Lumen Technologies

I had CenturyLink for only about 3-4 months. The service was slow but ok. I switched to *** in January and cancelled CL by phone. I became nervous because they are very difficult on phone. I went into their Governor Square location to confirm that they had cancelled my account. They gave me a hand written account number that does not exist. I presume it is the first account that was not properly set up. Next I received a bill to pay for the equipment which I had purchased up front. Had to go in to show them. Then I received a three month notice to pay for January - March which is when they finally properly cancelled my account. I filed a grievance and they ruled a denial on April 4, 2018. They did not notify me I called and found out this date. I have a g00d rating. I pay all of my bills and on time. I do not owe this bill of three months. Centurylink has barely ok internet, but their business practices are not satisfactory and if they have done this to me they will do it to other customers. I have proof that I called then in January eventhough they deny receiving calls It is on my phone bill . Please investigate this issue. I feel certain that it has or will happen again Thank you.

I have been paying for CenturyLink for a few years and have been trying to get them to fix my internet for a few months now and they have still not done so. I'm still paying the same price and they have not credited my account yet.

I decided to switch internet companies at the end of March. I used Centurylink's online chat feature to discuss what I wanted in internet services and to see if they had a product that would fit that. I said I use a lot of streaming (i.e ***, *** etc) I also have a lot of devices that I have hooked up to the internet and that I wanted a fast internet that could handle all these things. I previously was using *** and let the centurylink rep know this. He said that Centurylink could provide a way better service than ***. That their DSL was amazing and fast and just want I needed. The rep was very quick and eager to sign me up for this. Again I asked if this was going to be faster than the product I had with ***. I was reassured that it was and decided to go ahead with Centurylink (despite them being more expensive than ***). I was sent out a modem and a tech came to my house on April 1 to get the internet set up. Since then the internet has been terrible. I am unable to stream anything, it's slow and it doesn't work in the upstairs of my house. I made several calls to Centurylinks tech support and was fobbed each time with a tech saying "well your line works fine". Eventually I phoned customer service and explained the issue. The Rep said they would send out a tech to my house to check out the issue. The rep also said she would take 10$ off of my monthly fee as a goodwill gesture. All well and good. On Monday April 23 a tech phoned me and said what is the problem with your internet. Again I explained and said can't stream anything, slow etc. He said well with the service you have you won't be able to stream anything but let me take a look. I get a call a few hours later from the tech who says that Centurylink sold me the wrong product and that it would never work for what I wanted. Basically I was sold and have a dial up internet instead of the fiber optic I was promised. The Tech said this was totally the fault of the rep who sold the product. I called centurylink to try and explain this and again I was fobbed off - the rep said my area didn't get the kind of speed I needed (you think I would have been told this in the first place before I signed up). I was on the phone for basically 40 minutes and have had no real outcome of what is going on or what Centurylink plans to do for me. Right now it seems that this company has no integrity and just are greedy money grabbers.

Early this year I moved to a new apartment. I attempted to transfer my service to my new apartment and was never notified that someone needed to come out to install a new line in my new apartment for faster internet service. I immediately called back and mentioned I would like to just keep my original internet, which I was told they could just "Switch on" using my same router. This never was completed. I then called back and spent over 2 hours on the phone with 3 different people, where they cancelled my service and re-ordered it and mentioned they could get it set up a week and a half later. Time passed and it never was completed. I had my confirmation/order number and everything, but I was educated that nothing was ever placed. Worst service I have ever gotten anywhere. Went to a different internet provider and had internet the next day. Lost a excellent customer.

Our internet service was supposedly completed the beginning of this month, but when we moved into our home two weeks later, it was clear there was no connection. When we called CenturyLink, we were told "a technician will be dispatched for repair sometime between now and Wednesday". So sometime within a week they'll be out to repair something that should've been completed two weeks prior. Horrible response time. This interaction took over an hour by phone, as the agent would not disclose the account number, which was necessary to facilitate the work order. The only information we had up to this point was a confirmation email that listed only the last four digits of the account number, but the rep needed the full number. If CenturyLink spent even half this time following up on incomplete or incorrect orders, maybe their customers would be happier with their service. Tomorrow is the deadline for the technician to follow-up. If this doesn't happen, I will be filing a formal complaint. In addition, the rep was hesitant to credit our account for services not set up, even though we do not have bundled services. If this is an issue on their end and CenturyLink charges our account anytime before the technician activates our internet, I'll be filing an additional complaint with the FCC.

