects to my existing phone on the wall. Another Internet Service Provider in my small town will give me 20M service with 5M upload (was getting 2M upload) for $55 a month. A full $200 cheaper than my last bill, a few dollars more than 1/3 of my "normal" bill. They have these arbitrary "plans" which they set you up on so that when your contract expires the bill gives you sticker shock and they can corral you into a new contract with the promise of savings. They claim they cannot give you the actual cost you will be paying, that the taxes and fees are calculated at the time the bill is sent. The result is that the bill you get is never anywhere NEAR what they quoted you. I was on a "really old plan"...you know, the one set up when my TWO YEAR contract was set up. Yeah, that's ancient.

I would have fallen for it again, but the first thing I told support was that if I had to pay this ridiculous bill it would be the last one I paid with them. Well, since I "used the service", there was nothing they could do. Nevermind. Nobody told me that my already overpriced service was going up by a third when I was "using that service". In what universe is a landline worth $75 a month and paltry 12M Internet worth $115? That may not be how it breaks down, but there is no way to make those numbers any better than that. If the landlines were only $50 a month (STILL way too high) then the 12M Internet would be $165 a month. Will never be a CenturyLink customer again.

Flash forward to me having to use them again (I live in an area that there is NO other choice). Still refusing to email me anything confirming what I was signing up for. Because I had no other choice, I went ahead and signed up for service with them. For some reason, between the time that they sent me my modem and the time that it arrived, they canceled my service. When I called about this (the person coming to install it informed me), they said that I had called and canceled. I NEVER made that call. Finally got that all straightened out and it was only set up 9 DAYS late.

Flash forward again. My payment date got rescheduled for some reason. I called to find out what was going on. Was advised that because of the initial mistake of them canceling my service that they had moved my payment to a week later. This was 6 months ago. I tried to get my payment date moved back, because I am a little anxious about things like this. And with CenturyLink, there was no way of knowing whether or not this would come back to bite me in the end. They told me it was impossible to change it back. When I finally got a chance to speak to a supervisor about it, he advised that it was, in fact, just an accident. He promised he would get it fixed, and that he was PERSONALLY going to call me back to follow up. No call ever came from him.

I finally called a week later, for 2 reasons. 1) To follow up on previous issue and 2) Because my automatic payment had not gone through due to me having left my credit card somewhere and my bank restricting its use. I was calling specifically to make that payment. The supervisor previously mentioned is the person I spoke to. I advised him of what happened, asked him why he did not call me (he claims he did, but I had no missed calls on my phone and no messages from him) and I made the payment with him. He advised that the problem was being worked on (it is 2 weeks later and it still has not been fixed yet). I gave him all of my card information because he advised me that he could not just pull it from the automatic payment information.

While we were on the phone, I confirmed the payment went through and he said yes and that my service would be restored. Sure enough, when I got home, the service was back on within an hour. During this phone call, he tried to tell me that I was lucky, because I was getting 9 days of free service from them, which is not correct. If they in fact did fix it, then I would lose that 9 days when my next payment came due. And if it was in fact moved because of the initial service mistakenly getting delayed, then they owed me those 9 days anyway.

Now, here it is another week later and no payment has been charged to my card yet and the payment date is still incorrect. I called, again, to find out what was going on and was informed that no payment had been made (although my service has been restored). I spoke to the person I made the payment with and he claims I refused to make the payment, reminding him that the only thing I refused was the refund for those 9 days, because his math was wrong and I did not want to take the chance that that would also come back to bite me. I went over, in great detail, everything that happened during our phone call last week, including the part about how my service was restored because I made the payment with him, and he still refused to acknowledge that he did anything wrong. CENTURYLINK IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST! It makes me sick to my stomach that I don't have any other choice for internet.

Had CenturyLink extended the courtesy of calling me and telling me they could not do the repair today. I would not have burned a full day of vacation. Now CenturyLink Tech rep has pushed the scheduled repair to tomorrow which I cannot make. The Public Regulation Commission of New Mexico should review this issue as no doubt that other CenturyLink Customers are receiving the same "Bottom Level" service that I received which is extremely costly considering that a customer has to take off work due to CenturyLink's inept scheduling and customer communication system. CenturyLink's apathy toward customers is apparent in their system of doing business. I am utterly frustrated with CenturyLink's poor service and inability to talk to their customers.

She could have been a hero. Obviously, I’m stupid enough to have been swayed every month to keeping my crap Prism service for almost a year, calm me down with truth, I’ll be loyal. But she dug her heels in and that entire department are a bunch of no good employees. 16 years of never missing a payment and she wouldn’t go off her BS “Is there anything else I can help you with?” Just use her tiny brain, 8 mos of me calling there to pay asking what was wrong and hearing my account was perfect and they’d be happy to take my payment over the phone yet I can sign online, I’m restricted. There’s a story here! You find some bogus insufficient funds check returned? Funny, I pay online every month for 16 years, I tell you I have all paperwork, employees names and my bank papers showing there were no insufficient funds to CenturyLink.

Proving by my account, no $30 some odd dollar fee from my bank in February, I pay online 16 years, I have been calling for almost a year asking why I can’t pay online, documented employees names and dates stating there’s no issues on my account for 8 months. But she stuck to her story rather than trying to figure out what really happened. I’m done. They took all the Prism discounts to force us to go with DirecTv. Don’t do it, your year 2 of your contract (that they change all the time, but hold you to) will be $300!! Don’t get treated like I am. I’m so angry. Don’t use them, you’ll be sorry. I sure am.

Original Review: Oct. 28, 2018

We have been CenturyLink customers for YEARS!! The customer service has always been top notch. Even as recent as September when I called about our staticky phone lines. We always felt like we were speaking with local people who understood our language and concerns. I even expressed that to my CSR that day in September. WELL OBVIOUSLY THERE HAS BEEN A SHIFT! I live in the Panhandle where on 10/11/18, hurricane Michael devastated our area leaving most of us with no electricity (even to date!) and since I wasn’t sure about income and when I would return to work, I called about options for how they could assist with the financial burden.

The advice was to place my service on “vacation hold” so I did. Which OBVIOUSLY WAS A MISTAKE. I called last week to have the hold removed (after learning that some in our area who are operating off generators were still able to use WiFi) but I was told that it could not be reactive until NOVEMBER 11 AND that the plan we’ve had for years would change!!! The reason given from the lady whose speech was very hard to understand, for the 11/11 date was because of outages but I learned yesterday that is not the case because my neighbor running on generator is using her WiFi.

