Thumbs down for CenturyLink Customer Service and repair
Coming from the guy that has the attitude of trying not to complain I really could not let this experience go by without putting it in a blog. Normally I say "Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape." When it came to dealing with issues, challenges and problems that we had with CenturyLink I could not keep quiet. I have to admit that once we finally got the repair guy onsite he was very nice and helpful he just did not have the equipment he needed to fix the issue and it took him a while to figure out why the DSL that the company said was active was not.
Every large company seems to have it’s communication issues and challenges although we had a very poor experience with CenturyLink which lasted a couple of weeks and they could not seem to get their act together. For this I give CenturyLink a thumbs down and one star. The last two people I spoke with were nice although not very helpful. They committed several errors and we found that two of the orders that we had placed had been canceled and not by us. One hand does not know what the other hand is doing and you know what? None of the hands in the mixture really seem to care and since they don’t appear to keep very good notes or they don’t read them each person needs to have you explain the entire issue every time you call back.
The first week of January 2013 Ron with American Security & Fire, Inc. located at 3913 South 300 East, Murray Utah 84107 called CenturyLink formerly Qwest to ask them to move the phone lines and the Internet to our new location that is 2 miles northwest at 110 West 2950 South, Salt Lake City 84115. Ron was told that we needed to change our phone number. (801) 263 6002 to another number because the move would not allow them to route the number and one man told him it had something to do with the law and regulations of the long distance. Ron pointed out to CenturyLink that several competitors would allow us to keep our same phone number and asked if they could check and see if we could keep the same phone number. CenturyLink explained that the policy was not to allow that even though their competitors could do it they cannot. Their competitors do not have to follow the same regulations. Hence they lost a customer for the phone business and we had several lines not just one.
You see we have security panels all over Utah with that phone number printed on them. After being put on hold several times and having over an hour conversation with CenturyLink Ron made the decision to go with another company for the Phones and keep CenturyLink for the DSL and we would use Vonage which would allow us to keep our phone numbers and the cost would end up being less than half. We were willing to stay with CenturyLink but they were unwilling to work with us. The order N36634697 was placed to activate DSL at the new location and they said it was done on 1/8/13. We hooked up every pair of wires that came into the point of demarcation without success and then we called for repair and CenturyLink gave me (Larry Love) two choices on 1/10/12 for repair that they would show up on Friday the 11th between 9:30AM and 5:30PM or between 12:30PM and 4:30PM and I chose the first set of hours hoping they would come early.
I then called repair the morning of the 11th only to be told that they had no such repair order so they put in an order for Saturday the 12th between 9:30AM and 3:30PM vv226874. I told them that no one would be there on SAT but that we did not have a gate and there was access into the back and the box was on the north side of the building and if they could just mark the wires we could hook up the wires to our inside equipment. I called on 1/14/13 at 8:15AM and I was transferred to AZ and they said that was the wrong center to help so they transferred me to Boise repair office and put me on hold for 20 minutes. I got cut off twice and finally got through and I was told by the computer that the tech(Brandon) that responded said they could not get access to mark the wires so I got a live person at 8:45AM and I was told that he was not sure what happened because he read my notes back to him saying there was no lock, no gate and the box was on the north side of the building. They checked and they put though another order for N37084588 for DSL on 1/14/13. The repair office said they would dispatch someone today 1/14/13 between 9:30AM and 1:30PM and they would call me first. The tech showed up late but nevertheless he showed up and had problems because he could not find our building even though we have 6 inch numbers on the door (110) but he got to work and could not get the old modem to work so he brought in a new one and could not get that to work either so he tried the old one and finally got the wireless up and explained that his ladder was 24 inches too short to reach the pole he needed to get up on and explained that we would only get about 700 on the speed instead of 1.5 until they could send another tech out. While he was doing this another tech showed up but his ladder would not reach the box either so they said they would put in an order to come back tomorrow. The other tech that showed up had no knowledge that there was a tech already on site. They both agreed that there is a major communication issue at CenturyLink even among themselves.
So I hooked up the Vonage boxes and got 5 dial tones and I called in and took the forwarding order off of the phone that was being forwarded to my cell phone only to find out that I can dial out from my office on the Vonage lines but those lines cannot receive any incoming calls yet until CenturyLink releases those lines which they have not done as of yet so I called in and put the forwarding back on the main line until tomorrow when the lines are supposed to be released. I simply said that I called CenturyLink to have the forwarding taken off and then called back to have the forwarding put back on but that ordeal alone was a nightmare trying to get past the automated system giving it my phone numbers and call back numbers only to be transferred to a agent that asked for all the same information all over again. We finally got the hard lines and the Internet working on the computers inside the office yet the connection speed is quite slow.