I just made the final move of my life this. I moved into my new (to me) home on April 14, 2018. This was something I've dreamed about for 50 years. My new home is in a remote setting but has had internet and telephone connections in the past from previous owners. I contacted CenturyLink for internet / land line phone service. My cell phone coverage is not good there. I got an email on April saying a CenturyLink technician will arrive to install your services between 08:00 AM and 12:00 PM on Apr 18, 2018. The technician came on time connected the internet but was unable for one reason or another to connect the phone. Another appointment was made for a tech to come and connect the phone service on April 24th, six day later, between 8 am and 5 pm. In other words after waiting nearly a week I had to wait all day for nothing because a technician didn't show up. I was unable to call so my only chose was to go to their website and chat with someone about my issue who referred me to someone else who referred me to someone else, only to find out that I have to wait another day, tomorrow the 25th between, now get this 8 am to 8 pm. So after I wait a week and then all day for a no show they want me to wait tomorrow for an even longer time. This sure is a sorry way to treat a new customer. I'll wait here all day again and what do I do if they don't show again. I feel like I'm being made a fool of. I can see why they aren't an accredited business. Over 1200 negative reviews, wow! How can they stay in business? By making fools of people!

On January 23rd 2018 I called Century Link to pause our account for we had moved and were staying at a location that already had internet service for the next 6 months. I was told that my account could be suspended free of charge for 6 months and that I would need to call back before we returned to our new home to re connect the internet service. The confirmation number for this call was ***. I then received a bill that was paid through direct deposit that was set up prior to suspending my account on February 20, 2018 for $47.81 and again on March 20, 2018 for $47.81. The confirmation for those payments are *** and ***. I called on March 9, 2018 and told it was not possible to suspend my account. I was very upset because I was told I could 2 moths prior with no issues but was continuing to be charged with no one informing me that I was misinformed by the agent. I asked for my call to be listened to by someone in the company that could help me. I was told they would send my request and I would hear back in 2 weeks via email. I was told I could not get a confirmation number but was given a badge ID for the agent I spoke to, ***. I waited almost a month before I realized I was not going to actually hear back from anyone reguarding my issue. I called again on April 2, 2018 and after spending a few hours on the phone was finally told that they would only credit me $69.90 of the $95.92 I was charged for the months of February and March. They also told me they would waive the early termination fee of $200 and close my account. The confirmation number for this call is ***. I was upset that they were not crediting me back the full amount since I was no longer even in the house in which the internet was set up for, but after 2 hours on the phone, I figured the extra money they were stealing from me was not worth my time anymore. Today is now April 23,2018 and I just opened a bill with a charge of $144.36. The charges are as follows; $200.00 for an early termination fee, $29.05 for internet service from April 2, 2018 to May 1, 2018, then a partial months credit for High Speed Internet $72.50, Partial months credit for Internet Cost recovery fee for$1.92, and a partial months credit for advanced modem lease for $9.66. This Bill totals $144.12 and they are asking it to be paid by May 2, 2018. My account number for Century Link is *** and my name on the bill is ***. (Side note: I tried changing my last name a year ago to my married last name and was going to be charged $10 so my maiden name is still on the account)

Received reference bill today from CenturyLink (CL) for $186.98 (enclosed) with a charge for $240 penalty for early termination. I do not owe CL a $240 penalty for early termination.

On 6 Jan 2018 I contacted CL to negotiated loyalty credits of which CL indicated they would honor with agreement for a 2 year contract. The agreed to total price was $170.39 (before taxes). I noticed no decrease in my Feb 2018 bill and when my Mar 2018 bill arrived at $224.66, I contacted CL noting the amount was not what we agreed to. I called on or about 14 Mar 2018.

