Qwest DSL Consumer Reviews - Page 3

Qwest has provided the worse service I have ever had with a phone or internet company. We will start with the internet. Internet: For the past 6 months my internet will constantly go up and down. When I say up and down it will drop the DSL and then recycle and come back up after a minute or less. When you try and resume what you were doing it drops out again and will cycle through this 4 or 5 times in the period of 5 or more minutes. The most times I have counted, 32 times in 1 hour.

When I contact Qwest about the problem they tell me there is noise on the line and would I like to have a service call which of course I would have to pay for. The thing is the problem is outside my house since I can connect the modem directly to the service box and it still has the same problem. I had better service when I had dial up.

Phone: This is actually a billing problem. I was behind on my payments due to unemployment and requested a extension for disconnect which they granted. The payment was sent off to Qwest they received it and cashed the check, then cut off my service. When I contacted Qwest it was a weekend so the billing department was closed and I could not be helped.

When I finally contacted billing on Monday morning and asked them why my service was cut off I was told they never received payment. When I explained that according to the bank it was received and cashed. The representative acted was like I was a criminal trying to pull one over on them. It took 2 WEEKS to resolve this problem and after it was resolved the next bill I received had no credit for the 2 weeks that they had me shut off, that took another month to resolve.

Overall I would rate Qwest a 2 out of 10. Lost payments, horrible internet service and a 50/50 chance you will get a rude customer service agent.

Several months ago we combined our Qwest and Verizon bills. We thought it would make things easier and save us a little. The first month the combination actually took effect, Qwest notified my husband at work and told him we were about to be disconnected. He made payment arrangements. Several hours later, they cut us off ANYWAY! I didn't know they had called him, so I called to make payment arrangements and they said "Oh, there are already arrangements here." I advised that our services were cut off anyway. Rep didn't know what happened and I ended up making new payment arrangements AND was charged a reconnect fee.

When my husband came home I told him and he told me he had already made arrangements. OK.. so the next incident happened when our Verizon was shut off and our Qwest stayed on. Called Qwest who advised that they pay themselves first and Verizon last, so that's why only Verizon cut shut off. I made payment arrangements and gave them our bank account information. A little over a week later, we were shut off again for non-payment.

My husband and I called, and both of us talked to the representative. She said that we were supposed to call in the other payments. I disagreed and stated that I would not have given my bank account info if I was going to call the pmts in. SO made more arrangements, for 3 payments and this morning my husband checked our account and Qwest had taken $799 out all in one lump sum!

I logged into our account online and it showed we still have payment arrangements set up. Didn't want to be on hold so utilized online chat and the representative verified the pmt information but said that my husband had used the automated system and paid the $799. I disagreed, telling him we were both there and that isn't what happened and the only response was "He made the payment." I am so frustrated!!! If we could have paid the whole amount... we would have. Now we're in a financial mess!

Qwest, like other internet providers, make promises they know they can't deliver without playing the "up to ___ Mbps" game. The key words here are "up to." What you actually get is based on where you live. If you live in a new (less than 5 years old) urbanized area, then the chances of getting their maximum speed is a little better. However, I have yet to hear someone say they routinely get 7 Mbps.

The older your community is, and the further it is from an urbanized area, the slower the speed - I live in the suburbs that was built some 40 years ago and the best sustained download speed is about 1 Mbps, and that's only from a website of a major corporation (i.e. Microsoft Corp). On average I get about 700 Kbps, and on a rare occasions, say at 2 AM, I've gotten intermittent peak speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps... a far cry from the 7 Mbps.

And don't be fooled by the Fiber Optic claims - "IF" there is fiber optic in your area, it only exists from the "neighborhood terminal" to the internet. The cabling from your house to the neighborhood terminal is most likely the same old hardware installed when your house was built, and in some cases that terminal can be 1/3 of a mile from your house.

So, before you make the jump to any internet service provider, ask your neighbors; (1) who provides their internet service and (2) what kind of performance are they getting. I wish I had done that - I later found out that all my neighbors that had Qwest Internet got rid of it after a couple of months. The primary reason was slow internet performance and more importantly, poor customer service and those hard to read hidden fees to activate some of the "extra" services.

BTW, during my inquiries, I discovered if you happen to have an Apple Macintosh, Qwest customer support is totally ignorant about Macs... all they know is how to connect your Mac their service... the same pretty much goes for Comcast as well. And, all those extra "services" they advertise don't apply to Macs.

Qwest has given me nothing but trouble from the get go. One representative told me I can save money and made an adjustment to my plan and they ended up turning off my internet and charged a fee for a new plan. Then after I moved to another City they charged me new set up fees and I told them what I wanted and that I had my own modem that I purchased and did not need to rent one also I have an answering machine so I do not need message center. So I get my bill, that I wanted to space out for 6 months, they charged me for the whole thing and had sent me a new modem to rent also gave me answering service.

