Thursday, August 11, 2011

You Clearly Don't Always Get What You Pay For...

I am soooooooooooo pissed off!! You know the other day, when I came here to blow off some steam, but got sidetracked by happiness and posted something fun instead? Yeah, no such luck today... I am beyond livid. So, for the last few days, we've been having problems with our phone and internet. I think I posed last week about our tech troubles. This, this pales in comparison to that. Not only can I hardly make phone calls because there's too much static on the line, but the internet keeps going on and off every fifteen or so minutes.

I called CenturyLink yesterday, because the net had been going on and off every fifteen minutes for, oh, about the last three days (four days, as of today). Internet tech support say it was a line care issue and wouldn't help me. They did, however, transfer me all over the blasted company and had me talking to everyone... except them. Line care said they were sorry, and sent a tech out. He arrived within an hour to look at it and rather than trying to fix it, he just spewed a bunch of crap about how all the techs who had ever come out here before (including the one who installed the damn jack) were idiots and didn't know how to do anything. Um, okay, I don't give a crap, just fix it. The funny part is, he didn't do a damn thing to make the line better. Not really. As a matter of fact, while he was spewing his blah, blah, blah about how the other techs are dumb, and plugging in a splitter inside the house, he caused our net to go off. Good job, dude, seriously... good. freaking. job.

You see, I have a dual phone jack. It has two plugs in the jack's face-plate. One line dedicated for the internet, and one for the phone. This works because there's a DSL line splitter in the phone company's box outside. Okay, fine, whatever... it's been working that way for years. Yeah, Y-E-A-R-S! When he put a splitter inside, without checking to see if there was one in the box, mind you, he caused our net to go down. So then what's he do? Oh, let's see, he disconnects the splitter in the box outside, which makes my dual phone jack (which I paid extra to have installed) not work. Then, he comes inside the house, and puts a DSL line splitter inside. The phone and internet come up, he insists that's it, and leaves. Oh, but not before telling first, me how shoddy the hook up was (they apparently ran the line through one jack, out, and into another, rather than hooking up each jack separately), but he didn't fix it. And second, that all those exposed wires on the line outside where the plastic coating has chipped away, were "no big deal" and they weren't a problem at all. Oh, really, because the put that plastic coating on the wires for fun? Or for looks? Seriously?!

But, even though all that was annoying, the internet came up for a good solid 10 hours. No problem. And, the line was clear. Great, he fixed it. I could overlook his idiosyncrasies as long as he had fixed it. Then, about 12:30am last night the damn thing went off. Only this time, it didn't go off  for fifteen minutes, this time it went off for almost eight hours. When I picked up the phone to call internet tech support to tell them our line was down again, the phone had so much static that I couldn't even hear the dial tone. Not only had he NOT fixed it, the problem was getting worse!

This morning, after it came back up, it was somewhat stable for a while, but was running really slowly. So, in an effort to notify them that they didn't fix it and to try again, I called them (after internet chat support completely blew me off) and internet tech support again sent me to line care, who again agreed to send a tech out. Fantastic, he didn't do anything before and now we have to wait for him to come out tomorrow so he can do nothing, again. Wonderful, exactly how I want to spend my day, dealing with tech people who don't do their jobs right the first time. I know it's hot, but really, is it that hard to just do it right?

But, here's the real kicker. Yesterday, when I was talking to them about my net being down on and off, the guy in tech support said I should request a bill credit. For both my net being up and down, and for the headache. But, that tech support guy transfered me around so many times that we never got around to getting to billing. Today, while talking to them, I remembered and was transferred to billing. For the most part, everyone at CenturyLink is really nice (internet chat support, notwithstanding), but their billing department are assholes. Pardon my language, but they are. The woman I talked to was a total bitch. She clearly did not care what my problem was, nor did she want to give me a bill credit, and she took it out on me. She made me explain my whole problem again, and then in a rather rude tone asked me "Well what're they doing to fix it?" as if it's my fault it's not getting fixed. Then, she made me wait on hold for almost a half an hour and when she came back, she offered me a $5 bill credit. FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS! Really, after all this trouble, $5?! Is she serious?! Apparent so, yes, because that's all I got.

We work from home and this is interfering with our ability to work. I can write if I can't access the internet, or Demand's website. I also can't access the databases and study for my comps, which are next week. Do they care? Nope, not at all. I am telling you, CenturyLink has the worst customer service I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I cannot wait to move next year, at which point we will be free of them because they don't service Southern California. Initially, when we signed up seven years or so ago, they were Sprint. Then, they were Embarq. Now, they're CenturyLink. None of them have had particularly good service, but this takes the cake. I am furious! I'd like to complain, but I have no idea who to complain to, so I'm complaining about it here.

I mean, is it wrong to expect a decent level of service from a company you pay $130+ per month? I expect to get what I'm paying for, but between this and T-Mobile, who refused, by the way, to let me out of my contract because "They're not responsible that I've moved to a low service area" (jackasses, I didn't move!), I'm starting to believe that companies could give a rats hind-end about their customers. When you have to spend your hard earned funds on a service that works part of the time, with customer service that could care less if they help you or not, it's really frustrating. What other choice is there? Not have phone, that's not at all reasonable.

Ugh, okay, now that I've rampaged and ranted about CenturyLink, I'm going to go. My shoulder is bothering me from holding the phone to my ear for more than an hour trying to get this crap worked out.

Oh, and get this... I tried to post this a minute ago, but my net was down. Awesome. :(