Qwest Consumer Reviews - Page 3

BOISE, IDAHO -- My dilemma began when I added a home phone to my existing DSL and wireless (3 Phones) account. The new phone number that was issued to me was previously a commercial phone number that was still listed in the current phone directory. After receiving numerous wrong number calls and automated sales calls directed at the business, I called customer service to disconnect my home phone. The customer service agent talked me into keeping my home line and changing my number. He told me that I would not be charged for the new number.

The change occurred on 3/6/08. On this day I had used 271 minutes of my 500 minute plan and I still had 6 days remaining for the month. Please keep in mind that with Qwest all of your services a paid a month in advance. On this particular month, my monthly wireless account period ran from 2/12/08 - 3/12/08. On the day the phone number was changed, Qwest cutoff my billing period and sent me a bill for a full month of service. Again, I was prepaid a full month in advance and I still had 6 days of service available to me.

When I called Qwest on 3/6/07 to check my minutes, I found that they not only shorted me 6 days from my current monthly service, they also carried over the 271 minutes into the new billing period that now began 3/6/08 instead of 3/13/08. I received a bill in the mail for $175.00 for the services from 2/12/08 - 3/12/08 which I paid in full on 3/5/308. I called Qwest regarding the carry over of the 271 minutes and was assured by the Customer Service agent that the minutes would be credited to my account. And also that my next month's bill would show a credit for the 6 days that I was short.

The minutes were not credited. Consequently, I not only overpaid for 6 days of service that was taken from me, I went into the next month of wireless usage with 271 minutes, leaving my family, 3 phones with 2 teenagers, only 229 minutes of use for a month of service. To add insult to injury, I received a bill from Qwest for $300.00!!! My normal bill would have been approximately $135.00.

I spent hours on the phone trying to explain my dilemma. Unfortunately, I had to deal with a VERY, ARROGANT AND RUDE WIRELESS SUPERVISOR, named Kim in the Boise office who wouldn't even consider for a moment that there could be an error with my bill. Does it take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that there may be an error on my bill when my wireless bill increased by $100.00 for 24 days of service, instead of 30 days of service, all because I changed my home phone number?!?!?! Also, my DSL service went from $27.00 per month to $64.00 per month because I changed my home phone number?

The explanation that I received was that my bill was for services from 2/10/08 - 4/25/08. I tried to explain that I was paid in full from 2/10/08 - 3/12/08 ($175.00) when the number was changed. The last bill I received was for services from 2/12/08 - 3/12/08. Now Qwest is going back to my January bill and charging me for 2 days on that bill that was paid in full (1/12/08 - 2/11/08)??? Qwest claims that I was credited for the month previous. I added up the credits on my bill and came up with $12.00.

Kim in the wireless department has the final say and she says the bill is correct. She would rather be right than open her mind to the possibility of a mistake. She cannot see the obvious: The wireless department failed to close out the monthly charges and minutes from the previous month. My previous months wireless charges were $100.00 the exact amount my wireless account is being overcharged. My minutes for the new month began with the 271 minutes that were carried over from the previous month.

Because I am under contract for two of my phones I can't discontinue my service. I have been slammed for over $200.00 in charges by Qwest and I can't do anything about it because of my wireless contracts!!! The reason this all happened is because Qwest issued me a commercial phone number that was listed in the current telephone directory when I signed for home phone service with Qwest. That free change in phone number cost me $200.00!!! Two months of service that would have cost me $270.00 is now going to cost me $475.00. This is a lot of money for a single mom who is currently unemployed.

You go Kim, the supervisor in the Wireless Department. You must feel like you're on top of the world because you SAY are right and I am wrong. It's your STORY. You can tell it any way you want since I can't do anything about it because I am under a wireless contract with Qwest. **. I hate Qwest!

