ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

A few years ago, when we were living in Provo, the phone in our apartment began having troubles with incoming calls. People would call only to hear nothing but clicks when we picked up, and sometimes their calls didn’t get through at all. We weren’t sure whether it was a problem with the actual phone lines in the apartment (our landlord’s problem) or a problem with the phone lines outside the apartment (Qwest’s problem). We decided to call Qwest first.

The technical support operator at Qwest took a look at our account and said it looked like an outside problem, so they would send someone over right away. A few days later, there was a knock at my door and I was greeted by Tall Grumpy Fat Qwest Repair Woman (hereon referred to as TGFQRW). TGFQRW quickly informed me that the outside lines were fine and I would now be billed $75 for the visit, even if I told TGFQRW to go away immediately and did not let her check the inside lines. Qwest had said nothing to me about this potential charge when I called. If it had been an outside problem, she explained, Qwest would not be charging me. Apparently Qwest doesn’t believe in courtesy.

TGFQRW claimed she fixed the phone and left. I soon discovered she had fixed nothing and the problem persisted. I called Qwest and told them all that, and they said too bad, they were still going to charge me $75 for her visit. And if they sent someone over to try and fix the phone again, it would be another $75, even if they too did nothing. Obviously I said “no thanks” to that.

Long story short, my landlord was nice and picked up the $75 charge by letting me deduct $75 from my next rent check, so I let it go, otherwise I would have disputed the charge with Qwest. The whole thing turned into a mess with Qwest claiming it was the inside lines and my landlord claiming it was the outside lines, but that’s irrelevant. The point is, Qwest looks for excuses to hit you with hidden fees and services. They care more about collecting an extra $20 here and there for stupid reasons than they do about having satisfied customers for life, and they’ll try to keep from telling you about these fees and services up front.

I swore back then that I’d never use Qwest again. I should have kept my own promise. When I moved into my current apartment, Comcast wasn’t set up for my building nor could they give me an estimate on when they would be able to install their hardware. I tried an Internet company called Clearwire which wound up failing even more than almost as much as Qwest. Getting anxious to get a good Internet connection and fast, I reluctantly decided to give Qwest another shot.

Shame on me. My Qwest bill was a little bit past due last week. I owed $150 for the May and June Internet and phone services, so I sent in a payment of $50 last Friday. My husband gets paid weekly on Fridays, so I figured I’d just pay $50 a week every Friday until the account was caught up. I have a long history of paying my bills on time with Qwest, and I didn’t receive any disconnect notices in the mail, so I figured I was okay. What kind of company disconnects a customer’s service without warning having recently received a payment from them?

What kind indeed. Harley and I went down for a nap yesterday at 1PM and my Internet was working. When I woke up at 4PM, it had been turned off. I called up Qwest and sure enough, it was turned off because we still owe $100 on the bill. No, they don’t care that we made a payment on the bill a few days ago. No, they don’t care that we have a long history of making timely payments to them and this was just a fluke. No, they don’t care that we didn’t get a disconnect warning. They saw an opportunity to make $20 on a reconnect fee, and they took it. They said they would reconnect my Internet, “probably within a few hours but it could take as long as 24.” This morning (16 hours later), I called to check the progress and discovered they hadn’t put the reconnect order through properly and would have to start all over again. Bonus fail, Qwest. Bonus fail.

What was funny about my talk with the Qwest representative, Don from Seattle, was that he tried to console my anger by talking about how when he was a Qwest employee and had been a Qwest customer for years, he and his wife missed a payment and Qwest quickly interrupted their service, too. Now Don was very polite and nice, but if I understand him right, the point of his story was, “See Mrs. Meyers, Qwest doesn’t just treat their customers like dirt, they treat their own employees like dirt too! The powers that be at Qwest are equal opportunity ass-clowns!” Thanks, Don! I feel much better about my future with Qwest now.

Well Qwest, the joke’s on you, ’cause I’m switching to Earthlink. All of the reasons Earthlink will blow Qwest away:

I’ll probably be without Internet for a few days while I make the transition, and that’s okay. I’ve decided no Internet for a few days is still better than groveling to Qwest to turn my Internet back on.

Assuming Earthlink’s phone and Internet service works as well as Qwest’s does, I think it may be love. I encourage any other Qwest customers out there to take a look at Earthlink. If you don’t have Earthlink in your area, consider canceling your Qwest account anyways and just stealing Internet from your neighbors. It’s still superior to paying the ass-clowns at Qwest another dime.