Each time we call CenturyLink they ask us for our name, phone number we are calling about, phone number we can be reached, permission to open our account, the billing address (where no one is now), the new location where we are currently at because I was told by repair that customer service does not speak with repair and visa versa. Jim in repair told me he was confused. Sheray in customer service told me since they messed up on the DSL that she would transfer my (801) 263 6002 to my cell phone 801 898 6003 and she told me this on Wed Jan 9th but when I called back on Thursday they first said there was no transfer order and then when I got through to Sheray she told me that since I did not have that feature on my phone number that she could not get it to work but she did not call me to tell me that. Then she transferred me to repair for an emergency forward order which they did they said they would get it active quickly but it took several hours to activate.
You see we have security panels all over Utah with that phone number printed on them. After being put on hold several times and having over an hour conversation with CenturyLink Ron made the decision to go with another company for the Phones and keep CenturyLink for the DSL and we would use Vonage which would allow us to keep our phone numbers and the cost would end up being less than half. We were willing to stay with CenturyLink but they were unwilling to work with us. The order N36634697 was placed to activate DSL at the new location and they said it was done on 1/8/13. We hooked up every pair of wires that came into the point of demarcation without success and then we called for repair and CenturyLink gave me (Larry Love) two choices on 1/10/12 for repair that they would show up on Friday the 11th between 9:30AM and 5:30PM or between 12:30PM and 4:30PM and I chose the first set of hours hoping they would come early.
I then called repair the morning of the 11th only to be told that they had no such repair order so they put in an order for Saturday the 12th between 9:30AM and 3:30PM vv226874. I told them that no one would be there on SAT but that we did not have a gate and there was access into the back and the box was on the north side of the building and if they could just mark the wires we could hook up the wires to our inside equipment. I called on 1/14/13 at 8:15AM and I was transferred to AZ and they said that was the wrong center to help so they transferred me to Boise repair office and put me on hold for 20 minutes. I got cut off twice and finally got through and I was told by the computer that the tech(Brandon) that responded said they could not get access to mark the wires so I got a live person at 8:45AM and I was told that he was not sure what happened because he read my notes back to him saying there was no lock, no gate and the box was on the north side of the building. They checked and they put though another order for N37084588 for DSL on 1/14/13. The repair office said they would dispatch someone today 1/14/13 between 9:30AM and 1:30PM and they would call me first. The tech showed up late but nevertheless he showed up and had problems because he could not find our building even though we have 6 inch numbers on the door (110) but he got to work and could not get the old modem to work so he brought in a new one and could not get that to work either so he tried the old one and finally got the wireless up and explained that his ladder was 24 inches too short to reach the pole he needed to get up on and explained that we would only get about 700 on the speed instead of 1.5 until they could send another tech out. While he was doing this another tech showed up but his ladder would not reach the box either so they said they would put in an order to come back tomorrow. The other tech that showed up had no knowledge that there was a tech already on site. They both agreed that there is a major communication issue at CenturyLink even among themselves.
So I hooked up the Vonage boxes and got 5 dial tones and I called in and took the forwarding order off of the phone that was being forwarded to my cell phone only to find out that I can dial out from my office on the Vonage lines but those lines cannot receive any incoming calls yet until CenturyLink releases those lines which they have not done as of yet so I called in and put the forwarding back on the main line until tomorrow when the lines are supposed to be released. I simply said that I called CenturyLink to have the forwarding taken off and then called back to have the forwarding put back on but that ordeal alone was a nightmare trying to get past the automated system giving it my phone numbers and call back numbers only to be transferred to a agent that asked for all the same information all over again. We finally got the hard lines and the Internet working on the computers inside the office yet the connection speed is quite slow.
Each time we call CenturyLink they ask us for our name, phone number we are calling about, phone number we can be reached, permission to open our account, the billing address (where no one is now), the new location where we are currently at because I was told by repair that customer service does not speak with repair and visa versa. Jim in repair told me he was confused. Sheray in customer service told me since they messed up on the DSL that she would transfer my (801) 263 6002 to my cell phone 801 898 6003 and she told me this on Wed Jan 9th but when I called back on Thursday they first said there was no transfer order and then when I got through to Sheray she told me that since I did not have that feature on my phone number that she could not get it to work but she did not call me to tell me that. Then she transferred me to repair for an emergency forward order which they did they said they would get it active quickly but it took several hours to activate.
So I hooked up the Vonage boxes and got 5 dial tones and I called in and took the forwarding order off of the phone that was being forwarded to my cell phone only to find out that I can dial out from my office on the Vonage lines but those lines cannot receive any incoming calls yet until CenturyLink releases those lines which they have not done as of yet so I called in and put the forwarding back on the main line until tomorrow when the lines are supposed to be released. I simply said that I called CenturyLink to have the forwarding taken off and then called back to have the forwarding put back on but that ordeal alone was a nightmare trying to get past the automated system giving it my phone numbers and call back numbers only to be transferred to a agent that asked for all the same information all over again. We finally got the hard lines and the Internet working on the computers inside the office yet the connection speed is quite slow.