PORTLAND, OREGON -- My name is ** and I was a reliable Qwest customer for two years in Portland, OR. I had a bundle package of phone, internet and DirecTV services. I was happy with my service while a customer. My frustrations with your company have come since I tried to cancel my service after moving to CA (where you do not provide service). I moved to CA in September 2007, and now in January 2008 I am still dealing with Qwest trying to resolve an issue that I have spent countless hours on the phone dealing with.

The story begins on September 17th, 2007 when I called to cancel my Qwest services. I had already moved to CA and no longer needed phone or Internet at my old address. I had already transferred my DirecTV service to CA through DirecTV and no longer needed Qwest to act as the billing “middleman”. I thought canceling my services would be sufficient. A month later, I received a final bill that included prorated phone/internet charges and another month of DirecTV. I paid it. The next month, I received another bill with only DirecTV charges. I was confused.

I called and was told that DirecTV would continue to be billed though Qwest unless I told Qwest to stop billing me. I was surprised that my previous request to “cancel all services with Qwest” did not include DirecTV, but advised the CSR that I wanted to cancel my relationship with Qwest and just be billed by DirecTV. I was told this would be taken care of.

The next month I received another bill from Qwest for DirecTV with a new customer account number. I called and asked why I was still being billed through Qwest. They said there was no record of my asking for it to be canceled. I explained that I didn't want to cancel DirecTV, just my account with Qwest (since I no longer had any Qwest services). I wanted to pay my bill directly to DirecTV. I was told that I had to call DirectTV and tell them that I wanted to cancel my relationship with Qwest.

Together, the Qwest CSR and I called DirecTV on a three-way line. DirectTV explained that Qwest had to “let me go” as a customer, and then DirecTV could bill me directly. They had already issued me my own DirecTV account number. Qwest said that they would make this happen.

The next month, I received ANOTHER bill from Qwest for DirecTV. I called again and explained the situation to yet another CSR. His name was ** (ID **). It was now December 19th, 2007. I had been dealing with this problem for 3 months! ** again called DirecTV with me on the line, got the same answer, spoke with a supervisor, and then advised me that he had put through an “opt out” for me and my relationship with Qwest would be ended. I had to pay off the existing balance, which I did immediately with a credit card, about 7 days before the bill was even due...just to get Qwest to go away.

It is now January 24, 2008 and I have received yet ANOTHER bill from Qwest. I am more than furious, frustrated and annoyed. I am ready to call the BBB and begin defaming Qwest to anyone who will listen. Today I called customer service and again got ** (ID **) on the line. He looked at his notes, saw that he “opted me out” last month, and promptly put me on hold. I waited about 10 minutes as he ran up to the next floor (so he says) to talk to a supervisor.

I was then told that I am “opted out” but it takes 3 billing cycles to end the relationship and I am to expect an additional 2 bills from Qwest. That means I have to deal with your company for 3 months after I have tried to end the relationship. I explained that this sounded absurd. What company makes you pay three bills with them after you end your service/relationship?

** explained that the three-month wait period is a company-wide protocol. I asked ** for some kind of proof of this…a letter or something in writing that states I am “opted out” and have to wait three months to be released from my bill enslavement. He replied that he has no way of doing this. I told him that I have no faith that what he says is accurate. At this point, can you blame me? I have been told since October that this problem has been solved, and yet here I am on the phone for the 5th time and about the 4th hour of my time.

While on hold, Qwest's recording stated repeatedly “thank you for holding…we know your time is valuable”. At my current wages, Qwest owes me about $200! At this point, I would like some kind of monetary compensation. I feel totally violated by Qwest, like I have been held hostage for months. I have wasted many hours on the phone with CSRs with no resolution. No one seemed to know how to handle the situation, and the one time I tried to involve a supervisor, I waited a while, then acquiesced to offers of resolution from the regular CSR. Failure reigns supreme!

So to-date, I really have no solution to this problem. I have been promised that one will arrive in two months, but again, I am not hopeful. I have no faith in Qwest's customer service at this point, but still wanted to tell my story as feedback so that no one else will have to endure the frustrating journey of unbundling services. I do not think I will ever voluntarily engage Qwest again in a business relationship.

