Over two years ago when I signed up for the bundle with Windstream, I assumed that long distance included conference calling because a previous telephone company I was with included conference calling in their services package. Also, I thought unlimited long distance meant just that - unlimited long distance anywhere in the US.
On January I started working for a company that offered me a "seasonal" position to work for 4-6 weeks during their peak. I would be taking "incoming calls" as a Customer Care Agent. I did research on the Internet regarding this company and did not see any complaints or comments about the charges that may be incurred by the phone company or I would have added the conference calling to my service package. I was told later by Windstream that I could not obtain the conference calling feature for just one month so, I probably would not have even taken the job at all.
Without my knowledge, Windstream charged me for every call I had to make to connect to the VOIP for almost 3 weeks. The seasonal position was finished 2 days before my phone bill came. My bill went from $143.00 to 339.00 for one month. I received the current bill covering the remainder of my seasonal schedule and the bill went from $143.00 to $474.00.
I had already spoken to Customer Service before getting the current bill. They were only willing to shave $50.00 off of the bill and I had to fuss alot to get that. I do believe that there must be some type of sensor that alerts the company when a customer's bill is way past the normal. They assured me they do not have this capability. The Customer Service personnel lied to me, I feel totally deceived and violated. Not only that, I absolutely worked for nothing since my wages were all eaten up in the phone bill.
They told me after I spoke with them that I would only have 5 days more of the charges on the next bill. That was a lie, too because the current bill is higher than last months. I requested that they assume at least half of the charges since I was deceived into thinking that the conference calling was a feature that I had with my "bundle" but they refused to work with me on that.
Windstream's customer service is as all of the other clients have described - "terrible". Because the seasonal job I had was a customer service based job, I was trained on "stellar service" and what I experienced was not stellar but, rude and deceptive.
I wished I could be part of a class action law suit against this company because I think they are taking advantage of hard-working consumers who are just trying to stay afloat in these hard economic and unemployment sky-rocketing times. It is hard enough to find a job and then when you do come upon one, the wage gets eaten up by a company that is already making record profits!
Please let me know if there is anything that can be done. To keep my credit in check and because I am a conscientious person, I will pay this bill but, I wished I could receive some refund from Windstream for not notifying my when the charges were being racked up (unknown by me) for almost 3 weeks and deceiving me into thinking that I had the conference calling service included in my "bundle".
Thank you for listening!
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