I have been a loyal Qwest customer for 15 years. I signed up for a 2 year agreement with Qwest for Direct TV. I scheduled an installation window which was 4 hours. I took a half day off work for this installation, and when no one showed up, I called. Due to an error on their end, my appointment was never set up, however all the billing was in place! I rescheduled and will need to take another 1/2 day for the installation, and sesrvice postponed another week. To make matters worse, as opposed to offering compensation for their error and my time, I was solicited for cel phone serice. To top it all off, I used 25 minutes of my cel phone minutes to find out that there was nothing they could do to make this up to me. I am a very unhappy customer and cannot believe that they will offer nothing for their error that is costing me time and money.

03/29/2010
My husband had been a customer of Qwest for the last 8 (eight) years and we've always paid our bill on time and we have never missed a payment.

Problem: We are being charged for a $200 fee as part of a "2-year internet plan" that we NEVERsigned up for or agreed upon. We called in to disconnect service and it was WAIVED by an employee named EMMA, but it seemed like that fact was totally ignored and then they're still charging us $200 the early termination fee.

Details: On Monday, February 15, 2010; at 11:50a PST, my husband, Ryan, spoke on the phone with one of Qwest' Customer Service employees, Emma, to let her know we were moving out and needed to disconnect our phone and internet service. She mentioned the $200 fee as a penalty of early disconnection, he told her he never agreed to such a contract. She spoke with her manager, who AGREED to WAIVE the erroneous fee. Emma then told him an updated bill would be sent to us reflecting the correct final charge. We never received it. (If they are a reputable and such a reliable company they can access the recording of this call, it will prove that she WAIVED the fee for us.)

After emailing them again a couple weeks later, we received a reply from "Nancy"on 03/04/10 apologizing and informing me that the revised final bill would be sent immediately. We finally received the bill for $248, still incorrect! We chatted online with Customer Service again with "Juan" at the "Idaho office". After explaining everything to him, he informed us that no one there could help me, and that we would have to wait until the next morning to speak with the billing department.

On March 16, 2010 @ 9:38a, Ryan contacted the billing office and asked for the manager. Darren at the Boiseoffice answered. Once again, Ryan explained everything to him, including his conversation with Emma. The manager argued with him about this $200 fee for about ten minutes, insisting that it was valid and justified, even though we have NEVER signed up for any yearly plan! The manager then continued to say that we were sent information about this multiple times, which we were NOT!! Ryan told him this a number of times, but the manager wouldn't listen and continued to insist that Ryan just doesn't remember, and treated him like he was either making it all up or didn't know what he was talking about. The fact is, Emma had already waived the fee!!

We are completely furious and frustrated with this company! The $200 charge is unfair and UNWARRANTED! He has been a customer of Qwest for years, but if this is how we are going to be treated by them, we will have no hesitation to look elsewhere for professionalism, competence and decent customer service.

Reply #1 from Qwest:

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:59:38 -0500
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Qwest.com Customer Support (KMM16888259I15977L0KM)

Dear Ryan,
Thank you for your recent e-mail inquiry to Qwest in regards to the 200.00 early disconnection fee. There is not a paper agreement you would have signed to set this up. It's done as a verbal agreement. At the time the service is ordered we send you a thank you letter confirming the changes that have been made to your account. In this letter it explains that you've entered into a 2 year agreement and it provides you the terms of the agreement. We also remind you every month when the bill prints that you are receiving a reduced monthly rate becuase of your 24 month term agreement and the date the agreement expires.

The discount you have recieved every month based on this agreement is 10.00. In some cases when an agreement is being disputed we will remove the 200.00 fee but go back and bill you for the months you received the 10.00 discount in error. In your case you had the service for 20 months and received a 10.00 discount per month. Unfortunately the amount of discount you received totals the amount you are being billed for with the early disconnection.

I can go ahead and remove the 200.00 early disconnection fee but we will need to go back and bill you for the 10.00 discount you were receiving monthly because of the agreement you did not sign up for.

Regards,

Michele
eService Supervisor
Qwest Customer Care
Consumer Markets

Our reply:

Michele,

As I've stated many times before, I never agreed to any such contract - verbal or physical - nor have I ever received any letter about being in such a contract. As for the $10/month discount on my bill, that was from packaging two services - phone and internet - NOT because of a 2-year contract I had supposedly signed up for. So yes, you can go ahead and get rid of the $200 fee since I was never in that agreement in the first place (as you stated). I was told it was already waived anyway.