Therefore, I tried contacting CenturyLink again only to be told by the tech team that I would need to call back Monday and speak to customer care since they are closed on weekend or I could choose chat. So I tried the chat as best as I could on a weak cell signal only to lose connection the first time and the second time to be told the very same thing. But no reason given as to why. And no concern whatsoever. A VACATION HOLD SHOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE TO SIMPLY TAKE OFF!!! What is CenturyLink doing??? AND MY PLAN SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED!!! This is completely unacceptable!!! And this process with CL HAS BEEN THE WORST! Get your customer care team back to caring and back to clear and plain English speaking who are relatable to people’s needs! I will try calling again on Monday and if our service is not restored IMMEDIATELY, I am done with CenturyLink!

Fast forward to the first supervisor. We were told a tech would be at our home on 10/25/2018 between 8:00 am and noon... which required my wife to take off work. At around 11:30 on 10/25/2018, no one has showed up, so we called and spoke to another supervisor. This supervisor said no tech is coming because the scheduled time was for DECEMBER 25th, 2018 - Christmas Day. I can't make this stuff up. So, a new scheduled time was set - for today, 10/27/2018, between 8:00 am and 11:00 am.

Once 11:00 came and went, we called CenturyLink. Again, we had to speak to someone in the Philippines who speaks broken English. What were we told? The tech had already responded to our home... The Bank of America building in another city. (We are not associated with Bank of America in any way - I have no idea how they got that address.) So, here we are - no one is coming and the bar has been set to new heights on how incompetent a company can be. If I operated like this at work, I would be unemployed. How is CenturyLink still in business???

This man's demeanor, attitude, aggressiveness and overall rudeness would have been unacceptable from a waiter at Dick's Last Resort. He spoke over me, constantly telling me "SIR SIR SIR, YOU'RE NOT LISTENING SIR" as I was trying to understand why he was unable to provide the credit. My additional questions were met with "SIR I ALREADY EXPLAINED THIS TO YOU. SIR LISTEN TO ME". George then put icing on the cake by telling me to "See things from his perspective, to put myself in his shoes. That he found it frustrating that he had already explained it to me and I didn't get it." That's correct. It was frustrating for HIM to have to explain CenturyLink's policies to a business customer who called into a CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER, WHICH IS WHERE HE WORKS!!!

This is who you hire not only to represent your business but to act as a manager?!? I'm honestly sick to my stomach over how upsetting this experience was and will be sharing this with any other person/business (including the 400+ business in the local Chamber of Commerce of which we are board members of) that mention CenturyLink as a potential vendor. If the answer was going to be no, we cannot help you with these charges then the message could have been delivered in a different manner. Maybe one with some deference and respect for the more than $15,000 dollars in business we gave you.

Now, I'm a foreign language teacher, so accents don't bother me, but you know what does bother me?? When someone in Mexico asks me for my SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER so that they can run a credit check on me to see if I might be able to get service. EXCUSE ME??? You want me to give men in Mexico my SSN so that you can tell me if I'm able to get cable TV??? My future self is elated to not have had to deal with the hassle of your ridiculous technologically-incoherent policies and lack of customer service. We might live in the country but we're not complete morons.

Original Review: Overpaid on my account in error. Paid $650.00 and bill was 38.84 on Aug 25. As of today they have still not processed my refund and continue to give me a different story each time. They say that they are following procedure, which means anytime you overpay this is how they proceed. Never will use them again.

So I tried to ask him to come back today or tomorrow, the lady at CS told me the tech had already clock out and can't come back today, and I asked for tomorrow and explain it wasn't not my fault that your tech went to the wrong house, so I ask for a manager, then I got this Jerk named Michael. This dirtbag came on and said, "I can schedule you for next week," then I explained the situation again, this dirtbag ask see if I want to cancel the order. Then I was in fire, told him to cancel. So ridiculous, I am hoping someone from higher up can see all these complaints again the company and better trained their staffs.

I told them that that is why I want to talk with a supervisor because there is something confusing happening and I want to figure out how to access my account. Again, the supervisor refused to speak to me. Then they said they emailed me information and my access code, but the email never came. I left the phone call in tears. I am in awe of how difficult this experience has been to get help/info when I have been a customer and had this same account for a decade! It is a total mess. Terrible communication from their customer "care." Currently researching other internet and phone service for sure!!

After talking to the Customer Support via Chat, I called into the retention team and spoke with a supervisor who transferred me to a Customer Care rep via telephone. She assured me the schedule was correct on her end, and installation would be today, as was confirmed twice last week, but was scheduled between 8 am and 5 pm. At 5:20, with no technician still, I again called back into the line, and was again told that the technician schedule had me down for the 29 October date, and was not, in fact, set for today as was confirmed at this point, on 3 different occasions. I told her this would not work, as I missed a day of work because it was confirmed multiple times that the installation would be today.

I had the final representative cancel the installation altogether, and was informed she would be making detailed notes on my "account" regarding the issues I had with the lies of the installation tech. For a potential would have been customer to be blatantly lied to after multiple confirmations and assurances that I would get the services I signed up for, on the day I was assured I would get them, is ridiculous and not an initial way of creating a welcoming persona around a company, that is supposed to have "Customer Service". I will NOT be recommending this company to anyone due to their failure to provide goods/services as promised.

Then, I get a notice stating that they’re going to charge me a one time fee of $60 for a technician coming to set up my internet... there was no setting up! I already had it hooked up and ready to go the day the internet was turned on. So then they removed that. Then I get this bill stating that I owe them $150 for a modem I didn’t even get! I talk to someone at customer support and he tells me to just send the new modem and they would credit my account for that modem and I said “I never got a new modem and I don’t need one because I’m using my old one.” Then he said “you’ll need to talk to customer care which they’ll be in Monday through Friday 8-5 pm Central time.” How is this company still up and running??

I work from home and I am not able to go in to the office because my employer is located in another state. CenturyLink has caused me to miss 4 days of work due to their mistake. This is the second time this has happened. The last time I missed two and a half days of work. I plan to switch to another internet provider. I will not continue to put my job in jeopardy due to CenturyLink’s incompetence!

The longest it has worked between technicians is in the neighborhood of two days. Each time I request service, I may have to wait a few days or even a week or longer for their next appointment opening. Their online support is terrible too and the last thing in the world they will ever give you is credit for a service they did not provide! The first gal I got online hung up on me and I had to start all over with a second tech... and this was online! How do you lose someone on line? In the end, I just wanted a phone number to call and talk to someone live, and they said they didn't have that information and couldn't help me! They don't have a phone number? Are you kidding me? Look at all the terrible reviews here. You don't think this starts at the top? It absolutely does. The whole mess ought to be fired, but then, I should be smart enough to abandon my landline phone right?

