.jpg)
Why I Hate Qwest
Qwest, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…
A few years ago, I installed a few business lines into my home through Qwest. I subsequently found out that the company had assigned me a phone number that had once belonged to another person who had long discontinued their service. Yet I still got phone calls for her. After the first few wrong calls, I asked where they go the number from: “directory assistance” was the answer. I called Qwest to make them aware of this & gave them the previous subscriber’s name & phone #. Qwest’s reply is that this wasn’t possible and there wasn’t any way that this could be happening! Well, it was. The wrong calls kept coming.
Next, I tried to get DSL through Southwest Bell which was trying to compete w. Qwest in the NW. Of course, due to the stupid way these things are regulated–if I want service with SBC, they in turn need to go through Qwest in terms of the actual phone line itself (which is a Qwest line, not SBC). That’s where the fatal bottleneck occurred. One time, a Qwest person forgot to register in the computer that there would be a service change on the line. Another time, a Qwest person forgot to leave a message for another Qwest person about the DSL installation & then went on vacation. Needless to say, my DSL installation had still not occurred after SEVEN (7) WEEKS of trying. That’s when I gave up and got broadband service. Each failure was due to Qwest incompetence. Suspicious minds might even say that Qwest was doing this purposefully to prevent competitors from poaching “their” (as if they owned me) customers.
So I vowed that I’d get rid of Qwest from my life entirely if I could. I went online & found a wonderful, scrappy upstart telecom company beginning to provide local phone service in this area. Their services were great and price was unbeatable. So I signed up with Featurefon. Only problem was that their service wasn’t ready for prime time. After I ended a call I’d get a ring back. Often, after talking on a long distance call that lasted longer than 15-20 minutes, the Featurefon software would simply drop the call. The worst indignity was when our incoming phone service would go down inexplicably. Since we still had outgoing service, we didn’t find out about the service disruption for hours or longer. The worst thing was that they simply couldn’t fix the problems (possibly due to their small corporate size).
So reluctantly, I decided to return to Qwest. That’s when the real fun began.
After placing the order for service, I was told it would take around 11 business days to begin service. On July 10th, Qwest’s records show that they connected service. Qwest’s records also show that they disconnected that same service almost at the same instant. That meant that I no longer had phone service. I’d call Qwest & they’d tell me that their diagnostic tests showed that I DID have service and that everything was working fine. What planet are these people on?
So I demanded a technician be dispatched to check out what was wrong. Shortly later, a technician called me to say: “I’m at your home and no one’s home.” I replied: “I’m at my home and you’re not.” Turns out that the tech’s dispatching computer entry sent him to a different address which now had my phone number assigned to it. So Qwest had connected my phone service to another address entirely. My incoming phone calls were going to this address. Which is why my service stopped.
I called Qwest repair once again to tell them what had happened. I gave them the address at which my service was connected (which the technician had given me). They STILL maintained that this wasn’t possible and that my service was working at my address! After checking through this, they finally decided to talk to the Qwest section that assigns phone numbers. Sure enough, there had been a programming error that HAD assigned my number to a different address. They called me a few hours later to tell me the programming error was corrected and that I should have service. Nope, no service.
I told them to send another technician and this time to send him to my address and not someone else’s. When the technician came the next day, he found that there was a problem at the phone terminal which prevented my service from working. He corrected this and I finally had phone service. Elapsed time from where service was connected (July 10) to when it actually started working: 5 days. Number of calls to Qwest & Featurefon to figure out what was wrong: probably 30-40. Number of hours wasted trying to resolve the problem: 20+.
After telling customer service about this horror story and assuming that they’d fall over backwards to try to make me happy–what did they do for me? One month’s credit for local service. That’s it. “We’re prevented by State and federal regulatory guidelines from treating customers differently.” I replied: “You mean regulators are telling you to provide the same lousy standard of service to each of your customers?” That didn’t go over too well.
So when will there be true, unfettered telecom competition that allows the best company to win, instead of the one with the biggest monopoly on bad service? My new motto: anything but Qwest.
You know I would quit Qwest if I knew there was a reliable, trustworthy local phone service competitor. Let me know if you find one (I live in Seattle).
heo said:
Boo hoo, are you finished crying and started suckin on your teat again?
Guess what? Nobody is perfect, mistakes happen. You seem to think modern telecom is flipping a switch? This isn’t freakin’ Little House on the Prairie and Nellie is flipping switches at the mercantile. There is heavy duty computer programming from thousands of disparate computer systems run by hundreds of various telecoms that have to talk to each other in their various languages.