---Ryan Bollman


Reply #2 from Qwest:

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:16:55 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Qwest.com Customer Support

Dear Ryan,
I understand your frustration with this issue, howerver both You and Qwest are responsible for making sure you are getting the services you requested at the price you agreed to. We provide you a detailed bill each month in case there was an error made on our part. Up until you disconnected your account there were no calls questioning the discounts you were getting or why your bill stated you were in an agreement that expires in 2010.
I can meet you half way on this as you have been an excellent customer with Qwest and adjust 100.00 of the 200.00 fee. You may not have received the thank you letter that was sent but the information has been provided on your bill every month since the service was connected.
You were receiving 2 different discounts on your phone bill for the Internet service. You were getting a 5.00 bundle savings discount and a 10.00 Promotional Discount.
It appeared on your bill each month as follows:
Your savings this month
Thank you for being a valued Qwest customer with Savings for Bundling.-Internet Service. Bundle Savings based on the 1 product(s) you currently have is $5 per month. This bill includes a Bundle Savings of $5.00.
You are receiving a reduced monthly rate for your Qwest Connect service because of your 24 month term commitment. Your agreement expires on 06-19-2010.
________________________________________

Bundle Savings Discount
Qwest Connect SLVR w MSFT (01/17 - 02/16) $5.00

Total Bundle Savings $5.00
________________________________________


Promotional Discounts Discount
Qwest Connect (01/17 - 02/16) $10.00

Total Promotional Discounts $10.00
________________________________________
Total savings this month $15.00

Regards,
Michele
eService Supervisor
Qwest Customer Care
Consumer Markets

Update (06/22/2011):
My husband is still receiving letters from the collection company saying that he still owed Qwest $175 and his credit is completely ruined because of this fraudulent and unlawful fee. Years and years of good credit down the drain because of this. I feel like there should be a civil lawsuit against this company.

I visit to the Qwest store 2 weeks ago and no follow up from the rep. An hour on the phone last Wednesday and thought things were being taken care of. Today waited all day for an installer and he no showed. Two hour with Qwest in India and finally got an American Supervisor who hung up on me. Long and short of it is now I must wait another day for their tech. I just want out of my contract so I can try another provider, they truly suck and I can't take their crappy service any more,

Two young salespeople for Qwest arrived at my door when I had just had a huge increase in my Comcast monthly bill and absurd problems porting over my home phone #. They assured me that Qwest had new fiber optic lines up to my house and would be much faster than the Comcast Internet cable connection I had, as well as cheaper. So I switched to Qwest. I found the fiber optic line ends a block away and it is only DSL to my house. The speeds I now get are 15MB down and .7 MB up. With Comcast cable I had 20MB down and 1.5MB up. Plus every other day the connection is down for part of the day; Comcast was reliable. I cannot operate my web-based business this way so am forced to return to Comcast and pay $25 more a month plus $7 for a new cable modem lease. Both Internet providers are impossible but they are all we have for now.

I have been compelled to write this letter to explain the unfair and horrific treatment I have received from the Qwest Communications.

We had contracted to build a new location at 1100 Eagleridge, Pueblo, CO. 81008. During the construction process I had alerted Qwest of my approximate move dates and concerns with moving the service. “Mark” told me that he had looked at the new address and everything was good. I was instructed to call back one week ahead of the move to schedule the technician.

I placed the move order on 04/1/2011 for the move date of 04/08/2011. I received a phone call on 04/07/2011 stating that the engineer had not returned the phone call of the person doing the work on the building.

I was told nothing was going to change until the engineer called back and that my cell phone would be called as soon as more was known. Nothing happened the rest of the day.

I came to the office on 04/08/2011 to find I had no phones or internet. It took Qwest about one hour to get the phones forwarded to my cell phone so I could receive business calls.

Three hours later they called me to let me know that my service would not be able to be moved until April 29, 2011. In the meantime, I went without any service at both locations.

I found a service provider that would move my service in four days. I had not planned to move my service nor did I want to, but Qwest was unable to meet my needs as a provider. I called to cancel my service with them only to be informed that I was going to be responsible for a $975 termination agreement.

I was told that they thought I was treated unfairly, however there was nothing they could do to remove the early termination fee. I have been a loyal Qwest client since 2003 and I was shocked at the inability for them to satisfy a customer that they dropped the ball on.

I just want other consumers to know before they make the choice to go with such a terrible company. Hopefully others can avoid falling into the pitfall I did with this pathetic company.