I believe that Qwest should change its policies about unbundling. It must also educate its CSRs about how customers can cancel Qwest services, but keep DirecTV (as I am sure it happens often with people moving all over the country). No one seemed to understand (until **…who was, by the way, polite, professional, calm and as helpful as he could be…used the words “opt out”).

I hope this experience never happens to anyone else. I am frustrated enough to write a letter, which means a lot in this age of instant communication. I hope my feedback is taken seriously and leads to change. And $200 wouldn't hurt either.

VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON -- Please read this letter and know that it is a cry for your company to reorganize its billing practices and promises to the public, (your profit). Customers detest being lied to and treated as though we are uninformed. I have been a client of Qwest for the last eight years. It is incredibly difficult for me to provide you with any piece of positive feedback.

It cannot be easy to read a letter that reeks with negativity, but that is what I am experiencing from your company. A lack of quality, broken promises and reliability...and now you want to start offering cable as well. I sincerely recommend that you first put your house in good working order. It would make far more sense to make profit with respect from your users than to make profit and have them feel as though they were used.

In July this year I made what was to be a simple move from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington, just across the river. Same services, no change in what I currently had. A seamless transition. OK…with from for error, I would say a maximum of three phone calls for clarification would be sufficient.

We (Qwest and I) are now going into the fourth month since my move. Collectively I have spent more than twenty five hours on the phone and made over fifty calls to Qwest to resolve the trouble and incredible inconvenience you have caused me. Each call ends with...”you should have no further problems”. It is hard to abbreviate the nightmare I have been through, but I will try. Imagine if I were including everything verbatim.

Having not received a bill for a while after my move, I called Qwest and was told to wait for a revised final bill. In this call there was discussion of several inaccuracies going toward my final bill as well as a review of bundling and services at my new address. Each service and charge was gone over in detail and the fees for my new address were itemized. A few days passed and I received a bill for my new phone number for sixty five dollars. I knew this could not be accurate, so I called customer service and found that there was no record of the previous phone call and the services to be bundled at my new address. Keep in mind.

Nothing was changing from the services I had at the old address. My wireless was missing. DirecTV was missing, broadband was missing. I was told that the charges would catch up and to wait and also, keep waiting for that revised final bill on the old number. Each call, the customer service representative would note an inaccuracy on that final bill and change it.

Great! Here we are on page two. There is no way to keep this to a one page business letter. It's like a mini-series with at least two episodes a week. The next item to arrive in the mail was a disconnect notice on my new number. I called and spoke to the representative and said I wanted to make sure that the billing issues were straightened out before I paid it, but also did not want to lose service, so would pay it in hopes that the monies would be distributed appropriately when all the billing caught up with itself.

He then told me that there were no other services attached to this bill and that he would be happy to set them up for me. Having gone through this horrible experience with Qwest on a move just over a year earlier, I had gotten the email from the person who set up my new service and he told me to contact him if anything went wrong, so I declined going over yet another new order with this representative and told him I would contact the original guy.

I sent several emails. No response. Then I got response saying he would check my order between other customer service calls. No response for a couple days. I emailed again. I got an email stating that he had a disabled family member that took a lot of his time and he couldn't pay attention to this problem like it should be handled.

I received a letter from Qwest Collections telling me that my credit status was in danger with Qwest. I'm thinking, how can this be, I don't even have a final bill. So I called Qwest again. I was then told that the final bill was in progress and that my cell phone phone was not bundled. I then found out that it had been separated from my main bill, had a balance on it and was still being billed to the old address. They were going to disconnect service if it was not paid, even though I had no bill.

The amount was ridiculous and somehow the charges were messed up from having been separated from the main account. At any rate, my services and rates were once again reviewed and once again I was assured that a revised final bill was being sent. The representative transferred me to the collection department where the agent told me that this was normal and that it is a form letter that is sent to every customer that is sent a final bill. I asked how I could be sent to collections when I didn't even have a final bill. He told me that it sounded like I needed to talk to Billing and that he needed to transfer me back to them, but they were closed.

