It is completely mind boggling what piss-poor customer service qwest has in some areas and how wonderful others can be. Please forgive me if I ramble on here but this was a mess with qwest from the word go.
We had a rather high phone bill for the month of October. Wasn't a great surprise considering we have a home phone line, a cellphone along with the tail end of paying for the cellphone itself all wrapped up on this bill. On October 14th, my wife sent in a $75.00 payment. I sent in a $100.00 payment on the 31st and my wife sent in another $200.00 on the 14th of November. According to our records, that left a remaining balance of $18.00.
During the course of all this, Qwest had shut off service to the cellphone (despite the fact that payments were coming in) but left the home line active. On November 17th, my wife phone Qwest to determine if the $200.00 payment had been received and to request the cellphone was turned back on. Much to her surprise, qwest telling her that the remaining balance was $53.54 coming from some "extra charges that qwest had found" and that it had actually been due by the 16th of November. Due to the fact that the payment had been due the day before, they had not only shut off service, which we were aware of, but they had deactivated the phone.
With this new information my wife inquired as to if this then removes her obligation to contract with qwest and the individual she was speaking with informed her that she was no longer under contract since they deactivated directly. The person she originally spoke with was not in the wireless department and did offer to connect her with the wireless to see if there was anything they could do to help us get the cellphone reactivated and services restored that day. The extremely rude, foul-mouthed, little shit that my wife was connected to, informed her that she had better learn to pay her bills and that if she didnt immediately call Qwest back after she paid the $53.54 and have the phone reactivated (of course for a reactivation fee) that they would bill us an additional $200.00 early deactivation fee.
When my wife tried to explain to this idiot that this seemed a tad strange to her that we would be responsible for a deactivation fee when Qwest directly deactivated this without customer consent or any real cause for deactivation. Let me quote what she was told by this individual. "Look, lady, as I said before you need to learn to pay your bill and you damn-well better get down there, pay this $53.54 and then you had better call us back or we are going to bill you that $200.00 early deactivation fee and there isnt anything you can do about that." As you can much imagine at this point my wife was considerable angry and I believe she actually called this guy and asshole and hung up on him.
After much discussion between my wife and myself, we decided to do some investigation just to confirm that what qwest was doing was not right or didnt seem right. We confirmed that according to their own website where they list Terms and Conditions, along with all the booklets and information sent with the cellphone, that the ONLY thing stated in regards to a $200.00 early deactivation fee, was if the customer was to request deactivation. Upon gathering all this information, my wife called Qwest back, and as you can well imagine, she was geared and ready for a fight. This was on November 25th.
It was our intent to completely get out from under qwest as far as the cellphone was concerned and point blank refuse to pay this $200.00. Fortuately, she was connected with one of the nicest individuals she has ever dealt with at qwest. Originally she started by giving him the facts and informing him she just wished to be done with the wireless service with them. The qwest rep. (we will call him L.) inquired as to why my wife was so upset. My wife then repeated the above story to L.L.Checked the account and it was noted that she had called in on November 17th, however there was NOTHING noted that she had been upset or there was a dispute and so on. Something that L.informed my wife should always be noted.
After hearing the treatment that my wife received, and reviewing the payments made, as well as reviewing the deactivation and so on, L. Credited our account the $53.54, along with the $200.00 deactivation fee (YEP folks the little prick my wife spoke to previously tacted it on that day even though my wife told him over and over she would have that paid by November 30th). L. Also had her cellphone turned back on. Unfortuately because Qwest had deactivated the unit entirely, it had to be assigned a new number and treated like a new subscription. Although not a huge issue, it was just another thing to deal with due to Qwest. I would LOVE to be able to say that this nightmare with Qwest ended there, and that we walked away with 100% total custmer satisfaction, but unfortately it almost gets worse here.
