Century Link

[Gnomes]

Does anyone in West Seattle have Century Link? We just had a rep. show up at our door tonight. He basiclly talked us into their internet services, at a much cheaper rate than Verizon. But, he was a sly kind of guy, not sure if I trusted him. Did some research online and they had bad reports on consumer affairs. Also chatted with 2 customer service reps online from Century Link’s website and it was super fishy! See the conversations below, which just happened moments apart right after the sales rep left. Can anyone one confirm that this company is not a rip-off?

Thank you for using CenturyLink.com. A CenturyLink Sales and Service Consultant will be with you in just a moment. Your account information is confidential and protected by law. Advise our agent if you prefer that we don’t use it to market products or repair your services. This has no effect on the service we provide you.

Thank you for contacting CenturyLink. My name is Kayla C. (20692). How may I help you today?

Kayla C. (20692): Hello Jenn!

jenn: i am looking to get 40mb internet service at my home, it says only dial-up is available. is this true?

Kayla C. (20692): Will you pleae give me your full address.

jenn: sure, XXXX XXst ave sw seattle wa

Kayla C. (20692): thank you

Kayla C. (20692): We do not offer Internet to you guys I can obly tell you what we offer.

jenn: what do mean? you can’t offer us internet?

Kayla C. (20692): We do not offer serivce in your area at the moment

jenn: that’s interesting because we just had a century link salesman try to talk us into getting high speed internet from him that was just installed a month and a half ago.

Kayla C. (20692): Will you please verify the phone number or account number that you have with CenturyLink?

jenn: we don’t have anything set-up yet, he’s coming back tomorrow with paperwork because your system is down.

Kayla C. (20692): Do you live in an apartment

jenn: nope

Kayla C. (20692): I do apologize we do offer upto 7M

jenn: i think this is weird you are changing what you 1st stated. especially when this guy said we could start at 20m and then realized it could be 40m

Kayla C. (20692): Our systems are down right now i do apologize

jenn: um, thanks for your time

Kayla C. (20692): Is there anything else that I can help you with today?

jenn: no, you just confirmed this is a sham

Kayla C. (20692): Thank you for using CenturyLink.com today. Our goal is to provide you with excellent service and we appreciate your business. Please take a moment to give us your feedback by completing the post chat survey. If you need further assistance, please click here for additional customer service options on CenturyLink.com.

Thank you for using CenturyLink.com. Your chat session has ended.

Thank you for using CenturyLink.com. A CenturyLink Sales and Service Consultant will be with you in just a moment. Your account information is aconfidential and protected by law. Advise our agent if you prefer that we don’t use it to market products or repair your services. This has no effect on the service we provide you.

Thank you for contacting CenturyLink. My name is Jessica T. (20817). How may I help you today?

Jessica T. (20817): Hi, Alec!

Alec: Hi Jessica. I have a question: I wanted to order internet and was told about an hour ago that the system is down. Is it still down?

Jessica T. (20817): I will be happy to place the order for you.

Jessica T. (20817): To begin your order, please provide the following information: 1. Your full name 2. A good contact number where you can be reached for any questions with this order or your service 3. The complete address where you want service connected and your billing address if different than the service address 4. Your Social Security Number and date of birth 5. Your e-mail address 6. The name(s) and relationship of anyone that you want authorized on your account to make changes or ask questions 7. Place of employment and work contact number

Alec: So you’re saying the system is NOT down at this point?

Jessica T. (20817): Correct. My systems are working just fine.

Alec: Can you see what internet we can get at our place?

Jessica T. (20817): May I have your address?

Alec: XXXX XXst ave sw, seattle, washington, 98136

Jessica T. (20817): You can get up to 40M for your Internet at this time.

Alec: Very interesting……

Jessica T. (20817): Do you want to bundle with phone or Internet?

(end of conversation)

Anyone have any input about this company?

Thanks!

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[kootchman]

Are you sure you didn’t the Department of Licensing or City Hall…?

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[chrisma]

CenturyLink is a very large telecom company, that bought out Qwest last year. I’ve never heard of them going door to door for sales, and if anything is fishy, that is.