They were closed at this time, so I had to wait another day. I called today; and had my call transferred to the customer service department of Kimberly **. The woman I spoke to today was absolutely NO HELP!!! After explaining the situation to her, she basically told me there is “no way to determine what is in someone’s heart. And you don’t know if she did these things on purpose.” Got it! Giving a false name doesn’t show “intent”. Passing me to a Spanish speaking line doesn’t show “intent”.

Charging my card for another payment doesn’t show “intent”... the fraudulent payment was made while I was working with another rep... so the excuse of, “maybe she was on the wrong payment screen” is a load of BS! Shouldn’t even be on a payment screen of someone you aren’t speaking to anymore! The service is already terrible, to have them doing fraudulent things like this... I’m good!!! My payment history sucks! Doesn’t mean treat me like crap! Just gonna go back to PlayStation TV.

No one at CenturyLink has any idea how to handle anything, just “here try this number”. I was told today, that my home is too new and was built after the design of the fiber optic grid was created, therefore they do not have a place for me in the grid without re-engineering. Who builds a multimillion dollar infrastructure without planning for future growth and development? Pissed off is the nicest thing I can say about Century Link. As others have stated, I’d rate them zero stars if that were an option.

When he performed his diagnostics, he rebooted my modem and we had nearly 9 mbs for about 20 m... when I told him I wanted a refund for this underhanded business practice, he gave me 30 days credit. How is this credit going to help me when I move over to Comcast? Not only is this a poor business practice, but I feel this is criminal. I would like a complete refund for the last 6 mos and these practices to cease. My parents have CenturyLink DSL and we'll be testing their connection speed this weekend too.

Since it was their mistake they tried to fix it and 3 service men came and spent 3 hours trying to get my internet going again the next day. Somehow in all this mess I ended up with 3 accounts, the old one, a new one I never wanted which they said would be temporary until my residential one kicked in on the 21st and of course my residential one that would not kick in until the 21st. So I figure this will all work itself out and then I got a bill for internet only for $97.00 and I called and was informed that I signed up for this and I said, “No, I signed up for the $45.00 residential price for life plan and that is the one I wanted.” She checked and told me they canceled that one.

When they again saw their error they told me I could have my internet services for $35.00 a month for life and that it would be the same plan as the one I signed up for at $45.00's a month for life. They said they were giving me a discount because of all the problems I had with them. Okay so a couple of weeks go by and they cancel my free Norton Anti-Virus without notice or explanation. So I call them and find out it doesn't come with the internet plan I signed up for which they now called a posted account. If my $35.00 plan was the same as the $45.00 plan I signed up for then I should have gotten free Norton with it. They kept telling me I signed up for this posted account and I did not. What I signed up for at $45.00 a month for life they canceled without my authorization and with no explanation.

Online I can't even find anything called a posted account. The girl also tried to tell me the $45.00 a month plan was only for new customers but I looked at it again today and it says it is for new and existing customers and the girl also told me today that the $45.00 a month plan does not come with free Norton but it clearly says it does. They also have posted on various web pages put on by CenturyLink that all their internet services include the Installer and Free Norton Anti-Virus software. To top it all off when I looked again at the $45.00 plan for life even the speed is more than I get now so it is a far better deal than what they gave me.

I do not like how CenturyLink is treating me. If they are not going to give me the account I signed up for that they canceled, the least they could do is give me back my free Norton for having to go through this whole almost 2 month hassle they have put me through for no reason except they keep canceling stuff without authorization from the customer and we have used their services since 1974. I sincerely hope CenturyLink corrects this problem with me instead of smugly telling me they don't care if I report them to the FTC which I did this afternoon because I got no place with them. People should be able to get the services they actually wanted instead of having the company cancel those service and give them services they never even signed up for. So CenturyLink if you are listening please fix this.

Apparently I live in a state that is so regulated it gives a new meaning to progress moving forward. Common sense and leaving the DSL line above ground pending approval makes no sense. If I had options I would immediately move on with a responsible company. Giving me a BS line and stating my work is not completed while making no amends to correct the problem all the while taking on new customers and leaving my phone/DSL line above ground across the Arroyo and across my driveway is an experience I never considered would be ignored.

Calling every day to be certain my work order is in the system is frustrating. My neighbors all have internet service above 40MB - I have internet below 10MB thanks to this issue and needless to say, security is a concern since any fool can just rip out the cable. I have never heard so many excuses while I have paid for a service and CenturyLink has left the product unresolved. The only option I now have is to go with Satellite since the County apparently must approve any work repairs for a common utility.

I ended up paying over $700.00 in fees in order to return service- which I maintain I did not owe- the company actually owed me over $400. All this, not to mention I had a business account with them which was closed in 2017, as the number was ported to the new owner with his own phone company, and they are still sending me bills for a non-existent account. They even turned me in to collections, after many times explaining to them the account had been closed. They finally did acknowledge this, corrected the credit report. All was well for two months. No bills, nothing. Then they started up again. It never ends. This company is like trying to fix the problems with the government. It is never going to happen!

Updated on 10/26/2018: After communicating with a resolution specialist with this company, I advised the rep that they were intending to disconnect my service by a certain date. I asked for it to be expedited, and a solution has not yet been reached. Now, they have cut off my internet/phone service causing me to have to travel 8 miles to be able to communicate with this representative, only to find out I have to wait until they respond to my last email for me to communicate with them. The phone reps say they are not allowed to make any changes to my account while it is being researched.

So, I have been without phone (my cell doesn't get service at my home) and internet and now no way to communicate the problem. I am not going to pay the bill (which is over $500.00) because they are billing me for services I do not even receive, and this has been going on since APRIL. This is a very poor way to run a business, not to mention stressful, inconvenient, and unfair.

Original Review: I have been trying unsuccessfully since May 2018 to get my billing correct on services. I have been promised my problem has been credited and corrected, only to find the following bills either unchanged, or actually higher than the original. I finally dropped services, and changed to a new plan. This plan was supposed to be for internet and local phone service only for a stated amount of $85.00 a month lifetime with no contract. My first bill I received was for services I no longer have, plus all types of credits removed and charges I already paid for early termination fees. I had been told a fee of $242.00 had been removed for previous incorrect charges, yet it remained. Also, for the same account number for the same period I received a disconnect notice for $130.24 - which still was an incorrect bill, but is now an ADDITIONAL bill somehow.