Each time we call CenturyLink they ask us for our name, phone number we are calling about, phone number we can be reached, permission to open our account, the billing address (where no one is now), the new location where we are currently at because I was told by repair that customer service does not speak with repair and visa versa. Jim in repair told me he was confused. Sheray in customer service told me since they messed up on the DSL that she would transfer my (801) 263 6002 to my cell phone 801 898 6003 and she told me this on Wed Jan 9th but when I called back on Thursday they first said there was no transfer order and then when I got through to Sheray she told me that since I did not have that feature on my phone number that she could not get it to work but she did not call me to tell me that. Then she transferred me to repair for an emergency forward order which they did they said they would get it active quickly but it took several hours to activate.
I was given a time of 9:45AM to 1:45PM as the repair time for 1/14/13 and they were going to call my cell phone before they came. Now that I called in at 12:45PM to check on the ticket status the times had changed to 2:00PM to 3:45PM. The tech showed up right around 2PM. The tech called me 1/15/13 at 4:55PM to tell me they would not be able to get to us today. They told us the speed would be 750 kbps but it is actually 544 kbps and they said they could get it close to 1.5 after they repair it but it might not get all the way there because we are at the end. The tech then said "I am sorry for the very bad service that you are receiving." Another tech showed up on 1/16/13 Wed and he said they had worked on our system from 5 to 7PM last night when we were not here and I explained we were at 544 Kbps and he said he would look at the pole and the bridge clip to see if he could fix it. I wonder what the tech last night was doing when we were not here? At least this guy found the location because 3 others had trouble even with big 6 inch numbers on the door with the business address. Today 1/18/13 the Internet went down again so I called CenturyLink and I finally got a really nice guy named Paul from Boise that was able to help get us up and going. So 3 of the techs that came out were nice and I mentioned that they should get the office positions so they could talk to people about technical items because those that answer the phone don't have the ability to answer simple tech questions. So now we have a DSL line at 1.5 and we have 4 vonage lines on and one is a fax line. We are very pleased with the Vonage service so far.
The news showed a CenturyLink story yesterday and the woman had paid once with a check and once online and she called many times only to be given the run around even though she had the bank statements to prove what happened. After the news got involved they refunded (Credited) her 28 dollars.
So far we have been given the following numbers to communicate with CenturyLink: (800) 954-1211 which does not work and then we were given (866) 349 1094 then (801) 210 8069 then (866) 655 7419 then (877) 744 4416 then (800) 954 1211 then when the repair number they gave me connected to Arizona they gave me the (800) 244 1111 and (800) 247 7285. Even when the computer asks me for a number that they can call me back should we get disconnected and I enter it in the live person also asks for this same information instead of confirming it. It appears the computer system does not allow them to view the information that I enter in when the computer answers. This past weekend 1/19/13 we noticed that our American Security & Fire email was not working so we called CenturyLink and the answer was "Oh, we forgot to switch it over", it took about 60 minutes on the phone with them to get that worked out and changed so our email is up and working so from 1/18 to 1/21 our email was down. I hate to be a complainer and who knows if we can find another company that can offer the same services on the DSL in this area but apparently Xfinity is over 6 times faster so we are considering it.
We got the final bill from CenturyLink and even though we have called 6 different times to change the address Centurylink still sent the bill to the old address and we have been gone from that address for over a month. We asked them to change this long ago. Everytime we would call CenturyLInk could not find the account until we would give them the old address and then they could pull up the account and each time we gave them the new address and finally today 2/21/13 they updated the information in their system with the new address and the account number on the Internet from CenturyLInk is _______________. The Internet has been too slow and so we are considering a change to Xfinity which should be from 6 to 10 times faster than Centurylink.
We found that two of our numbers were disconnected when we came in today 2/25/13 and we had paid our bill so we called vonage and they said that CenturyLink requested that two of our numbers be ported back to them so they canceled them. One of those numbers was our fax number so we are not getting faxes. I called CenturyLink and they did not know anything about it so I got to a supervisor after 30 minutes of trying to get a person and Jacob in conflict resolution 888 504 9594 said that CenturyLink did not change the ports on those numbers but they belonged to vonage so I called vonage back and told them that and they said their system indicated that those numbers had been ported to CenturyLink so I call CenturyLink back but Jacob did not answer so I left a message. Vonage made a ticket number on this and CenturyLink said they don't have a way to make a ticket number to reference this problem so each time I call and get a different person I have to explain the entire thing again. Not a very pleasant experience. Jacob said it could be one of those companies claiming to be CenturyLink. Isn't it nice to know that when I need to talk to my phone provider they make me give a password and PIN and verify all sorts of information if I want to make a change but if a provider requests it then they just disconnect the numbers? So what it comes down to is that neither company will take responsibility for changing the lines so I said lets get it fixed so it will take up to 3 days to get my lines backup and working again.