On or about 14 Mar 2018 CL told me CL could not honor the agreement. I was told by CL they could not enter into contract anymore for PRISM and offered me DIRECT TV of which I refused because DIRECT TV does not offer TV JAPAN. The CL Rep indicated DIRECT TV offers the Korean Channel of which my wife and I found to be insult since my wife is Japanese…obviously, your rep is not cognizant to differences in oriental countries or origin. I told the CL rep at that time that CL had broken the terms of the verbal agreement (“contract”) we made on 14 Jan 2018. This incident was sent to an elevation team who still could not keep the deal we made nor could promise the pricing agreement would be met but it could possibly be resolved by the next bill. I indicated this was unacceptable…CL broke the terms of the verbal agreement we made and I indicated I would start shopping around for another provided. Which I did.

On 23 Mar 2018 I transferred all service (Internet, PRISM, and telephone) to another provider. Being CL customer service is closed on the weekend, I had to wait until 26 Mar 2018 to call in formal cancellation and requested e-mail confirmation and for prepaid return labels be sent. CL refused to provide me e-mail confirmation of cancellation. Return labels were not received until around 12 Apr 2018. I find this all appalling customer service. I hand delivered all equipment to a CL Store on 30 Mar 2018 and copy of receipt is enclosed.

On 16 Apr 2018, I called CL customer service/billing and talked and explained all to CL Rep Heather, ID# 140336, and was told my issue would take 30 days to dispute. Again, I find CL customer service unacceptable as well as taking 30 days to dispute.

I terminated service after 17 faithful years of patronage due to CL defaulting on terms of the verbal agreement (“contract”) made on 6 Jan 2018 and failure to provide an agreed to cost and also due to inability to confirm CL could resolve nor continue this agreement made. Therefore, any “contract” arrangement between myself and CL is null and void. CL never contacted me back with an agreed to contract or follow to initial discussion and agreement discussed on 6 Jan 2018.

CenturyLink Complaint 2018-04-23

Order of Events

On Monday, April 16, 2018, I ordered a replacement modem from CenturyLink. I had the modem shipped overnight.
• I explicitly told the customer service representative to not send a technician, just ship the modem.

On Tuesday, April 17, 2018, a technician called to set up an appointment. I told the technician that the modem had not arrived and that I could install it myself when it did arrive.

On Friday, April 20, 2018, I have not received the replacement modem.
• I called CenturyLink to resolve the issue.
• I was told they had shipped it to an old address.
o I moved service to my new address almost a year ago. Apparently, they did not fully update their records. They also did not confirm the address prior to shipping, which could have prevented this issue.
• I informed CenturyLink that I required this modem to meet a deadline and that vital parts of my network were offline. I requested that they send a technician to my home to deliver a modem that day so that I would not miss my deadline. They refused to send a technician in a timely manner. I then requested that they provide a location where I could meet a technician to pick up a modem. Again, they refused my request. They insisted that the most they would do to correct their mistake was to send another modem to the correct address. This modem would not arrive in time to meet my deadline. I placed the order just in case I could not resolve the matter by any other means.
• Being without other options, I went to my old address hoping the modem was still there. It was, so I picked up the modem and connected it at my home.
• I then called CenturyLink to cancel the second modem order. I gave the representative the case number the order was placed under. The representative informed me that no order had been placed.
• I contacted CenturyLink’s billing department to have the overnight shipping charges removed since it took almost a week to receive the modem. I was told that the charges had been removed.
• Starting on this Friday and continuing through the weekend, I received many emails informing me of changes to my CenturyLink service. I had made no changes to my service. On Sunday, I received noticed that the changes were complete. When asked about these notices, CenturyLink said that there had been no changes to my service. I have not noticed any changes to my service.