Now I am being charged for entertainment services I do not receive - I turned in all Dvr Equipment 5 days after cancellation of the Prism services. I am being charged for unlimited Nationwide calling- which was supposed to be local service only, and also services for 3 way calling, caller Id, etc and every other service that comes with that particular package, yet I have none of these features on my phone. I have spend HOURS on the phone, lost time from work, been totally without service, and STILL NOTHING has been resolved. At this point I am considering consulting an attorney to see what my options are.

On top of that, chatting with the tech support online is beyond frustrating because they take like two minutes in-between every reply no matter how simple the statement or question, so you know they're just probably texting on their phones, checking Facebook, etc. Tried calling on the phone and was on hold for 20 minutes, someone picked up, immediately put me on hold, then hung up after five minutes to make it look like they talked to me for the record. Absolute garbage of a company. I've had it for two weeks and it already makes me want to throw my router out of a 10 story window. STAY AWAY.

Finally, we were able to update to 20mbps. But then no one showed on the scheduled upgrade date. The speed did not increase. That was yesterday. Today, our internet decided to stop working altogether. There's no DSL connection. There's a tech (supposedly) arriving tomorrow. We just paid a $140 bill for this. And we may even have to pay for repairs. This is less than two months into the service. It's deplorable. Their call in customer support is absolutely useless. Half the time, we can't figure out what each other is saying due to poor call quality or heavy accents. Other times they're just useless altogether. I only use online chat now. Because it seems they at least have an idea of what they're doing. I honestly believe that the only reason they still exist here in Prescott, Arizona is because there's no competition. This is my second time using their service. Once I graduate and get out of here, it'll hopefully be the last.

There have been 4 techs out here in 3 weeks. Twice I’ve waited 4 days for a scheduled “next day” repair. Yep, one of those “we’ll be there between 8-5 and make sure someone is home” deals. It’s 10:24 PM and I’m still waiting on the FIFTH repairman, who was supposed to be here between 8-5 today! No one seems to care... Although they say they do. How many people enjoy paying top dollar for crappy service, month after month, year after year, with absolutely no recourse. CenturyLink ranks THE lowest in internet service across the nation. I would imagine they are right up there in their customer service as well. If only we had another choice here in Hamilton Texas...

The cust service rep said she reconnected everything and would take 30 minutes to reboot. 4.5 hours later I called again and after cust service got transferred back to tech support who said he would have to schedule a tech to come out on Wed (Oct 16). I have no phone service, live in an area with limited cell phone service so I rely on internet to boost my signal - I HAVE NO INTERNET. I am sick of CenturyLink but NO OTHER COMPANY CAN OFFER PHONE OR INTERNET BECAUSE I AM IN CENTURYLINK AREA! Sounds like the worst nightmare monopoly ever.

I cancelled and went with their competitor Suddenlink. The customer service with Suddenlink was exemplary. They installed our Internet service the next day! When calling CenturyLink to figure out how to return the Cable Modem we bought from them ($100 vs Suddenlink $80), the customer service rep gave me a link and then hung up. The link to return policy and instructions was broken, yielding a 404 error. Stay away from this awful company!!!

Good for the customer service representative that said I didn’t have to have phone service. I appreciate it so I think the customer service has been very responsive on this upgrade, but then I look back over all these bills and it concerns me. Also y’all have been in my house, and your techs have been pretty good. But you know that I’m pretty disabled and a senior citizen. I always thought I could trust you. Can we talk? Thanks.

My internet speeds have changed dramatically and I am supposed to get the fastest speeds but can't even use wifi on my phone. It takes forever to load. Lightning hit my house twice and fried everything my phone line was connected to (TV, computer, burned my carpet and up my wall at the phone jacks), they didn't replace anything of mine. All they did was come out and put a ground (underground) so it won't happen again, guess it wasn't grounded in.

Next day -- have to call twice to get someone to agree to switch service back on... And it will go back on at 5:30. I was disconnected through THEIR error and have to wait an entire day for them to restore the service.... Omg. But at least I have been reassured that the technician will be at my new place on the date I actually specified, between 9 am and 1 pm (yeah, sit around and wait, got it), to get the phone line up and running.

The date specified: No technician. I give an extra couple of hours in case he's running late, then call. Oh, that's weird, the order is open, for the time specified, but no tech was assigned. Can I hold? I don't have unlimited data on my phone. And still invested two calls of 33 and 35 minutes each and still no answer to why they can't locate the address I'm living at now nor why no tech was assigned... With the people I was talking to wanting me to stay on hold for so much longer and burning away my minutes on my cell; I disconnect after that long waiting because I just can't afford the calls, after being reassured that if they have a disconnect happen while I'm on hold, they can call me back as a dropped line. They have my call back number, no call-backs happen.

So today, same address, also hard to find but guess what? I'm now online, courtesy of XFinity... And my speed is good and steady, the techs were prompt and supportive... Better service and speeds for half the price. Thank you XFinity for 60 mbps... This is HEAVEN. DON'T use Centurylink... There are many better companies out there!

Also I would receive a text that they are on the way! Needless to say no one showed up the next day or even 12 days after the date. I called 6 times on 6 different days, each day I was told they would come the next day. Finally, I decided no one was coming and quit wasting my time calling. Each phone call resulted in being on hold for approximately 45 minutes.

After 3 weeks I cancelled the service and was told I would receive a refund for the modem I purchased, only to find out later that that was not true either. When I called back again to ask when I would receive the return label and credit, I was informed that I could return the modem but no credit would be issued. Do not use this company’s service for any reason, especially if you would like to get service. The internet service only provides 3mbps which is barely enough to call it a service provider! I was also told that I would get 40 mbps. No you won’t no matter how much you pay! The most disturbing fact is that they will tell you anything just to get you off the phone! Heed my warning. Choose a reputable provider!

So, I placed a call, followed their instructions, sat on hold for a while, and eventually, the line disconnected. Angry and tired of wasting my time, I sent an email asking for instructions on how to get in touch with them. Your plan rate can't be changed through email or over chat, but you can't reach them by phone. It's just a great way to prolong overcharging customers. We might just cancel and use the library when we need Internet.

When I got back from vacation, there was a note on my door, "sorry we missed you, the technician came by but you weren't here to grant him access, please call to reschedule". I never scheduled him to come while I was away, they literally just sent him out randomly on a day that I had not scheduled with them. This week, I decided to give it another shot. I called CenturyLink to reschedule the technician, they scheduled him for Friday, Oct 5, and asked when would be a good time for him to come out, I said "morning". SO again, I take the morning off work to stay home for the tech. It is now almost 4 PM, and he has not showed, and when I look up "Where's my Tech" on their website, it says, "This order is being held - reason unknown".

