Why Century Link Sux

We used this company for our Wi-Fi home service in AZ for several years. When it worked, it worked. I realize this sounds either redundant, obvious, or both. But it didn't always work. Eventually, we got tired of the hassles, and contacted their closest competitor in the area, Cox.

We got instant replacement (OK, within 24 hours to be precise) and had no problems with the service coupled with a reasonable price.

Thank you, Cox.

Within minutes of the new service being set up, we unplugged the old box and Steve called Century Link to cancel their service. Immediately. Our records show that call happening on May 2. So do theirs. Now the "fun" begins.

We were offered a UPS email return label to print out for return shipping of their box. While returning their equipment was/is totally reasonable, an email label to a machine which connects to no printer was refused by us as an option. The "very helpful" young man on the other end of the phone stated they would mail us out a label that same day!

I bet you can already figure out where I'm going with this, right?

The first several days we religiously checked the mail for their label. By the time a week had passed with no label, we let the missing label get lost in the pile of details needing tending to in the process of getting ready to travel. Suddenly we realized just how overdue it was and contacted the company again. Again,  an offer of an e-label. Same response on our part. This time we were connected to a more practical young lady who gave us the shipping address for returns, informing us that we could pay for the return and that our cost would be removed from our remaining bill.

That was done. I kept the receipt. It contained their address, the date, price to ship, and a very helpful tracking number. Gotta love those! In the meantime, the company bills, previously on automatic deduction from Steve's bank account, were dis-enabled (is that a word?) by a phone call to his bank.

Armed with that paperwork, we left on vacation. Trusting as we are, the UPS receipt was among the things packed.

Included in our forwarded mail was, of all things, their label to ship the already-shipped equipment to them. Toss! (Giggle and head shake included.) Today his email announced the Century Link bill would be taken out of his bank.

Bill? What bill? He had settled up with the company  for the previous month, including through shut-off. I dug out the receipt from UPS, and a quick search of the tracking number showed it had been received May 22.

Phone time!

After bouncing from one employee to another equally clueless, Steve was finally switched to somebody who could look at our records and - we naively thought - could straighten things out. Their records showed two things. No record of the return showed, nor was any proof over the phone requested via, say, the UPS tracking number which was still in hand, ready to be quoted to them. Second, while termination of service was shown requested on May 2nd, nobody put it through until the 25th! They claimed we owed them for their incompetence.

At this point I requested the phone from Steve. He doesn't like to swear over the phone. I won't exactly say I like to, exactly, but I'm completely willing to call a spade a fricking shovel when the need arises. Among suggesting their incompetent staff members should be invited to perform physiologically impossible acts upon themselves (exact quote, I wasn't actually swearing yet), I clearly informed them we felt absolutely no responsibility for their failure to shut off service on the day requested, or failure to note the return of equipment which also included inside it a handwritten packing list with both our and their addresses on it, in case some idiot ripped open the box without seeing what it was all about. It was also mentioned that the bank had already been informed to quit accepting withdrawals from their company, so after he'd threatened to send the bill through anyway, I wished him good luck with that.

In a totally deadpan voice he responded by questioning whether there was anything else. I found it a good time to request he pass the matter upstairs and suggested it should be cause for several incompetent people to find other employment.

Upon hanging up, and passing the receipt over to Steve for continued safekeeping, I took a moment to reflect that nowhere in the conversation had I actually sworn at this brainless, unhelpful, robot.

Hmmm, too bad.

ADDENDUM: Why Wells Fargo Rocks!

Out and about this afternoon, Steve stopped in at Wells Fargo, his bank for many years, to make sure what he'd thought he'd done to deal with Century had, in fact, been done.

Well, there were issues. But the woman he dealt with invited him back into her office, and listened. Once Steve explained the above situation, she asked him to wait a few minutes while she contacted their fraud department, The result was two-fold. First, all the official paperwork was completed properly so that Century Link no longer had any access to his account. Turns out what Steve thought he'd done wasn't exactly complete.

A result of that was that Century Link had indeed not only subtracted from his account a fee for the month he wasn't using it, but added in a fee for what they claimed was the non-return of their box. Wells Fargo took it back, all of it, and replaced it in Steve's account!

Steve walked out with a big grin on his face and renewed dedication to remaining a Wells Fargo customer! Now that's how to serve your customers!