Qwest actually does fairly well at service; look at the even worse experiences you had with that other telecom. You seem to know it all, why don’t you startup your own telecom?
As for the insinuation that all the employees there are idiots and from another planet, don’t you think they all have job requirements and they get demoted or even fired if they are so constantly grossly incompetant. This is a lean telecom industry bent on slim margins, not a government operation.
So you didn’t have service for five days and you got a whole month of free service? I think they were damn generous for even that. In a business where they profit only $5-10 per month per customer, demanding such a disproportionate credit is akin to your newspaper missing five days and you demaning several months of free papers. You are plain ridiculous.
We all know there is two sides to every story, and I wonder what the company reps would have to say about your attitude and interactions with them?
I bet those ‘business’ lines in your home were not actual business lines, either. They were really residential lines, weren’t they, because you are too cheap to pay for the business rates. This is common among many at-home or part time businesses. If you aren’t paying the professional rate, you can’t expect the priority services.
I have been with Qwest service for years in my residence and business. I have tried other telecoms and had my fair share of problems with every one of them. No corporation can be entirely perfect or entirely malfunctioning. Sack up and focus on some real problems in your community.
Richard Silverstein said:
Heo’s comment is so bellicose & over the top I just have to leave it up though I’m sorely tempted to put it where the sun don’t shine, which is where it really belongs.
Heo even admits that s/he’s a Qwest customer service rep! With friends like the friendly Heo, Qwest doesn’t need enemies (but of course has it share of those by the tens of thousands). In fact, the insulting, abusive nature of this comment reaminds me of the quality of Qwest’s service, miserable.
BTW, Heo’s accusation that the ‘business’ lines installed in my home were in fact ‘residential’ lines which I was using as business lines in order to scam Qwest out of a few bucks is downright false. My employer paid full business price for those lines. This guy (I say ‘guy,’ because Heo sounds like there’s a bit too much testosterone running in his veins) is incredibly cynical & jumps to the worst conclusions about human beings. Sounds like he’d make a great Qwest sales rep!
With employees like this, it’s no wonder that Qwest is going down the toilet financially.
larry said:
I am doing some surfing on the web about Qwest and I have just read heo’s reply to your problem. I am a manager with Qwest and I can not believe his response to you Please let me say up front we are not perfect and I deal with problems like this often. I am a cable manager in Arizona and we do have problems there also.My solution to fix them is one customer at a time and I know at that rate it will take me a life time but please be assured that I will get it done for my customers and there are quite a few of us that do care and with their help one customer at a time times the many of us who care I hope to have this time frame a little less than my life time. For anyone and you that reads this I will put my contact number in this message to you. Like I said I am a manager in Arizona but I will get it right . I am a faithful believer in Qwest I eat sleep and dream Qwest and I am not alone my number is 602-930-3103 ( cell ) 24 - 7 My mission sir is to turn you around and believe in us (QWEST) once again, I can not change what has happened only prove what will happen
Larry Lasky
Cyndi Lewicki said:
Hi There,
My name is Cyndi and I work for XO Communications. I am so sorry that you have had a bad experience with QWEST and I have to say unfortunatly, I here it every day from my customers. This is why my company is in business.
XO is the largest CLEC in the nation and we do offer services in Seattle. I would love to help you if I can. Please email me how many lines you have at your office and I can get you a quote.
Sincerely,
Cyndi Lewicki
Major Account Manager
Jen Corliss said:
Well unfortunately this sounds all too familiar to me. Qwest has been pulling a similar scam with us as well. We are getting billed for two kinds of internet service at the same time, and get this, we don’t even have service with Qwest. I have contacted the BBB, the consumer protection agency, and even consulted an attorney. Every time I call someone from Qwest, they have to put me on hold, read the notes, talk to someone else, put me back on hold, refer me to someone else, then put me back on hold… I don’t think that anyone who works there has more than a fifth grade education. How could they possibly? They have now attempted to send us to not one, but two seperate collection agencies to collect all these past due charges that we never actuallt accrued. We still get a bill every month for internet service we dont have. Oh and the PUC cant help because they dont regulate internet service, so we are basically being forced into either paying for this or having our credit ruined. I think that Qwest is what happened to all of the NAZI’s after the war ended.
maria said:
Qwest is not a good company because they don’t do what they promised. They said we can save for the customize bundle but since when we got the bundle our monthly payment it went up. We called the customer service a few times but they said because of the additional taxes our bills it went up. We are only an ordinary people who try to make our monthly payments every month and this company like Qwest don’t have a heart they even over charged us. We are searching for a good and honest company so we can move.