I have now been on hold with CenturyLink for over an hour, and have been transferred twice, because no one knows how to handle this situation. I have been getting the runaround from them and I am very frustrated. THIS IS NOW THE SECOND DAY I HAVE TAKEN OFF WORK TO BE HERE FOR THE CENTURYLINK TECHNICIAN, and they don't even call me ahead of time to let me know that there's a problem and he won't be out on the scheduled day. I literally have to call them to find out that he won't be coming. This has been an extreme waste of my time and money, CenturyLink. I understand if a tech can't make it, but at least have the decency to let me know he's not going to make it, before I take time off work to stay home for this.

I started getting some mail from them which was odd but I figured it was just verification mail. After a few months I got a nasty note saying my bill hadn't been paid. I called and it turns out that when they brought back my number they put it in a separate account which, of course, was not being auto-paid. I asked them to please get those back to being combined. I asked if that bill would automatically get paid when that happened. "Oh yes." Well - jump ahead a few months and I'm still getting bills along with late payment charges! I called in September and they couldn't find the bill so I was told not to worry about it. I got another bill - another late charge. Called today. After over 30 minutes on the phone I was told that the reason the bill for the second number was so high was that it was separate. I told them I would pay for the second line but at the second line rate. He told me no.

I called back and asked for a supervisor. This guy started with an attitude and treated me like a complete idiot. Gave me his "well I'm a supervisor and I've been here a long time" speech. He told me that what his account person told me was not true and that I had to pay the whole bill including the late fees. OMG. All of these companies are scam artists. So to keep MY credit in good standing for my business, I have to pay for THEIR ineptness and inability to do their jobs! My only other option is not a good one as the other choice for a phone/cable company actually came in one day and told me that my business partner had signed a contract with them and they were there to switch over my phone service! Big lie. My business partner never even spoke to them.

I bought a Mifi box to boost my download speed from Verizon and after checking connections, we were receiving less than 2 MG of speed. Got a fix for about 3 weeks, down again. Called today to report my phone line is dead again. No Internet connection. Gotta a service call for tomorrow to fix my phone. But wait for it, my phone service has a different coding than Internet so I have to call back to tech support to cancel the phone service call then report a new service call for internet. I'm receiving text messages my tech will arrive by 6 pm today to repair my phone line, I'm on hold 40 min then told to hold then I'm disconnected. I call back and no one has a record of the Internet needing repair. I'm so frustrated and canceling everything and even that was a process of someone in another state telling me how they understand my frustration. Disconnected from CenturyLink in less than 30 minutes of phone call. At least they got that right.

As someone who deals with companies, customers, and representatives, this was a terrible experience and her work ethic could use some fine tuning. This is a department in which if I ever wish to do work with in the future I will very well consider speaking with someone else or a supervisor. I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth over how disgusted I was over customer handling. I felt their service was fairly rated at a 1/10 in terms of service to customers. Very poor indeed, I feel sorry for anyone who has had to share this experience with CenturyLink.

Original Review: Oct. 2, 2018

On Sept 5th I moved into a new home that my family and I purchased. When we moved in the first thing I did was get all the utilities, including internet service put into my name so that I could become a paying customer. The previous owner had left his modem and internet service intact so when I was told that the previous owner would have to call and have the service transferred to my name (I don't know the previous owner, I just bought this home that was for sale, I only know that the previous guy moved to another state) I told the customer service rep that I had no way of contacting the previous owner.

We then agreed that I should just wait until the service is disconnected (due to previous owner not making payment) and then call to have service put back on. So finally the day came when the internet quit working. I called CenturyLink and explained what happened. The female rep I spoke to understood what I was telling her and proceeded to set up new service for me. This was on a Thursday. The rep told me I would have my service back on Monday, Oct 1st between 8-5. After 5 I still did not have any service so I called to find out what was going on. The rep I spoke to then, Charles, was rude and condescending. He also hummed or something to that effect while on the phone with me which was horribly annoying and seemed very un-customer service like to me.

He then told me that I have to fax in my utility bills and copy of something showing that I own the property. I was so upset that this was not mentioned to me whenever I called the previous Thursday to set up service. I received my email from CenturyLink confirming my new service on Thursday and then again today. I think it is so frustrating that I am already receiving the runaround and haven't even begun to use my service from this company! I'm already dreading the future issues I may have with this company. Unfortunately they are all I have available in my area.

Once again NO SHOW, NO CALL, NOTHING. I am currently on hold again to try and find out what is going on. This is the worst service EVER. What can I do? They are the only choice for where I live, and they know that. They've promised a credit, but the issue is I need this for work. I went back on call today, and I only hope nothing happens with any systems during the night or I'll be driving an hour. This is totally unacceptable.

The implication was that he couldn't do anything about it and I was just going to have to live with it while paying full price for Century Link's inferior third world telecommunications service. He then called me a little while later and said he was at the CL central station which is about one block down the street. [I am familiar with it. When the gas company was digging in the apartment parking lot a few years ago, they severed the underground cable (btw, how do squirrels chew an underground cable?) and I lost phone and internet service like I have now. I walked down to the CL central station which is like a mini Fort Knox. They treated me with scorn and disdain like I was a terrorist. They wouldn't let me in, I had to communicate via an intercom next to their locked front door like a prisoner. They said to call CL with my problem even though I explained to them that I had no phone service.

They did nothing for me except to treat me like I was a terrorist. Century Link treats their customers like dirt. They have the same scorn and hate for their customers that the democrat party has for Kavanaugh. Calling CL for help is like Kavanaugh calling the democrat party for help. ] Anyway, Rene called me from the central station and said he had rerouted my service to a different line and that that should fix my problem. Well, it hasn't and now I have to go through the nightmare of trying to get through to Century Link again -- as if that will do any good.

If you have any choice at all, do not use Century Link!!! They are the worst utility I have ever experienced in my life!!! They are criminal liars. I will continue to post on this website because my mission in life now is to dissuade as many people as possible from signing up with Century Link. P.S. It took an hour to post this due to intermittent internet service.

Original Review: Oct. 1, 2018

Have landline with Century Link for elderly mother and disabled brother. Tried to add nationwide long distance but it cost $60+ extra. Advertised price shows around $45 but CenturyLink says it’s not available for my phone line. They are more concerned with who my internet provider is (it's not them). About to drop their landline service since they cannot provide a product for the advertised price.