Sounds like you might have gotten their after hours staff who are usually not American, and often don’t have much of a clue as to how to help you, if it’s not in their script. What you think is suspicious on the part of Kayla, might have been a simple matter of her mis-keying your address in.

I don’t know where you live or what speed of service CenturyLink can offer you, but I would call them directly to setup service, rather than through someone who came door to door. That just doesn’t seem right. CenturyLink as a company is as legitimate as Comcast, or Qwest. In fact, it is Qwest, with a new name (which was U.S. West with a new name).

Good luck.

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[anonyme]

I’ve never heard of QWest/Century Link going door to door, nor have I been asked for a Social Security number over the phone.

I can tell you that Century Link salesman are absolute LIARS. I’ve had their service for many years, and the last few times I’ve renewed I’ve been completely scammed by the sales rep. I never get the price that was promised, and there are always sneaky little conditions that end up costing money. The “bundled” packages (as well as the bill) are artfully designed to be unintelligible. I’ve made complaints to the company, AG, and FCC without result.

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[Ken]

Uswest>Qwest>Centurylink.

The original name was century-tel and they were the local telco for Vashon Island in the 90’s. Like GTE (now verizon) they filled in the areas of WA, OR, ID and MT that were considered too rural to be profitable by USWest.

They bought Qwest last year.

They are no more sleazy than any other telco. However every telco is sleazy in its sales and marketing department and having worked for the former CEO of Qwest, I can attest that most telco executives are waaaay beyond sleazy.

CenturyLink has made a few changes from qwest. Those changes will only show up in particular instances. For example, I made multiple calls to CL recently inquiring about bandwidth upgrades to a couple of circuits I am responsible for. I ended up keeping my circuits as is and inquiring into fiber and microwave for a couple of commercial accounts I advise.

CL will not allow third party ISP’s to connect any new dsl services above 1.5m. Any attempted change to existing 3,5 and 7m circuits results in a slam to CL’s network and MSN as your isp. Any IP addresses assigned from your former ISP are not available and the cost of more than one IP from CL is an impossible monthly charge.

This is the death of independent ISP’s as local DSL providers.

However, geography limits your choices. If you live in WS you probably can’t get verizon as your local telco. Verizon offers fiber to the home in some areas of north Seattle and most of the burbs. The choices are CenturyLink, Comcast and clearwire. Each of these has pros and cons. Comcast installed internet over cable in the early 90’s and West Seattle was one of their test areas before nationwide rollout. Clearwire seems to have fixed some of their “dead spots” in WS.

All of these technologies are subject to overselling just like all services from telcos since the first wire was strung.

For most people the current CL promotion that locks you in to a 5 year contract at 39.95 would be a good deal. I have other needs.

All internet connections to homes and most to businesses are asynchronous. This means your upload speed is usually a small fraction of your download speed. If you need to send or upload data on a regular basis, beware the upload speed promised by your service.

BTW I learned long ago never to let a salesguy talk me into anything. If I can’t buy it from the info provided online or via research, I consider it a scam. I have supported (tech support) too many sales departments to have any shred of respect for most sales people. There are however exceptions but they are rare in the telco industry.

Also: CL does go door to door and they are sales droids. They ask me what I used my DSL for and just a couple of seconds into the answer both of the nearly passed out from trying to process the description of my network. I had never actually seen a person “scurry away” before…

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[JanS]

Ken – is that “scurry” like little rats? lol…

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[DBP]

Ken: If this is the effect you have on telco sales droids, one can only imagine the reaction you get from religious droids as they try to “process the description” of your metaphysical network.

I just felt a disturbance in The Force. Has someone been trying to prosyletize in West Seattle again?

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[SeekingEuros]

Never buy something from a cold call to your front door. You are asking for problems.

If you are thinking of changing Internet service, I have used Qwest now CenturyLink for at least 10 years and have never had a problem other than their price. You need to call at least once a year to make sure that relative to the price you are getting the best service. I have never experienced any down time nor reduced speed which others are notorious. I hear too many problems with Comcast and Verizon.

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