Qwest: Worst company ever?
Our move to Seattle actually went surprisingly smoothly. One pain point, unfortunately, was our internet connection. In Utah, we had a high-speed symmetrical fiber connection, courtesy of the iProvo and Utopia projects - some of the best municipal broadband in the country (note: Qwest lobbied strongly against these programs). When we moved into our apartment here in Renton, we hoped to get a similar fiber connection. Verizon's FiOS isn't available in our area, though, so we were stuck with Comcast: twice the price of our old connection, at half the speed (and less than that, upstream).
So, when some Qwest representatives stopped by our door one night with an offer for one of their new fiber connections, at a lower price than Comcast, we thought, despite all we'd heard, we'd give it a try.
What a mistake! We were promised our modem would arrive within the week. When it didn't, I called customer service (ugh!) to find out why not. After I waded through the (poorly implemented) phone tree, they apologized that the modem hadn't been shipped, and promised to overnight a modem to us right away. A week later, the modem still had not arrived. Per my two-strikes-you're-out policy, I called customer service (ugh! ugh!) to tell them to cancel our account. I was pleasantly surprised that the rep from the "loyalty department" was so polite; he told me our account (and bill) would be canceled, that he had taken care of everything.
Two months later, we started getting past due notices. I called (ugh! ugh! ugh!) just before Thanksgiving, trying to find out why our account hadn't been canceled. There was some nonsense about supposedly shipping us two modems. I was on the phone for more than an hour and a half - long enough that the battery on my phone ran out. I was told that I could call back later and talk to the loyalty department to finish straightening out my bill.
Thanksgiving, with its attendant craziness came and went, as well our move across the apartment complex. I called Qwest (ugh! ugh! ugh! ugh!) to make sure our "past due" balance was taken care of. Our account had still not been canceled, the reps claimed not to have any record of my first two calls, and it was (very patiently) explained to me that because my account had been suspended, I could not cancel it (or prevent a collections department from coming after me) until I had paid them off.
To sum up: today, I paid Qwest $150 in return for the following three things:
- The modem they never sent me
- The internet service they never provided
- The privilege of canceling my account with them.
If I had the tiniest bit of confidence that it'd cost me less in the end than it has already I'd sue the pants off them. My advice to anyone choosing a telecom provider is DON'T SIGN UP FOR QWEST - that way you'll get no modem, no internet service, and no Qwest account for free.
Tags: qwest sucks rant isp