My wife had such a positive experience with L. That she inquired about a second phone. Our daughter was turning 15 on the 28th of November and one of the items on her "wish list" was a cellphone. This is something that we had actually checked on locally and were debating on doing as we are the type of parents who like to know where are kids are. My wife informed L. Of the situation and she had actually told him due to the time frame they were looking at she doubted that this could be done in time for her birthday on the 28th, but wanted some information on it for a possible christmas present. L.informed her that there would be no problem getting the phone to use by the 28th even with the Thanksgiving day holiday if we were interested in doing this. After some lengthy discussions with L., and the assurance that the phone would arrive on the 28th, along with the fact that this had been such a positive experience with L., my wife went ahead and ordered the phone.
On November 28th, we had arranged for our daughter to be out of the house during the hours of 10:00am and 2:00pm. This was the time frame we were given for delivery. Since the order was placed on November 25th, our other 6 children had really been teasing our daughter about the "special present" she was getting so our daughter was aware that something was coming she just didnt know what. So, we arrange for our daughter to be "busy" elsewhere while waiting for this phone to show up. 2:00pm comes and goes. At 3:30 pm, my wife called qwest to find out what is up with this and why havent we received it and to atleast get a UPS tracking number. At this point we were not getting to overly upset as it is the holiday season and we were still assuming and hoping that this was just a matter of a UPS truck running a little late.
The individual she spoke with was very nice and attempted to check on this order. Originally the gal said that the UPS tracking number wasnt showing her anything, but that the account was noted and it was stressed that this phone had to be to us by the 28th of November and from what the account showed, everything had been done. She asked that my wife and I just wait it out and that from what she could see it should be there. Well, 5:30pm comes and goes and so we are again calling qwest to find out where this is.By this time our daughter is back at home and getting more and more discouraged due to the fact her present has not arrived. This time, we get a customer service rep who yes is extremely nice, but has no clue where this is or how to help us.
My wife was actually so tired of dealing with this that I spoke to this woman direct. UPS was called, and we were given the UPS tracking number so we could also track this. During the course of this, while on hold for the 10th time, I went to the UPS website to see for myself what was listed. It seems that someone in Qwests shipping department decided to ship this package UPS ground, regardless of the fact that it was stated in there that this HAD to be here on the 28th. I promptly hung up with Qwest to call UPS. UPS informed us that they were not doing any ground deliveries on Friday or Saturday due to the holiday but they were doing Next day air and second day air.
Since qwest shipped this ground, we would not receive this until atleast Monday, December 1st. The guy that we spoke to there informed us that UPS ground is usually only 2 days so a lot of companies will bill their clients for second day air charges but send it ground and milk the profits off this. He would not make the accusation that Qwest directly does this but, in this case, there was a holiday so Qwest got caught in their own game. We even called back qwest and informed the rep that this was the situation. The guy that we talked to THIS time tried to tell us that Qwest doesnt even use the option of UPS ground. That qwest only uses next day air or second day air as options for customers. Well, the phone arrived at 7:10pm Monday and the lable placed on the package BY QWEST stated right there it was sent ground.
So in the end, we did receive the phone, however not until almost 3 full days after the date it was suppose to arrive and of course leaving a 15 year old very upset that this didnt arrive. They did credit the $53.54, the $200.00 early deactivation fee (that we shouldnt have had to begin with), they credited ALL shipping charges, and gave us half off the price of the phone.
My wife spoke to L. On Tuesday to inform him of what a mess was made out of this order she placed with him. L. Also sent us some accessories, free of charge, as an appology for this mess. All of this could have been avoided to begin with had the snot nose who original spoke to my wife had just done his job, been polite and curtious, and handled the original situation. 2 thumbs up to L. And the reps that we did speak with that were kind, and understand and help to compensate for the mistakes made. We do not hold any of you accountable for this as we are sure that you are not the ones that ship these items out. Just remember to watch any shipping charges that come from Qwest. You may be billed for second day air and they are shipping it ground.
Brian
Billings, Montana
U.S.A.
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