Here are the facts:
I have ALL of my phone service through Qwest: local and long distance services, Internet connection via DSL, Qwest voice mail, and Qwest caller ID. I have been a Qwest customer since 1976 when they were Mountain Bell.
Qwest shut of my phone because they did not receive my mailed-in payment.
1. Qwest said they mailed me a notice that they hadn’t received my payment, but I never received this mailed notice. I am not upset about the mail because this happens – my checks aren’t delivered on time and notices from Qwest don’t get delivered to me.
2. From a personal check dated 12-19-08, I paid Qwest for phone services.
3. From a personal check dated 1-20-09 I paid Qwest for phone services.
4. On or about January 6, Qwest attempted to contact me about my bill via automated call or “robo-call” - to my phone. I did receive a call on that day and here are the details of that.
• I received a message on my Qwest voice mail around 1:00 p.m. and ALL that was on the Qwest voice mail message was “… so please give us a call.” The first part of the robo-call message was not recorded.
• On the Qwest caller ID, an 800 number was listed BUT there was no name, phone number, or any other form of identification left on my Qwest voice mail by the robo-call.
• Qwest caller ID recorded the phone number but the name recorded on the caller ID was “unknown caller”. I do not return calls to “unknown caller” and that is one of the reasons I have caller ID and one of the reasons that Qwest touts caller ID.

5. On January 22, Qwest shut off my phone. I could not call in or out from my phone and I had no Internet access.
6. I called from my fiance’s cell phone to report no phone or Internet service or access. The first person I spoke to at Qwest said that there “was snow in the Seattle area and that Qwest was having some problems”. I was told later in the call that they had not received my recent payment. I asked them where the nearest Qwest office was and I drove there and made my payment so that I could get my phone turned on again and access the Internet.
7. I called Qwest customer service AFTER my phone service was returned to find out more about the problem was. I spoke with Jane, employee ID unknown that, that Qwest records showed that they made a robo-call on or about January 6 regarding payment. When I explained the problem of Qwest robo-calls/Qwest voice mail, she said, “Hmm. No one has ever told us this before.” At least the people to whom I spoke to this day understood the problem with Qwest robo-call/Qwest voice mail/Qwest caller ID name blocking.
8. On February 23, I received a bill from Qwest and they are charging me $50.00 per Qwest order number C31115521 to “restore service on January 22”.
9. On February 23, I called Qwest customer service and spoke with Satami, a supervisor, and Satami’s supervisor, Jo (employee ID A68) and explained this problem and they said they will not remove the charge. Satomi also told me that the robo-call “was a courtesy call and that Qwest didn’t have to make a courtesy call anyway.” The first time I heard about this attempted contact from Qwest, they referred to it as an “attempt to contact” and never as a “courtesy call” which, according to Satomi, “We don’t have to make”.
10. On February 23 when I read the “Information About Your Account” on the Qwest bill, it says “Your basic telephone service will not be disconnected for non-payment of service or charges that are identified with an asterisk.” On my bill, this means that IF I SOMEHOW SELECTIVELY DO NOT PAY THE LONG DISTANCE DOMESTIC PLAN AND IN-STATE PLAN AND VOICE MAIL, CALLER ID AND INTERNET SERVICE, my basic telephone service will NOT be disconnected – who in world puts separate checks in the phone bill for these separate services??? This is a completely unreasonable and outrageous expectation by Qwest or else it’s a flat-out lie.
11. Continuing with item 10, when you have Qwest DSL and Qwest shuts off your phone, you lose your Internet connection, I don’t care what Qwest’s totally uninformed and unwilling-to-listen employee, Jo, ID A68, says.
12. When I called back later after speaking to Jo, Wendy took the call and I told her I wanted to speak to Jo and gave her Jo’s ID number. Wendy said she wasn’t sure who Jo was and she asked me if I knew which city Jo was in: I’m supposed to know to ask a supervisor’s city where they work? What kind of communication – especially from a telephone company where their employees can’t even find another person within their screen notes and system – do you call this? An abomination? An abortion?

Here’s the flaws in Qwest’s alleged integrated systems and alleged customer service.
1. Qwest’s robo-callers aren’t smart enough to interact with Qwest’s voice mail system to know when the Qwest robo-call message should begin and therefore, a Qwest customer misses important calls despite of the alleged benefits of Qwest voice mail.
2. Qwest blocks its robo-call outgoing caller ID name from the Qwest caller ID system. If the caller ID name would have been shown as “Qwest billing” or Qwest accounting” I sure as hell would have called someone.
3. Qwest’s statement –on page 2 of the bill states, “Your basic telephone service will not be disconnected for non-payment of service or charges that are identified [with an asterisk]” is outrageous and unreasonable. Who pays separately with check or otherwise for the services with or without an asterisk?
4. Some of Qwest’s supervisors are ignorant and/or ill-trained and/or unwilling to listen. If I can explain the situation to a front-line customer representative (Mary, Wendy, and Jane) and they can understand the problems with Qwests’ poor system integration (i.e., voice mail, robo-call, and caller ID name-blocking), why can’t Qwest supervisors get it?
Supervisor Satomi told me “we don’t have to place a courtesy call to you” and Jo – employee A68 and Satomi’s supervisor – who just did not get it and argued with me that “we didn’t shut off your Internet service [by shutting off your phone] even if you do have DSL” and both statements by these supervisors are ignorant and display poor customer service skills.