On Monday, April 23, 2018, I received my CenturyLink bill. The overnight shipping charge was still present.
• I contacted CenturyLink billing to have the charge removed. I was told the charge had been removed at 2:42pm CST.
• The charge is still on my bill at 6:04pm CST.
• At 11:03am CST I received an email stating that the modem has shipped and is expected to arrive on April 21, 2018. This email was delivered two days after the expected arrival date.
• This afternoon I received a letter by USPS stating that I had been charged for a modem and overnight shipping. This letter used the same language as the emails talking of a change to my account. This letter may explain those emails.
• This day I also had trouble with CenturyLink services. Due to the previous week’s trouble I did not thoroughly troubleshoot the issue before calling. This incident was of my doing. My DSL cable had been unplugged. During the resolution of this issue, however, I did experience more trouble from CenturyLink customer service systems.
o First call, the automated routing system failed and would not respond.
o Second call, the call was dropped.
o Third call, the automated routing system routed me to the wrong department.
o Fourth call, the representative’s voice was modulated, and the call dropped.
o Fifth call, was made by my wife. This is when we discovered the unplugged cable. This issue was resolved on this call.
o This issue would have been laughable if I was not already experiencing serious losses due to CenturyLink’s mistakes and refusal to correct them.

Current Losses

My losses from this incident are still accumulating. Currently my losses are at an estimated $780.
These losses include:
• Time I was unable to work on other tasks.
• Time my junior developer has spent on my tasks instead of his own.
(This catch-up is still ongoing)
• Time I spent personally tracking down and retrieving the modem.

History Leading Up to This Incident

CenturyLink has a history, at least with me, of providing unreliable service at speeds well below what was advertised. For the first several years I paid for their highest speed service and when I asked why I was not receiving the advertised speeds they claim that they only had to provide a minimum bandwidth to consider it “high speed”, therefore, I they were fulfilling their contract. When I would not purchase their most expensive service, I would often spend up to 48 hours offline during peak business days. Since CenturyLink was the only ISP that was available, and I depended on high speed internet for my livelihood, there was nothing more I could do. During this time, I had to call them annually to have a “discount” applied to my account. I later downgraded my service to pay for what I was actually receiving. This amounted to nothing more than my not having to make an annual call for the “discount”. My current download speed is slow, and below what is advertised. My upload speed is barely usable for most video conferencing and unusable for some more advanced remote access tools (under 1mbps).

My only answer to my local clients when they complain about their internet speed, reliability, and difficulty with CenturyLink customer service is, “I’m sorry. It’s the only option we have.”

What I Want

First of all, I would like assurances that CenturyLink will start providing my clients and me with reliable services at advertised speeds as well as competent customer service that follows through with their tasks.

Secondly, I would like compensation for the losses I incurred due to this incident. This amount is currently at $780 and is estimated to grow up to $1200.

On 4-02-2018 I ordered my modem for internet to be delivered, I was told to expect it in 5-7 days. But after 18 days had yet to receive my modem but yet received a bill for the service I've yet to receive. After several hours and different modes of contact with customer service on the 18th day I had to get nasty before they would even give me a tracking number for my modem.

I have had very poor internet service from CenturyLink for many years. I have had several replacement modems and technicians come out to solve the problem and nothing has helped. On April 13, 2018, I switched my phone and internet service to *** who contacted CenturyLink to have the telephone number I have had for 54 years ported to the new service. Without my knowledge or consent CenturyLink issued a new phone number for my account which I believe is called back-filling, which was a pretty sneaking thing to do. I am not happy with how I have been treated by CenturyLink.

I was promised a promotional price and have had to call for the last 3 months, the length of service so far, to fix our bill that we were getting charged to Lease a modem that we bought. Then I called today because our bill was not correct again and we again got charge for the lease of modem and found out that they are charging us 89.99 and we were promised 74.99! I’ve called numerous times and they all are supposed to be switching it now today they say that they need to go over the phone calls to make sure that’s what I was promised because they would never tell anybody that they could get that rate ! No surprise that Centry link again does not want to agree to the promotion price that they offered to a customer !

I have had ongoing issues with Century Link, mostly regarding pricing practices. However, many of the most negative experiences have been with call center employees giving wrong information and incorrect billing explanations. Today's experience was one of the worst. If you have other options in your area, I would strongly recommend you look into them.