Original Review: I have an Internet connection contract, involving direct signal by phone line from CenturyLink (a point to point service) using the modem which I rent from them. Attempt to download files fail, usually at the 200Mb mark, 95% of the time, the signal drops resulting in network failure or corrupted files. Streaming services are also spotty. Analysis reveals repeated network failure, which can only come from CenturyLink, as the source of the network signal, which has extreme differences in speed, often timing out without warning.

Independent speed check applications verify low and inconsistent download speeds. Read other customer complaints and note they have been met with responses from CenturyLink, often expressing regret and giving assurances to resolve matters; promoting the impression they are customer oriented. The reality is, the customer is directed to a recorded phone system with NO other option, or a chat line. CenturyLink KNOWS their service is unstable and their customers are NOT receiving the service for which they are paying. Their low approval rating is well deserved and fully justified.

As for the upgrade I was told lines were there for higher speeds but they needed work and didn’t have enough employees to get the job done. I contacted the BBB and CenturyLink told the BBB I should find another provider. The rudest customer service I have ever had to deal with! False advertisement on their site. The site says that 1000 MBs is available to me when in actuality 10 mbs is available. Avoid CenturyLink completely as you will never get what they offer. Btw it is now September 30 2018 and the landline is still in my front room even after calling over and over. They do not even deserve 1 star. Beware of this company!

I have been promised credit and told to call CenturyLink when the outage ends and a credit for the time that I was without service will be applied to my bill. I have always done this and then been told that the customer service representatives are "not authorized" to issue credit. For 3.5 years I have been paying for internet service from CenturyLink. My account has never been in arrears. The service provided by CenturyLink has been slow (according to my records generally hovering at around 3.2 MBPS) with frequent outages (at least two per month--some lasting hours others lasting many days).

As the result of this incredibly poor service as well as the fact that in order to contact ANYONE at Centurylink one must endure considerable time on hold (my last call to them on 9/28/18 involved a hold time of 47 minutes to even speak to a representative) and then, upon speaking with a customer service representative being read to from a script and treated in a rude and patronizing manner by an employee who is disingenuous and incompetent. I am out quite a lot of money in lost wages and have wasted well over 6 hours on the phone with CenturyLink employees in this most recent outage alone. I would strongly encourage anyone who has a choice of Internet providers to stay away from CenturyLink and their outdated equipment. This is not a good company for internet services based on my 3.5 years of experience with them.

Updated on 10/01/2018: I did respond to the CenturyLink employee who posted following my September 30, 2018 thread. I informed him that I have called CenturyLink over 10 times and used the chat feature at least 6 times in the past 6 days. I have continued to get the run around from CenturyLink so his offer of assistance, given the fact that I have now been without internet for 6 days in spite of numerous attempts to have them fix a "known outage", one which they claim was "expedited", to be extremely disingenuous and their responses to complaints here seems to be an attempt to make people believe that CenturyLink actually cares about their customers and practices some degree of customer service. Judge for yourself, people.

My internet has been out for 6 days and I have made over 10 phone calls to CenturyLink during that time period. I have used the chat feature at least 6 times and I have spent over 6 hours dealing with CenturyLink and it's employees over a period of 6 days. Does that sound like a company which cares about its customers to you? I didn't think so.

On the 14th, I didn't meet any CenturyLink technicians, but I did notice that there were some marked lines across my driveway that were marked "CS Fiber". I assumed maybe they did the install without notifying me and that was fine. Then, 12 days later, the internet stops working and I call CenturyLink customer service. What a nightmare that was. I explained the situation to the first rep and he said the installation was cancelled because there was already service at the house. I told him, the situation, and why the previous owners had left their service on out of courtesy to me; but that the new service was supposed to start on September 14th. He said I would have to send a lease agreement in to prove I was living there.

I was starting to get frustrated and reiterated that I am not leasing this house, we purchased it and that I had explained this all to the person who scheduled the installation for September 14th. He kept saying I would need to provide a lease agreement because he shows I already have service here. Frustrated, I asked to speak to his supervisor. He told me to hold for a couple of minutes while he gets him. I waited about 30 seconds and realized that he had sent me back to the automated message. I selected to speak to a rep again, and then I got Benjamin. I explained that I was basically hung up on after requesting a supervisor, and Benjamin was very nice, asked some questions and then got me to his supervisor, Gabriel.

I once again explained the situation and Gabriel was completely unhelpful. He said I would need to send a purchase agreement and two forms of ID to them and then I would have to wait about 5 business days to get new service. I told him I was supposed to have new service 12 days ago, and nothing had been requested from me before today. I'm an easy going guy, but I've never been more frustrated with a customer service experience in my life; especially when speaking with a customer service "supervisor".

So as it stands, CenturyLink canceled my new installation without communicating a single thing to me and then they requested information like I'm trying to lie to them that I just purchased this home. Tomorrow I will be shopping for other Internet Providers as I don't think I have the patience to carry on with CenturyLink's terrible customer service. I would recommend others avoiding them as well if you have any choice in the matter.

No, it has nothing to do with "call volume". CenturyLink seems to be phasing out "customer care representatives" in an aggressive and obnoxious way, and it's painful being forced to be an UNWILLING part of CenturyLink's call center automation process. It's unnecessary to "verify" my account four (4) times during a call to ask a billing question, and untenable to be bounced from department to department, queue to queue, throughout what becomes an inordinately unpleasant and prolonged ORDEAL. There are many good and dependable options for basic phone and internet service out there. CenturyLink is not one of them. DO NOT USE CenturyLink.

We are always, ALWAYS transferred to at least 5 different people in a single call. Telling the same story over and over again only to be told by yet another person, "yeah I don't know why you're being charged for that, let me transfer you to **, they will be able to help." Repeat ad nauseam. One rep (Kyle) even said, "well sometimes even if it is listed as 'long distance charges' on your bill, it is really just a miscellaneous charge." What is the charge for, you might ask? They don't know either. What DO they know? That "unfortunately there is nothing I can personally do. Let me transfer you to **, they will be able to help." I have never been so disgusted in a company as I am every month when I have to spend another 2 hours arguing with 5 different reps, only for there to be the exact same issues the following month. Worst company I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

Well now it is September and nothing has changed and I am still getting charged at the higher price. We are now 3 months down the road and nothing has been done. I live in a different time zone and work in a school. I can't get to a phone and hang on for hours to run the gauntlet of department transfers to get anyone to listen to me. They are the only phone company in my area and no cell service. Horrible company. You can't get anyone in customer complaints or service to help you. This is not my first rodeo with this company. They don't have the equipment to service the area appropriately and won't put the money into upgrades. They rightly should be charging what they in reality are providing.

