Phone bill fiasco...

Before we moved to Texas, we decided to alter a few things at our Utah house - mainly bills. Ken and I reevaluated some of our expenses and decided that we would change our Utah home phone and internet to another company that could save us more. 

We called Century Link Qwest and got a quote from them. The guy we worked with got us a good promotional price on the land line and wireless internet. As soon as we 'finalized' everything with him and hung up, I realized there was a problem and called back. Of course, any time you call into a call center you never get the same person as before.

I spoke with a woman this time and explained to her that I had just gotten off the phone with another representative and he had set up our new plan. She got into their system and looked at things and told me that he had set everything up wrong. She seemed like she knew what she was talking about so I spent the next 30 minutes on the phone with her redoing our previous plan into a new, correct one. 

Ken and I had told her that our current phone company was charging us $73.00 and change for unlimited long distance, caller ID, voicemail and high speed internet. Since we were leaving the house, we wanted to get a basic phone plan - no long distance, no caller ID, and no voicemail. Bottom of the barrel phone plan along with wireless internet.

Lucky for us, there was a great promotion.

She crunched the numbers and put everything together and got us to about $45.00/month including taxes. We gave her the green light, disconnected our previous service and all seemed well.

Right off the top we had to pay a $240.00 fee which covered a new modem, installation fee, and the first months phone service. I wasn't too thrilled about having to buy their modem but in the long run it was going to be saving us half on our monthly phone bill. She signed us up for auto pay and that was that... until this week.

I got an email from Century Link letting me know that my bill was overdue. Ummmm... auto pay? I got online to look at my statement and the amount due was $139.27. This was AFTER I had paid the $240.00. This made no sense to me at all! We had had phone service through them for exactly two months and three days. How on earth was is that much?

I looked through the bill and there was an outstanding $51.95 charge for the remaining first month AND a late penalty fee. Remaining? I had already paid $240.00. There was also an $81.98 charge for the next month. WHAT?? So when I did the math, we were paying $379.42 for 2 months of service on a phone that has NO EXTRA FEATURES??

I made a phone call.

Well, I actually made two.

The first call into Century Link was a disaster. No matter what information I gave the representative (account number, phone address, billing address, etc.) she couldn't find us in the system. Ummm...

I hung up and called the other phone number on the bill and spoke with someone else. She had no problem finding our information. I warned her right off the top that I was pretty upset and needed my bill clarified and straightened out. First thing first, I told her that there was NO WAY I was going to pay any late fee when my account was on auto pay. She told me my account wasn't on auto pay but that they lady who set it up only did it as a one time payment. I reiterated that I WASN'T going to pay a late fee. She happily took it off. 

She went through my bill with me and brought a few things to my attention.

1. The $240.00 initial fee was for the modem and installation only.

2. We owed $51.95 for our first month, which was now overdue.

3. The remaining balance was $81.98 for the month of September.

4. The lady that set up our 'new money saving plan' made promises that weren't happening.

Remember how it wasn't going to be about $45.00/month including taxes? Nope. All wrong. No one was sure why the original representative quoted me that price. The lowest price it could be with taxes was $81.98.

No deal.

I kindly told the helpful girl that I would like to cancel my service because I left my former telephone company for Century Link to save money, when now I was actually paying almost $10.00 more per month.

She connected me to a manager.

He and I went through the same conversation that I just had with the other representative. Surprisingly, I kept my cool but was very clear that I was unhappy and wanted to discontinue service. I also told him that I had spent $380.00 for set up and two months of service on a phone with nothing more than a dial tone and internet that no one was using. He offered me a "vacation rate" which would be half of the monthly amount - about $45.00 a month with no service going into the house.

No deal.

He connected me to the company's "Loyalty Department". I spoke with Nick.

Nick and I got to go through the entire song and dance again with me explaining what had happened and that I wanted to disconnect my service with them. Of course Nick apologized and said he could see if he could get me a better deal. He offered lowering it all to $60.00/month with taxes but I just told him to go ahead and disconnect. I was done.

Nick upped the ante. His new offer?

$5.50 charge for next month.

$16.00 for the month after.

$27.97 (including all taxes) for 4 months after that.

$35.97 (including all taxes) for 8 months after that.

Deal.

I made sure to write down his name and a confirmation number - just in case I get to go through all of this again next month.

I paid the outstanding $139.27 today so everything is back at zero. We'll see how the next bill looks. I was on the phone a total of about an hour. If the new "we want to keep you as a customer" rate stands, it was worth it.

The moral of this story? The squeaky wheel gets the grease and it's much easier to deal with a cell phone. I'll let you know what next month's bill is.