What do I want? I want the $50 charge taken off my my bill. I believe that $50 means a lot more to me than it does to a coproration the size of Qwest and if I’m only worth $50 to them, then how does that speak to their “spirit of service”?
I would hope that Qwest looks into this and sees the major flaws in their systems and does something about it.

This has been ongoing for 1.5 years. I've filed complaints directly with Qwest (I'm on their DO NOT SOLICIT LIST), filed numerous complaints with the BBB in Denver, and directly with the CEO office to stop stuffing my mailbox with offers for DSL, TV, and cell phone services. Only once has CEO secretary said she would get the mailings stopped, which lasted 1 month, then they began 4 times per week. Of course Qwest Customer Service (sic) is worthless, the BBB has given up and suggested I contact an attorney, and my direct calls to the CEO secretary do not get returned. I would never do business with them! I'm sorry I live in their area. AVOID THEM!!

11/08 my roommate wanted to get Direct TV...and they only way we could was we had to get home phone service through Qwest. After having the Direct TV guy here to find out we couldn't have the service I called and cancelled Qwest. No problems. When I received the bill, I paid it online 11/4. Two days later, they took another payment out of my account 11/6.

When I called they told me they'd send me a check. I've been calling every couple of weeks since then and all they could tell me was they sent out a check, it's in the mail, blah blah blah. Then today I call and they tell me the first check was cashed 11/28 and they won't be sending me another. Doesn't matter that it wasn't me who cashed it... they refused to give my money back. So they pretty much stole money from me. I've reported them to the BBB and am about to file a dispute through my bank
to get my money back somehow.

This was the last straw... I will NEVER EVER EVER have Qwest even if they're the last phone company on earth... I'll go phoneless!!!

Not only did they steal $35.13 from me but the $20 fee I was charged when they overdrafted my account.

I had Qwest wireless back in 2002 or 2003, (can't remember exactly) and at the time was disputing a $200 contract cancellation fee they began charging me after I canceled my service for mistakes they had made on my bill. I kept the home phone service, and still have it now in 2008.

As I recall in the best way my memory can offer me after 7 years, Qwest was charging me full-price for something that the customer service rep had told me was either free or at a lower discounted price when I first ordered the service. After disputing this on the phone with Qwest several times over a few months or so, trying in vain to get them to adjust my bill to show the proper lower charges, I finally called and canceled the service out of sheer disgust over the whole thing.

The next billing cycle they then added a $200 cancellation fee. Upset because I thought this was unfair, I called to dispute the $200, explaining why I had canceled my service in the first place -- because they were charging me for something the customer service rep said was free. I told them I felt I didn't deserve to be charged the $200 because it was Qwest who had messed up by misleading me into thinking I was getting a free (or discounted) item upon signing up for wireless.

So, after the next couple of billing statements, I saw that the $200 had been dropped, and I was happy that I had gotten through to them, and they had apparently agreed to drop the charges. For the next few years the $200 was gone from my bill, and I figured that was the end of it.

Well, not so fast. Now, in late 2008 I suddenly get a collection notice in the mail for the Qwest $200, along with $80 for a past wireless bill, for a total of $280, some 7 years after the fact! Talk about a cheap shot! Not only did they not let it go, but now they come after me years later with the collection company -- and they're the ones who screwed up!

I'm posting this here because I want other people to be aware of Qwest's deceptive and ongoing questionable business practices. Seems since the economy is so bad now, this company will do anything to make money.

In September I found a notice on my door from Qwest, they had upgrade our neighborhood to high speed digital fiber, and were offering deals of $29/mo for the low end which I was using and paying $42/mo or $44/mo for their new 12GB service. I called them and was assured that yes I could be upgraded for just a few $$ more than I was currently paying. After a lengthy discussion with the Qwest rep I upgraded to their new service. By November I was being charged $65 for the service plus an additional $14 for MSN which I specifically did not want. I called them and was told those charges would be removed from my bill and I would be charged the $44/mo originally quoted. A month later I get another statement with the charges they were going to remove now listed as past due and my charges are back to the $65 +$14, when I called again I was told the only way I could get the (now) $46/mo rate was to sign a 2 year contract and there was no way they could roll back the price over the last 2 months. This is a ripoff from a company that now controls most of telecom.