On Friday evening the 21st my husband came home from work and there was no internet. I tried calling to correct their error. I was told their offices were closed all weekend and I had to call back on Monday morning. So at 8:20 Monday morning I called and was told that because the service had been off for more than one day they couldn't just restore my old service but they'd have to establish new service for me and it would take 2 - 3 business days to get it turned back on. And, that I would need to have a service technician come out and hook up the service and there would be a fee for that as well as establishing a new account. Mind you this would be for 2 maybe three days of service by the time they get it turned on.

This almost exact same situation happened with my sister in May. They shut it off early, she came home from work to find out it was off and was told it would be several days before it could be turned back on. If this happens to two people in one family, how many more people are they ripping off. NEVER EVER EVER USE CENTURYLINK.

I called again on January 5, 2018 and spoke with Mark. He said the records showed nothing still but would cancel the account (I requested this since the change wasn't working) and in response to the trouble I'd had, would handle additional training for those involved with this situation. He also said he would backdate the request to 12-12-17 with the original call. I was still receiving a bill for this number so in March I called the number on the late notice and explained the situation to Brenda. She transferred me to another department where I spoke with Ashley who found in the notes the notice to backdate but the cancellation was not backdated. I was then transferred to Isacc who told me he was cancelling the account and crediting the bill amount to the account. He said that he cannot backdate it. He then told me he had credited the account and that it was already disconnected so he doesn't know why it was billed.

The following month I received a late payment notice again and called the number on the notice. I got a woman in India or the Philippines whom I could hardly understand and who had no response or access (she didn't say...just went quiet when I asked her to look at the notes on this account), to the notes. I told her I was told there would be no bill for the month I was being billed. She started telling me the bill was late, etc. and more from a scripted response so I hung up. Totally frustrated at this point I waited. I received another bill and another stating it was overdue.

It is now September and I have received a collection notice. In the midst of this earlier this year I tried to sign up with internet through CenturyLink since I had disconnected my mother's other service. The woman I spoke with told me I already had internet service with someone else. But I have no internet service. I have never been so frustrated with a single company in all of my life, nor suffered just incompetent customer service.

Anyhow, I call and talk with a customer service rep who tells me I’m not an authorized user on the account, so my husband has to get on the phone and tell them that he’s okay with his wife talking to them about the account. Fine, whatever. I know they have to protect precious Centurylink accounts because they’re so valuable (extreme sarcasm). So, once I’m “authorized” to make changes on the account, I spend about thirty minutes on the phone. During this time, I received a “lifetime price” or $35.00, and an appointment for an upgrade of service. We live in a wooded area and have been told for years by Centurylink that we can only receive 7 Mbps. I told the customer service rep that I was pretty sure we couldn’t upgrade, but she kept insisting that we could upgrade.

The tech shows up for the appointment and tells us that we can’t upgrade without chopping down trees and installing poles on our property, which is what we’ve always been told in the past. So, the appointment was a total waste and during the cancellation of the appointment, the entire order was cancelled. When our bill arrived, it was $55.99. Once again, I went through the process of telling my story to several customer service reps, being put on hold for long stretches of time, and waiting for the information from the previous call to be found. I had the confirmation number, but that didn’t help. There was seemingly no record of the previous phone call.

Eventually, the cancelled order was retrieved but all of a sudden the price had changed from $35.00 to $45.00. Why?? Well, the “special” had changed apparently. I wasn’t happy with that price because during our loyalty discount phase, we were paying $35.00, and our lifetime price had previously been $35.00. Why did the price go up??? The Internet speed had not changed, but the price had increased for some reason.

So, we go another month and the bill arrives. It’s $65.00. Why??? Well, I paid $55.00 on my bill because it was supposed to be $45.00, and I like to pay a little extra to build up a credit, but because they were still charging us 55.99, there was a balance of 0.99 cents. They charged us $7.00 in late fees for 0.99 cents… So, once again I call. The wait time was 7-10 minutes, so I decided to email instead. I sent an email detailing all the issues and incompetence, and the response was just…amazing. The text of the email is posted below:

"We really sorry to hear about the price for life rate not being applied to your account. When reviewing the CenturyLink account, we did not see you listed as an authorized contact or the account holder. Due to privacy concerns, we cannot allow access to CenturyLink accounts by persons not registered within the account for service. Please have the account holder contact our Customer Service Department (number deleted) to add you as an authorized contact so that we may process your request. If there are any other concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us in the future. ***Please retain Task ID (deleted) for future reference to this e-mail. *** Thank you for choosing CenturyLink. We appreciate your business. Have a great day!" We’re finding another Internet provider. Even if we have to go with a hotspot. Centurylink is a nightmare.

Every time you are transferred, this information will be demanded again although they already have it since they are transferring you within their system. (If you ever get a chance to ask them why this repeated interrogation, they will say it is for your security but what is there to steal from your CL account??!!) You will be constantly put on hold during which time you will be forced to listen to a constant stream of obnoxious CenturyLink propaganda demanding you get off the phone and go to their website to solve your problem.

You will soon learn that this is a diversionary tactic and that their website is useless. In fact, once you are on their website, their emails and chats don't work and you will be encouraged to call them by telephone. It is just one big circle jerk to harass and torment you. If you continue to hold, the chances of being connected to a functionary are poor. After holding for several minutes, you will hear a recording: "If you want to make a call, please hang up and try again." Then you get a dial tone. Then you call back and reinsert yourself into their Luciferian labyrinth from hell and start all over again from scratch with their electronic deposition. You can easily waste hours trying to reach a person getting hung up on and calling back.

Once you reach someone, the connection is often very poor, scratchy, inaudible and the accent of the person with whom you are trying to speak is heavy and impossible to understand. You will be talking with someone from Bangladesh or Calcutta. You will beg for help and then you will be put on hold and then disconnected. Currently, my phone and internet service goes out every time it rains/drizzles. They will not respond to my requests to come and fix it so I have to endure substandard service. They have a monopoly in my town so they don't care. They are a criminal organization.

If you have a choice, DO NOT SIGN UP FOR CENTURYLINK. It is worth it to pay a bit more if you have to and preserve your sanity. By the way, the "Resolution in Progress" caption here means nothing. You just get the same lies and runaround you get if you were to call or email them. They post one fake canned propaganda response in order to earn their fake "Resolution in Progress" merit badge and then they do nothing further.

