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I wouldnt wish Qwest Service on my worst enemy...
by koreanwonder - 1/24/08 4:53 PM
So I figured I would write about my experience as a Qwest customer. According to their phones, they have been voted one of the best in the west for customer service by J.D. Power and Associates. Now that is one of the biggest jokes I've heard in a long time...I wonder how much Qwest paid them to say that? Or if it is even true. Qwest has the worst customer service of any company I've dealt with in a long time, let me tell you why:
Their employees act nice enough, but ask them to actually do something and you will find out in a hurry that they will do absolutely nothing to help you in any way. And if they actually say they will, you will most likely find out the next time you call that no such thing happened. When I first signed up with Qwest about 6 years ago, I spent 3 months fighting with them just to have basic phone service. I always was told, "but you can have features like caller ID, voice mail, call waiting, etc..." and even though I told them I was not interested in such things, when I received my bill, there was the charges for them.
Now as for internet service. I signed up for DSL back when the fastest was still only 512k and I was paying about $55 / month. The internet service was nothing great but it was just as good as anyone else (not like there were a lot of choices for providers here in Port Angeles WA). So anyway here I was with DSL for a few years no real problems. But then I find out that my friend (Ray Pulsipher) was paying about the same to Qwest for his DSL and getting 1.5M for the same price as I was paying for my 512k. I called Qwest and asked them why they didn't up my speed or at least charge me the right price for the speed I was getting. They responded with... "this is the service you signed up for originally", so I didn't get any credits, discounts or any form of special compensation for pointing out that they had been over charging me for who knows how long.
Now even after that glimpse of Qwest not caring about keeping their customers happy, I figured other companies are probably not any better and so I stayed a Qwest customer. Now it appears I should have switched then, because about six months ago I was late paying my bill and Qwest shut off my DSL (Now I know I'm not very good with paying the bill on time, but I would have to say this is the first ever that my service was shut off) I was only about a month pass due. I was never contacted by phone or mail about an interrupt in service. So I called them and knowing I was in the wrong, I politely asked them to not turn off my service again without contacting me first (I use the internet to for work and so no internet means no $$). I made sure to express how I need my internet to make money and they seemed to understand and said they would make a note in my account to be sure to call first.
Well sure enough I was late again about 4 months later (doh!). Now I am reasonable and so when they shut off my internet again I would have been upset but would have just paid them and had it turned on again. But what happened made me very angry... I called Qwest asking about my DSL and they responded that they were having technical issues and would have it fixed as soon as possible. So I waited until it was closer to the end of the day and called again about my DSL, and was told that they were still having issues, and so there goes one day without work. (Next Day) I checked first thing the next morning... still no internet. So I called Qwest again, about an hour passes and I get informed that they are still having issues (Once again, a day without working). Now it's the 3rd day in a row, I wake up and check for internet and internet is still not working. I called Qwest and was like umm? Why is my internet still down? So they looked and said "well we disconnected it because you were late paying". So here I was out 3 days of work because they couldn't figure out that they turned it off?
Well that surely was the last straw for me and I cancelled my service with Qwest and moved both my phone and internet over to Wave Cable, hoping that a smaller company will actually care about taking good care of their customers.
Now for my bill with Qwest I called them explaining that I don't feel like I should be charged for a service that was so horrible (as a customer I pay not just for internet but for customer service, tech support and over all satisfaction of service). And after talking to two employees and a manager, explaining to each of them that because I wasn't told about being disconnected I lost 3 days of work amounting in financial loss well over the amount of my bill. Not only did they respond with a sorry about your luck attitude they explained to me that since I had internet that I had to pay for it. Don't they know that there are lots of companies that provide internet and that what we also pay for is "Service"? Well once again Qwest screwed up and refuse to make any compensation for their error.
My hope in posting my experience is that it saves some people from the grief I experienced as a Qwest customer. I also hope that if enough people see this that Qwest will realize that some changes need to happen if they plan on being a successful business.
- 1/26/08 4:31 AM 
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