I called thought I got it all taken care of from a guy named ** from Idaho who was flirting the whole time and when I requested them to change the spelling of my first name (they left the e off the end) he told me I had to fax a copy of my DL in to prove who I was or my service will be canceled. After all this crap I was paying monthly payment to pay off my set up installments but each month I would call for the right amount of the bill since they would not print it and send it to me - it was always the full amount due.

After 4 months I get a disconnect notice if I do not pay the remaining amount in full. I have the payment bill in front of me and the girl on the phone tells me they do not do that so I had no choice but to pay it off or go without my house phone and internet. I am hoping for a class action lawsuit to come against this company. I am on hold with them as I type since my internet keeps going out almost every day and they keep looking for things in my home for a reason they are so messed up.

I had phone service with Qwest for about 7 years and basically had no real complaints. I then decided to drop my land line and keep my DSL service. I had always used online bill-pay through my bank to pay my monthly bill. Well to my surprise, when I dropped my land line, Qwest decided to change my account number. With my original account number programmed into bill-pay, my monthly payments were being credited to someone else's account. Meanwhile, my account accumulated late fees on top of missed payments. After a few phone calls, Qwest couldn't figure it out but I finally did.

Another thing I found out was that if you have a billing issue, the customer is not allowed to actually talk to the Billing Error Complaint Department. I had to prepare all my evidence and fax it to a number connected to some office in Seattle. It was Seattle one day and then Phoenix the next. Qwest couldn't seem to keep track of where the office was. I prepared my evidence with an elementary school student in mind and used small words, arrows, big red lines and circles around numbers. I was able to prove that I paid Qwest every month for the past 3 years (as far back as my bill-pay went). Every month showed a payment.

After three phone calls, three faxes, and 5 months later I get a call from Qwest stating that I was using the wrong account number. Well DUH. Qwest changed it not me. They never read my fax messages and never were able to understand their mistakes. And worse, I was never able to actually talk to the billing error group.

Today, after 10 years of being a customer I have finally reached the end of my last multi-year commitment. I phoned Qwest and asked to have my service canceled and my account closed. Guess what they did. Yup, they hung up on me. I called back and was transferred to "Loyalty" where I was threatened with a $200 termination fee. When I stated that my commitment was up and my account paid up, I was transferred and left on hold until my cell phone battery died. I plan to cut my phone line that is inside my house.

VERMONT -- I signed up for phone service and high speed internet. The high speed internet was not very high quality, much slower than cable, and after three months I gave up on it and tried to disconnect it. I was told at that time that there would be a $200 charge for disconnecting it! I was told that "You were told about the $200 charge when you signed up." That was not accurate. I wasn't told anything of the sort or I would never have gotten the service. They claimed they kept phone records of the sales call, which would have proven that I was never told about the charge if they had checked it.

When I told them to check the phone records, because they would prove I was never told about the charge, they changed their story and said that they had sent out a "welcome package" by mail a month AFTER I had signed up telling about the $200 charge. I told them that for a business to sell a service, then tell people about a hidden charge a month AFTERWARDS in small print in a mailing, mixed in with a bunch of other information in the mailing, was misleading and a poor business practice. I asked them to waive the $200 fee.

The customer service reps I talked to told me there was no possible way to waive the fee, and kept saying that I had agreeing to it. They said, "It is impossible for me to waive this fee." I then said, "Let me talk to a supervisor who IS authorized to waive it." At that point, I got through to a supervisor who did promise to waive it.

I don't know yet how it will be resolved. I'll wait and watch my bills. But I do have some advice for people dealing with Qwest: don't waste your time with the customer service reps who can only give a "no" answer. Demand politely but firmly to talk to a supervisor. Keep calling back till you get through to one. Keep records of who you talked to, and when you talked to them. Watch your bills to make sure that they follow through.

TACOMA, WASHINGTON -- I ported my Qwest number which I have had for 20 years to VOIP carrier to save myself a considerable amount of money on my local and long distance phone billing. I even followed up with Qwest customer service to make sure that my internet/DSL service was being maintained (they said if I terminated, it would cost me $200 which I have still not received proof that I had contracted for).

Sure enough, about one day after my number was ported, my internet connection was terminated and it caused a considerable amount of disruption to my home office. I had to spend half a day working through this with Qwest customer service to get my service turned back on again. They said that my service was adjusted to a month to month service when my phone service was ported to a new carrier.

After this incident with my internet disruption, I decided to contract with a local cable company for my internet service, and even though I was put on a month to month contract for my internet service, they were informing me that I would have to pay a $200 termination fee even though I was no longer on a contract!!

I am still waiting for management to contact me (been about 3 weeks) to review my contract of service (never signed, they said they have this on audio tape). My final service with Qwest is with a family plan cell service, which I am also not going to renew once my contract term is expired (May 2009). Since we are heavy users and need internet service while away from the office, we have decided to use Sprint's all data plan. This will save us a ton of money over a comparable Qwest sponsored Verizon package. Qwest/Verizon is outrageous with their fees and I am not sure how they can stay competitive with their business model.