In October 2017 I called Centurylink and changed my plan to a faster plan they told me it would be 55.00 for the plan then they mailed me a letter stating it would be 55.00 for the internet but my bill never dropped they keep charging me 65.00 for the plan we have called over a dozen times about the issue and keep getting told that I have to pay the high bill and that it will be fixed on my next one but it never gets fixed then they finally tell me they will give me a 36 dollar credit and that all and if I don't like it then thats my problem they still have not changed the amount they are charging me . I have proof for everything they do a bait and switch on customers.

After closing my account on March 13th or 14th, I today 4/19/18 received a bill for .40$ and said since I was in auto pay that they would collect 5/1/18. I called and talked to many people including their sales pitch (irritating) and finally collections. They said they would write off this amount but wanted to make a written record of this in case they try to make derogatory credit score changes.
My concern is why am I still in auto pay if I have a closed account?
Also I asked not to receive any promotional material by mail, phone or electronic communication.

I feel like CenturyLink has put me through a case of bait and switch. They sent me multiple flyers about a deal of 80mbps for $45. I reached out via online chat to discuss the deal, everything seemed fine so I ordered a modem. Both the online chat and mailers stated 4/30/18 as a the last day for the deal. When I went to place the order, it was explained that it wasn't available online and that I could order and their retention team would switch my pricing to reflect this. they placed the order for me at a higher speed and price.

When I called, I was sent to other departments and told that they could not honor the pricing. I spent multiple hours on the phone over the course of a few days. Finally the retention team said to call the number ending in 1111 and that they were adding a note to give me the 80mbps for $45. When I called in, they transfered me to the Simple team, then back to 1111, and eventually I was taken back to the retention team. I mentioned the note on the account but all of the notes on my account had been erased per the service person. In fact, she said they could no longer provide me the 80mbps deal (which was promised by all other retention team members).

The confusion of being tossed around and the experience of trying to get a deal that was mailed to me and told to me ranks as one of the worst customer experiences I've had to date.

I felt taken advantage of with a deal dangled in front of me and then swiped away while being put into higher priced options or provided the same product at a higher price. In their defense, they do have a line on the mailer stating "Promotions subject to change", but I feel a service oriented company would honor the deal or not make promises via phone and then not fulfill those (or even delete customer notes on their account like a service rep was hiding something)

I'd love the higher speed internet but I'll stay with the local guys at a slower speed as they have superb customer service. I wish my experience was different but Centurylink is one of the worst customer experiences I've had.

My CenturyLink Bill more than tripled in 60 days from $68/mo to $213/mo. I contacted CenturyLink for a refund and was told they could do nothing for me. CenturyLink engages in predatory pricing practices. They entice customers in with promotional pricing and then the prices increase to an unfair amount. Coupled with auto-pay, the company makes back the discounts provided by predatory billing. While their practice may be legal, it is not right.

I have been in contact several times with century link and told I would be getting a refund for a charge I received for an early termination. The early termination was deemed false, I was told when I signed up for the services I would not be charged an early termination fee if I moved out of state to an area where Century Link is not available. I knew I was moving, so I informed them and that is what I was told. Months later I was charged the early termination. After calling 3 times, being told I was issued a refund and being told my address was changed so the refund would be sent to the proper place, I had yet to receive the refund 2 weeks later. When I called today, April 19th, I was told the refund was indeed sent to the wrong address, yet again. It was sent to my prior address in Colorado. I have a confirmation number for my change of address. At this point I am just not sure what to do. I just want my $150.00 back and to be done with this horrible company. I can not contact them again as they do not seem to be doing anything to resolve any issues and no one can seem to send this check to the proper location.

CenturyLink said we own them money. We don't own them any money. We ask for copy on the bills from July 2014 to July 2015they didn't send them now they have a collection agency on it.

I asked about what kind of modem I would need if I did not want to bye the Centurylink one. I was told it did not matter so I singed up and then went and bought my modem. On install day it is not working come to find out that modem was not compatible. They would not reimburse me for the one I bought nor would they credit the account I was forced to bye a Centurylink modem.