At this point I decided to try Comcast, since they already had a line through. While trying to set up THIS new internet, I find that CenturyLink has already billed me for a month of internet, after giving up on the installation. Not only that, but SOMEONE cut the Comcast line in my GATED BACKYARD. Wonder who that was. TERRIBLE. SLOW. UNRELIABLE. DISHONEST. I will never consider CenturyLink, and neither should you.

Original Review: Sept. 15, 2018

For the last 6 months I have them out here to fix internet. Would go out when it rains and others time's slow to 1.2 mg download speed. Upload speeds of less than 500 kb. Call you to get it fixed. I tell them that problem starts when it rains and always come when it is not raining. I guess they don't want to get wet. I replaced wiring and jacks 3 times in my house. This last time I used cat 3e for the phone side and Cat 5e for the internet side have stable .52 volts on both side of house but they seem to think it is inside of my house.

I have been doing the wiring for phone service since 1973 and have keep up with new tech. I believe I know how to do a 2 wire system. So far it has been on CenturyLink side not mine. So it"s your system stop patching and do a proper repair that is what we pay for they waste an hour or more having me keep doing the same thing again and again with the same result patch something in the switch box or reprogram it. Oh I have been at this number since 1973 so guess who has head my service. So when will I get what I pay for.

Go to Century Links' site, you run a test and gee, lookee there, they say there are NO issues with my service or in my area? Except, while using their own POS email, their own home page constantly pops up a window saying, "Something's wrong with the server... somethings slowing down can't complete the action, want to shut down?" Well no, I don't really want to shut down, I want your service to work correctly since I'm paying you. Long story long... no matter if you call, which we've stopped doing because it only ends in, "Sorry we can't help you, it must be on your end.." Well yeah, I guess it's YOUR router POS IN my house, YOUR cables and wiring in MY house, but certainly not us - since we're just using the stuff CLink put in here... nothing fancy.

No crew of teenagers streaming their butts off on 7 devices, nope... one TV on at a time... maybe the computer but it's not streaming it's just trying to get email. So, if you can find a company in CO that actually gives a fat rat's about service, quality, helpful customer service, and providing something you contracted with them for, rather than just taking your money... you should go with them. And, FYI, your site is so top heavy with links, and scripts, and spam ads it blows, too. Why aren't we surprised? Shame on you, CenturyLink C-team. Truly. Shame that everywhere we look CLink gets a 1 star rating. Have some self respect and do a better job.

So, when we finally checked out the website later to order service, we typed in the address in the way he told us it had to be formatted for their system to recognize it... it didn't work. We were dissatisfied with the results and so we went back to just using cellular internet. Months later, we decided to try again. This time, the website recognized the address format he gave us and we were able to sign up to receive internet. We chose self-install and our own equipment. We received an email with the new account details (order number, payment confirmation number, service activation date, broadband identifier number, billing account ID, and a CenturyLink website username... but no ACCOUNT NUMBER).

When the date of activation arrived, I tried the method in the email to get the account setup. The options on the activation site only provided one method in which you didn't have to supply the account number, since we were never given one. We tried that method, giving the information we were provided in the email... it told us it couldn't find us and to call tech support. We called tech support and they couldn't locate us or our account using ANY of the provided details from the email (which we can obviously prove we have). So, they asked for our address. When provided with that, they said on their end it showed service IS active and you should be able to access the internet.

Okay, that was obviously no help. When we tried logging into the online account, we were able to do that and were presented with a message that our service had been terminated. There were 2 transactions, one for the initial charge for service and then a reversal of the fee paying it back to us - hey, at least they were honest about that, right?)

Back to calling customer service, once again, they couldn't locate our account using ANY of the supplied numbers we rattled off from the email. What's the point of sending emails and having databases if you can't even access the information from them? The order number wasn't in the system. (Sidenote: so, let me ask this, for accounting purposes, how do you account for a debit and credit to an order number that doesn't exist? What do you cross-reference a monetary transaction with? Interesting to ponder, potentially some fraudulent accounting methods). She proceeded to tell me that their system just went down and couldn't look up any information and asked me to call back later. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU CALL ME BACK, I'm the customer.

Okay, called back the next day, once again, customer service isn't able to look up any information. I explained the situation again, they decided to transfer me to the retention department because it must be a billing issue. Was hung up on. I called again and said I was just told I'd be transferred to the retention department but was hung up on, the rep. apologized and said it was probably just a mistake. (Thanks anyway but it was no mistake). She successfully transferred me, I waited for 32 minutes before someone finally answered, Aaron. I explained my situation again while listening to girls laughing in the background talking about how Aaron was the only person on the phones right now. (Excuse me, well maybe you should get on the phones and do your job).

After another 12 minutes, Aaron was finally able to conclude that there was a bill associated with our address that needed to be paid before we could get service there. He provided me with a fax number (1-800-725-7721) and told me we needed to fax a lease agreement and 2 utility bills there, then call 1-800-448-2531 to confirm the fax was received. To summarize what I gathered: the previous tenant (who passed away, mind you) left a bill with CenturyLink and they were denying us service because that tenant had an unpaid bill. Do you do this to ALL residents of a new address???

After faxing the requested documentation and then calling 5 days later to give them time to receive and process the fax, once again, they weren't able to look up the account by any of the information other than by service address. We were not only told that they received no fax but that they didn't even recognize that fax number and saw a note on the address that a lease and 2 utility bills needed to be sent to them but she couldn't help in that department and that NOW, we need to contact the Offline Department at 1-866-689-5582 and then email dslqueues@centurylink.com.

To explain and summarize how frustrating this is, is just plain absurd. We signed up for service using the website which also promised a $50 gift card for signing up and fulfilling a set of pre-requisites. I guarantee I come back here after trying to call THIS department and find out that even if we are somehow able to get service, we won't be eligible for the offer anymore which was a bait-and-switch tactic. The offer was valid as of the date we tried establishing a service contract with CenturyLink, and therefore should be honored since it would be invalidated through no fault of our own. Just remember, SpaceX world satellite internet will be upon your heels soon, maybe why CL just seems like they're trying to bleed the system dry while they still can.

It feels terrible and leaves a person with a dirty feeling that the last resort they feel to solve an issue is to make a long-winded complaint on a consumer action board on the internet. You can't put this stuff on their Facebook page, they'll delete it, Twitter, they'll delete it, even the news and class-action suits don't dissuade them from this poor customer service treatment culture. I will leave you with the famous quote from Lord Acton, "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."