We will be so happy to finally have nothing to do with Qwest, because they have been rude, condescending, arrogant and indifferent. There are plenty of options that provide better value, service and a much better product than Qwest.

PORTLAND, OREGON -- I had Qwest service for nearly 8 years. I wish I would have dumped it sooner or better yet, never had to use them in the first place. They were at the time the only one able to provide landline to my house. Qwest has been a source of unrelenting disappointment and frustration.

Their billing SUCKS. It never shows accurately amount due, or payments made. The account portion of the website lags so badly (weeks) that it is useless as a customer tool. The online account information also does not provide the same information the printed bill does even though Qwest claims it's the same. If you have to use Qwest then get a paper bill sent to you and keep it filed away. You will need it when you do call them about the problems you will have. Only the land-line to the house was reliable.

The wireless service was overpriced and in the city of Portland got spotty reception. I live not to far from downtown and had to talk to one side of my house or outside to get a signal.. one that would drop often. Customer service across the board was terrible. Every time I called I was transferred many many times across many departments. Each time they had to verify a long list of data to make sure I was who I said I was, even if I had been on the phone with them for an hour they would do this.

I had DSL which was slow. Below was they advertise. They had to make several trips to my house because it would simply stop working. When the day came to get rid of DSL in favor of Comcast cable internet I had to spend 1.5 hours on the phone. 1.5 hours of endless call transfer and hassle JUST TO DISCONNECT THE DSL.

This account is by no means isolated. It typified my experience each time I had to deal with customer service. The day I dumped Qwest as a provider is burned into my memory as a day of great relief and joy. I've learned a new level of loathing as it pertains to corporations.

SPOKANE, WASHINGTON -- My experience with Qwest was one giant headache from start to finish. To begin with it was impossible to get someone on the phone to even sign up for the service in the first place. The automated answering service kept insisting on me entering a local phone number before transferring me. I had just moved to the area and didn't have one.

When I finally got a hold of someone, they told me I had to be at my house when they came to set it up, that it would take up to two weeks (how hard is it to flip the stupid switch!!?) and no they couldn't really give me a specific time, just make sure someone is home between 9 and 5 on a day two weeks out. I had just started a new job and that wasn't going to happen.

So I had to schedule it for a day almost a month away when I could get someone to go sit in my house all day. When I called on that morning to verify that they were coming, they informed me that no one would need to go out to my house and that there was no reason for anyone to be home. They could flip that switch at a remote location.

The modem would not work with my wireless router, I spent hours on the phone with both the router company and Qwest trying to track down the problem. They both assured me it was not their fault and that the other company was to blame. I finally gave up and it never did work right. The service itself was horrible. It would only work some of the time and was never reliable, also very slow despite the fact that I had the "high speed" option.

When I finally moved out of the area, I called on a Monday to schedule the service to end on that Friday. I talked to two different people who assured me that it would happen on Friday. The next day (Tuesday) when I got home and tried to get on the internet. I discovered that they'd already turned it off.

Why does it take two weeks to turn it on, but less than 24 hours to shut it off? When I tried to complain to the company. They told me I could write a letter of complaint. They were willing to turn it back on for me, but it would take a few days! And what's the point anyway, they'd probably forget and shut if off again the next day, or send me a bill next month because it was never shut off at all. I will never use Qwest at all. I suggest that anyone considering it go with anything else. The service isn't worth the price and the customer service is useless.

I have been a loyal customer of Qwest for over 20 years - but no more! For the last eighteen months Qwest has screwed up my bill over and over again! I tried to bundle, but after six months of asking them to do it over and over I gave up on that. Then I tried to do price for life on DSL from August of 07 to January of 08, no dice. Fine, whatever... Every month they screw up my bill, overbill me time and again.

Finally this month I have had enough. I cancel my home phone because I got a smoking deal on VOIP, they tell me it will be shut off on the 20th. 20th comes, I go back to Qwest to make sure it is done after so many disappointments and lack of follow through by Qwest and guess what??? They claim that I told them not to shut it off!!! What the heck? I have to report them to the PUC to keep from having to pay additional days. That spurned me to find a different internet provider.

Well, Qwest has a monopoly in the small town I live in so I end up going with Cable One. Call to have my DSL disconnect because I am so done with Qwest and mad as HELL at them, and I get told they won't turn it off and that supposedly now I have price for life! Uh, no, you guys never followed through on that and I am not paying for it! Second complaint to the PUC in a week, and suddenly Qwest decides to comply.

To anyone considering getting Qwest do not do it! They are an absolutely horrible company to deal with. They have zero customer service!!! I will never have Qwest again, and now my mission in life is to change all my friends over to Cable One and dump Qwest! They suck! I hope they realize that I will tell everyone about their HORRIBLE service, and the incredibly disgusting way they treat customers!