OK…we are now about halfway through the story of my experience thus far and every time I call Qwest your “hold” voice says to me; “Your call is important to us.” “We want to hear from you.” “We know your time is valuable.” Do you think I believe any of this at this point?

A couple days later, I get a collection notice from an outside collection agency on my old Qwest phone number of which I still have not received a final bill. To say I was livid, would put it mildly. This was becoming common on nearly every day I would arrive home from work to race to contact Qwest before closing. Now I was calling from work and Qwest was eating up my time there. Promise after promise, only to have the nightmare continue.

I called the collection agency and was treated rudely by the lady who was helping me. When I told her that I was asked to wait for a final bill, she said she was going to find that representative and “slap them up the side the head.” Then she instructed me to pay up because this is what I owed. I was outraged at the treatment she was giving me. Almost criminal. This is the one time in all the calls I have been on with Qwest, that I lost it and told her she was the straw that broke the camels back and began to recapitulate all that had happened thus far.

She said I was angry and she was turning the call over to a manager who just said, “I'm sorry.” “How would you like to pay for this?” “Do you want to make a payment arrangement?” No! I didn't want to make a payment arrangement. I wanted to pay for it all right there and have the problem go away and never deal with Qwest again. I paid it and told the representative that I was certain my problems were still not over. He assured me that everything was fine now. Two days later I got the final bill on the old phone number.

In a few days I called to make payment on the old wireless bill and found that my wireless was still being billed separately. When I asked to have it put on the same bill as my home phone, the representative informed me I would have to change my cell phone number to a Washington number. I agreed to this and was transferred to a representative in Utah who spent over an hour on the phone with me and was unsuccessful at completing the order.

I then agreed to have him call me back on my day off to complete the process. The wireless was associated successfully and a review was once again done on all five services that I have to qualify for the bundling discount rate.

I still had not gotten a bill with all of my services on the same bill when a disconnect notice arrived with an account number on it. Not a phone number, but an account number that made no sense. It was the DirecTV portion of my bill that was not associated with any phone number. This was my first bill regarding it, and it was a disconnect notice from Qwest. Can you possibly begin to imagine what I felt like and how frustrated I am at this point?

Out of sheer desperation I went to my manager's office at work and asked to close the door to her office and call Qwest, eating up more of my company time. I called and was in touch with a representative in the “Loyalty” department who began to sort through everything. She found that I was still being billed a monthly charge for long distance to my old phone number. She found that DirecTV's billing was not associated with my new phone number and being billed correctly.

I told her that at this point I was feeling that I needed to be compensated for my many hours on the phone with Qwest and these continuous problems. Or as Qwest states, “We know your time is valuable.” She said she would work through this problem, correct it and talk to me about an appropriate compensation for my trouble. I was given her email to provide her with some additional facts from one of my bills at home and a phone number to leave a message with her coach.

Three emails later and three calls to her coaches voice mail over the course of a week; no one either called me or responded to my emails. I was not surprised. I called again. This time I got a rather complacent individual who knew nothing of what I had been through. She said she knew how to reach the party I had been emailing and sent her a text message. Pause…then she says, obviously reading her response, “don't give me attitude girl!” She tells me that the representative has turned my problem over to “Complex Billing”, another department and that they would be calling me in a couple of days.

Now doesn't it make sense that she would have needed to relay that information to me…the customer? During this phone call, I got an email from the representative in “Loyalty” telling me it should be taken care of. I told the girl that I was speaking with that this is not acceptable and that I would like a phone number or an email address for someone with authority in Customer Service or Quality Control. She says, “Oh, I'm Retention.”

I tried to explain what I was going through and told her that I had been told that I would be compensated. She said, “Like a personal check?” I told her no...I certainly didn't expect that. I knew that would be impossible. But I said, “Something…like your best wireless phone at no charge.” She asked if she could place me on a “brief” hold. I accepted.

