I had been having problems with my Centurylink internet for some time. It was randomly dropping and technicians had been unable to diagnose the issue. The problem was finally identified by a technician that my DSL rates were too fast for the line I was on. I was on a 10 MB/s plan, but he determined the line could only handle around 5 mb/s. So he reduces my speed and tells me to call Centurylink to make sure I was only being charged for the 5 mb/s plan since that was the max speed I could receive. I called Centurylink, I believe it was in late October or early November, and the customer service rep said he reduced my plan. He never once mentioned anything about a new contract. When I went to pay my bill later that next month, I noticed that it was now for an amount that was quite a bit higher than it had been when I had the 10 mb/s plan. When I ran through the charges, I was now being charged for unlimited long distance, call waiting, call forwarding, and a whole slate of calling services. I need to mention that prior to this I had the most basic phone service for local calls only, as most of our calling was done on our cell phones. I didn't even have a long distance plan on my phone prior to this change. In addition, my internet plan had not been reduced to 5 mb/s as was agreed, but to 3 mb/s.

I called Centurylink later that day, I believe at this time it was late November or early December, to discuss this issue. The customer service rep said everything could be fixed as I wanted it but I would have to go under a new contract. I had been a Centurylink customer for quite some time and wasn't sure if I was even under contract for anything anymore so I asked him if I was currently under contract. He said no, which I made sure to clarify. I told him at that time since I was not under contract and didn't use my home phone to not make any changes to my account, as I would like to shop around. He said that was fine and we disconnected.

I found a deal later that day from Mediacom for cable internet. They were able to provide internet at a much faster speed for approximately 1/4 of the cost that I was currently paying. Obviously, that was a no-brainer. As I was under the belief that I was not under contract with Centurylink any longer, I had Mediacom install cable internet in my house.

After the new cable internet was up and running in early December, I called Centurylink to completely terminate my service. The customer service rep checked to make sure there wasn't any better deals that Centurylink could provide, but as their best deal was still twice what I was now paying with Mediacom, I declined any offers. I told him that I couldn't turn down that type of savings and he told me he completely understood. I received a confirmation number and considered the matter closed.

Next month I received a letter from Centurylink that I didn't pay much attention to because I was still under the impression that I had no service with them any longer. When the next month I received another letter I opened it to see that I had outstanding charges of over 200 dollars. I was floored.

I called Centurylink later that day and spoke to a customer service rep and explained the situation. She said that not only was I being charged with a contract cancellation fee but that my phone service had never been disconnected. Naturally I was a little upset to hear about all this. She said that she would not be able to handle anything like this over the phone but would have to forward on my information to the conflict resolution department. She took my phone number and told me they would be contacting me soon.

I don't know what the definition of soon is to them, but I still have not received a phone call from any conflict resolution department. Instead, what I have received just today is a notice from a collection agency that apparently contracts with Centurylink stating that I am delinquent with my account. This is beyond frustrating.

I have been a Centurylink customer since Centurytel bought out my local phone service approximately 13 years ago. I have never missed a payment, and for the most part have always been a satisfied customer. I feel as if I have paid my dues as a decent customer and have earned the right to save money with another service if that option arises.

I also feel as if I had settled all issues on my end. If I am told I am not under contract, then I believe that should be able to operate under that impression. In addition, if I am told that my service has been disconnected, then I also believe that I should be confident that this is the case.

If I felt that I owed the money, then I would have paid it. Unfortunately, now that they've sent this issue to collections, I fear that I am going to be fighting an uphill battle as I will be shuffled between two different agencies. This whole situation is ridiculous.

I never had any problems with Embarq but Centurylink is a different story. My problems started when they “lost” a payment in October 2011. Both my bank and I provided proof several times. During this I was informed by 2 managers and a finance rep that I would be contacted about the resolution of the issue – NEVER HAPPENED. I was also told by several customer service reps/mangers that Centurylink will not call a customer. Pretty funny considering the 2-3 calls per month trying to sell me more services but they don’t have the time to call a customer with real issues. Finally, I did receive credit but I wanted an explanation of the delays and poor customer service. I called and talked to a customer service manager and informed him someone needed to call me within 48 hours or I would cancel my service – SURPRISE NO ONE CALLED. I then moved my service to another provider. About 3 week later received my final bill. I only received a partial credit for the time canceled. At the rates claimed, I have overpaid $500 during the past 2 years of Centurylink service. I disputed the bill verbally, through email and fax – the only response was to turn the account over for collection at one month from the original final bill. I then sent a letter to the collection agency disputing the bill. I also sent a letter to the CEO, Glen F. Post III, of Centurylink informing him of the extremely poor customer service and non-responsiveness of the company. Both letters were received over 35 days ago. AGAIN NO RESPONSE.

My advice to anyone considering Centurylink is stay away unless you enjoy poor customer service. They lie, do not follow through with promises, cannot or refuse to address valid issues, have representatives who do not have knowledge or authority to decide anything (call this other number and maybe you can reach someone who can’t help you also), and finally will turn you over to collection agencies without even acknowledging a customers dispute. I have no problem with paying what I owe and have almost spent as much money with the certified letters and significantly more by wasting over 10 hours of my life on a simple issue that could have been solved early with no issues.

Centurylink is totally incompatent TOTALLY. My DSL went out 3 days ago. We've spent at least 8 hours since then, on the phone, being bounced back and forth to nearly a dozen people and continually being sent back to the same USELESS 800 number. I can't call them Service Reps or Technicians because they understood NOTHING of what I or my wife was telling them. Since I've been though all this with them before, I explained the DSL line power is not there NADA 0 volts. My DSL line is a dedicated to DSL and only to DSL That I had taken ALL my equipment out to the entrance box and installed it directly to their incoming line. with no DSL light and NO connection. Now it will be Monday before I even see any activity out of them and ONLY if they got it right this time. Hasn't happened in 3 days I'm not counting on it.

I just received our new Century Link bill and was billed for electronic fax services monthly fee and also for vmail and efaxing monthly fees. The total was $27.90 and we never ordered this service The dates we were billed was Jan 27 for $14.95 from First Rate Voice Service.On Jan 24 Rocket communicatins billed us $12.95 for Vmail and Efaxing monthly fee. We never subscribed for either of these and I will be calling Century Link on 2/14 to get this resolved. I'm not paying for anything I didn't order and the Better Business Bureau needs to get this company for falsely biling consumers!

I called CenturyLink today to set up dry loop 1.5 mbps DSL service. The price of this service on their website is $39.99 per month. The customer service rep tried said she was searching for the "best deal" and tried to sell it to me for $49.99. Naturally I asked why it wasn't the same price as online. She put me on hold and said she found a "special" and the price would be the advertised $39.99 per month. At this point she has looked twice for the "best deal"- interesting. We do the credit check that requires me SSN, which I am not fond of giving out. Everything checks out, no deposit required. We proceed with ordering, she tries to sell me router- No thank, I have one. The modem though, that was too much. To ship the modem to my house will be $14.99, I responded I was not interested in the modem either then. Put on hold again, ok shipping is free. But there is a $4.99 fee for the modem, PER MONTH! Modems cost around $50, over the life of the product I would pay for it many times over. At this point I decided I needed to shop around a bit for service. The attempt, in my opinion, to up-sale the price of the service, then exorbitant shipping rates, and over priced rate for the modem just seems dishonest to me. It makes me wonder if companies understand it's a privileged to have customers, not a right.