Ten minutes later, I was still on hold. I wondered if she was just sick of the call and wasn't coming back. She finally told me that she had gotten her manager and was explaining the problem to her. Her manager finally comes on the phone and tells me that this has been turned over to “Complex Billing” and that she is sure that I will hear from them within forty eight hours and that that is all she has to offer.

That is where it stands today and I have yet to be contacted by Qwest Complex Billing. At this point, hearing the word “Qwest” just makes me cringe. No compensation can erase this from my mind, albeit God knows I have been put through enough to qualify for free services for life. Ha! But come on…show some loyalty to your paying and so very patient customer. Do something! Straighten this mess out and reward me to prove that “I am important to you.” “My time is valuable.”

Upon going to my mailbox today, I have yet another disconnect notice and charges for supposedly breaking my wireless contract with Qwest. I have the same cell phone with the same lame company, Qwest. Go figure. It's not over.

I am writing this email in response to a series of events that began as a billing issue and has now evolved to include the quality of your customer service representatives as well. Allow me to explain the situation. At the beginning of May, I contacted a Qwest representative in Iowa City to set up an account that would be scheduled to begin May 21, 2007.

Within a few days of account initiation, I decided to cancel the service; as a graduate student relying solely on student loans, it was simply an added expense I could do without, especially when I knew I would be on campus 8 hours or more per day where there was access to computers and free internet service. Therefore, on May 25, 2007 I contacted customer service at 1-800-244-1111 to disconnect my service. I was told by whoever handled the call at the time that this would be taken care of, and that I could expect to receive a prorated bill within a few weeks.

In June I received a bill in the amount of $48.09, which I assumed had been processed and mailed around the time. I had called to disconnect my service and therefore had not taken into account that I had already terminated the service. I had been told that this could very well happen, so I did not contact Qwest, expecting that I would be receiving the correct and prorated bill at any time now.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when in July I received a bill in the amount of $85.08. The bill was dated July 1, 2007. Given the fact that I was extremely busy with my program and in class every weekday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., I did not contact Qwest until July 10, at which point I was told that even though I was calling during the appropriate business hours, the Loyalty Department was temporarily unavailable that afternoon. The reasons for this I cannot recall, but I am sure that this information is accessible by you or by someone who works for your company.

I then called again on Saturday, July 14 not knowing the Loyalty Department was not in operation over the weekend. On July 23, I finally reached a customer service representative in the Loyalty Department who was exceedingly polite, friendly, and helpful. As I explained the situation, I was informed that there had been no previous record to show I had canceled my internet service on May 25.

I was completely surprised and baffled by this, yet this young man assured me that the problem would be taken care of immediately. He said my account would be credited in the amount of $96.55, and that I could expect to receive a statement showing that I no longer had an outstanding balance with Qwest within 7-10 business days.

Once again, you can imagine my surprise when I received yet another bill the first week of August, this time in the amount of $76.48. I thought maybe the credit that was to have been issued July 23 had been applied after this bill had been processed, so I waited it out. I then received another bill for the same amount the first week of September, this time with the threat of a collection agency referral notification. At this point my frustration had understandably grown, but I firmly believed that a final call to the Loyalty Department would resolve the issue.

I called today at 4:45 p.m. and spent 45 minutes on the phone, most of which were spent speaking to a woman named ____. By the time I got off of the phone with ____, my blood was boiling. While I do not wish for ____'s position with Qwest to be compromised, I think that for future reference she needs to know that a lot of the stress and frustration I experienced as I spoke with her could have been prevented had she simply said from the get-go that she did not have the authority to drop the charges on my account.

From there she could have informed me that she would submit my case (rather than use “escalate”, which clearly has a negative connotation) to management for further review. Though this only would prolong the issue, I would've been perfectly content with this response, and I would have completely respected her position.

Instead, I felt like _____ and I were arguing a case of my word against her records, which made me feel as though she was questioning my integrity and honesty, an enormous insult. Yes, $76.48 is a lot of money to me now that I am in grad school and on a very strict budget. Even still, it is certainly not a sum of money I would ever jeopardize my character over; I would not be disputing these charges if I did not believe that I am not responsible for them. With that said, I am asking for the last time that you please credit or eliminate the charges unrightfully issued to my account.

I have no idea why there is no record in your system of my cancellation, or even of my phone call on May 25, but I can tell you that I absolutely did call, and the most proof I can offer you is a copy of my cell phone bill from May which shows that I did indeed call Qwest customer service on May 25, 2007. Thank you for your time, and I anticipate hearing back from you. I can be reached by email at _____, or by phone at _____.

Just want to include an update: As of today, September 20, 2007 I have yet to hear from a Qwest manager. After my call on September 7, I was told my case would be given to management, and that I would hear from them within 2 business days. Additionally, I ended up mailing this letter to Qwest headquarters in Denver, CO and have not heard from them either. The worst part is that today I received a letter from a collection agency. If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should do, I'm willing to listen! This is insane!

FORT COLLINS, COLORADO -- Here's my horror story with Qwest. We have used them for 5 years. Our first cellphone here was with them. This was our business line. Good phone, great service. We renewed for another contract. After about a year, we began having problems. The phone would ring and could not be answered, sent to voicemail. Nothing. We had to take the battery out to stop it. Fine, pain in the rear, but it's only periodic so we'll deal with it. I called Qwest and let them know it was a problem so they could see if it was on their end. I was told we'd have to buy a new phone. Pain, but we can deal with an incoming call that will not answer.

It was only calls from one particular number and not all the time. We had used our cell for LD service as they wanted a large deposit. Qwest billed us for 2 years for NOT having the service. When I asked about it, I was told that FCC regulations. Wrong. I called the FCC and it is not them. It is a charge by Qwest. Anyway, a few months later we began having problems receiving VM... as long as we got the message within 24 hours, it was really okay. Then the lag time became longer and longer. It went to 3 days, 4, 5... a week or more. We continued to call Qwest on this. Now, this sort of thing cannot be a phone problem.

We had taken the phone down and had it checked, the software updated, etc. Each time I called, I asked if there were notes in our record about the problem and was told yes, and they would read them to me. The final straw came when we did not receive a VM for over month. That month cost us $10,000.00. We were waiting results of a contract bid. Grounds were that they would notify us who received the contract. They would not be taking calls from vendors regarding the contract.

We won the bid, and they called to notify us. It went to voicemail, and a message was left, and we were given 48 hours to call back and confirm receipt, start date, and other details (it was during the workweek). If we did not call back in the allotted time, the contract went to the next bidder. We got the message a month later, so you can guess what happened. Besides the money, it might have given them a bad taste that we did not return phone calls. We did call and explain what happened, acknowledged that the bid had gone to someone else, etc. Hopefully they will call us again for a bid. In the meantime, we were out $10K.

My husband and I both called Qwest to complain again... more than once. The customer service was so hostile that we told them that as Qwest had broken their end of the contract, we did not feel obligated to uphold our end and we went with another wireless company. EVEN after all this ordeal, I still contracted with them for our internet. My next bill came with a $200 deactivation fee. I called them and told them that as they had broken the contract first by failing to provide service, I was under no legal obligation to uphold my end of it. I would not be paying the $200. Ever. Customer service got snotty and I asked for a supervisor.

I talked to several levels of super with no results. As we had 'broken' the contract, then Qwest COULD not waive the fee. I explained the situation and told her that it was not a matter of Qwest COULD not waive it, it was a matter that they WOULD not waive it. I talked to 2 managers in the executive offices and interestingly enough, there is no record of any complaints, other than the continuous ring.

I told them that did not surprise me at all. What was fascinating was that all the reps that I had talked to from Jan through May told me that they were looking at the record of complaints. Hmm... I asked him if that meant that the previous reps were lying to me when they told me they saw the complaints? My best guess (which is pretty accurate) is that the complaints were deleted from the system. My phone bills kept coming with the $200 wireless fee on it and I continued to refuse to pay. So when we were 2 days late paying the bill, they cut everything off.

It will not be turned back on until I pay the full amount of the bill (which is proper as I used it) AND the wireless fee. So we now have Comcast for our internet. We're getting another cell next week for our house. I'm not playing their game. I have reported them to the state. Will be reporting them to the FCC and to anyone else that I can figure out. And a letter to the credit bureau explaining to them why we refuse to pay this bill. It might be a blotch, but until I get results... I am also sending a letter this week to the president of Qwest and to each of the board members.

BONITA SPRINGS, FLORIDA -- Insufficient staffing resulting wait times of over two hours.

COLORADO -- I just added on a new feature to my phone service. It's called Star 78, and it blocks unwanted calls. Lately, we have been getting calls early in the morning and late at night, from those annoying 1-800,888 and 866 numbers. I called Qwest, and asked if there was a way to block unwanted calls, and they told me about this feature. I liked how it sounded, so I agreed to it. Now with my DSL service, phone service and long distance, my monthly bill will be even less!

Now I just Star 78, get a menu, and it gives me the option to enter phone numbers I want to block. It even allows for cell phone numbers to be blocked. One number that has become quite a nuisance is 603-214-3593, which is something called Focus Group. I looked it up, and its some marketing firm. They are now blocked. I can also now see all the calls that are coming in, similar to caller ID, and back track to what numbers have called. You can also edit to remove blocked numbers, if you choose. Pretty cool features. Great job Qwest, for having this block feature!

COLORADO -- My wife and I are senior citizens, South of Calhan, Colorado. We've been on this ROTTEN rural dial-up (runs at 28K) for years. We can't afford to pay the typical $40/$50 a month thing for high speed. I'd think I'd gone to heaven if I could get 115K as a dial up thing. I'd be willing to pay $25 a month for that, so I'm not trying to get something for nothing. They don't care... their Qwest is for money. Right, Mueller?

DENVER, COLORADO, COLORADO -- I have had Qwest Communication for 37 years. In October, I received a really good offer for both phone & TV from Comcast. I changed on 11-5-09. Comcast told me not to tell Qwest about changing until it is done, because they get really mad when you leave. I notified Qwest on that day, and the woman said that because I had just paid for November, and since I pay for the month ahead, I would receive a check for November back in the mail. I did get a check back from DirecTV for their half of the bill paid ahead, but from Qwest Communications, I received a bill for another $112...I was flabbergasted.

I wrote Edward A. Mueller, Chairman & CEO of Qwest and he had a really "nifty" woman call me and she just kept saying, "Well, you really do owe us money". And I just kept saying "No, I really don't, you owe me". So I went to my bank, got copies of all the past 6 months checks, corresponding with the last 6 months bills, all of which clearly state that the Flat Fee Bill is paying ahead. My services included unlimited local and long distance service plus 2 other services. I had no other charges on any of these bills. There is tax for the service, but that is all.

After hours and hours of searching for all these records, and putting it all in order and writing a lengthy letter to Edward A. Mueller, and adding all the copies from the bank and from me, I get a letter from a guy in Cody, Wyoming stating that he had reviewed my file and that to the best he could ascertain I was not paying ahead for everything and I still owed $47...

Obviously, he couldn't grasp the concept that I paid ahead every month for a long time. So, now I am really angry. I am sending everything to the AG office, however they have never been of any help to anyone that I know of, and I want to know if there is a class-action lawsuit for me, too? I will give up the phone all-together before I will ever use Qwest again. It is hard to believe that they choose to harass senior citizens like this. Their statements state quite clearly that I pay for the month ahead.

They have now sent me to a collection agency. I have sent them a bill for my time, and they have not paid me for either the bill for my time nor the November re-payment. Maybe if we all band together, we can put them out of business. I have found several other great phone companies that do not do this bilking of senior citizens. I do work for a law firm, so I already have legal help.