It Still Takes a CenturyLink

I wonder about old Ma Bell.  You know. The old telephone company? I think CenturyLink is still using Bell Telephone's billing system. Or maybe when they broke up Bell Telephone (anyone remember the anti-trust laws?), the phone companies took it so seriously that they adopted the left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing style of management.

The last time I wrote about It-Takes-A-CenturyLink, it was with the hope of getting higher speed internet connections. They advertise 20 Mbytes/sec but they don't let you know the upload speed. That's 0.8 Mbytes/sec … on a good day. Our weekly garbage pick-up is faster than that. Things got intolerable when I couldn't send out emails of 1 Mbyte or more. Servers timed out waiting for my connection. From about nine in the morning to late afternoon, couldn't send out emails.

I thought it was a problem with my new computer, but the tech guys who support our office network blamed CenturyLink and suggested that I switch to Comcast, a/k/a Xfinity. I tried using my old computers to see if I could send out emails faster. Nothing doing. I did ping tests and telephoned the tech guys at CenturyLink. Two or three different guys (I've learned not to trust any one person) assured me that 0.8 Mbytes/sec was the operational "max" for upload speeds.

Meanwhile, I had to run up to the neighborhood Starbucks to send out loan documents for a closing. Twice. In my frustration and panic to get a rush closing done, I left my mouse at home. There I was sitting in Starbucks with no mouse. Okay. I figured I could use the blithering MacBook touch pad. Oh no I couldn't. It was inoperable. (Still doesn't work. Neither does the disk drive. It has also become mind-bogglingly slow. My next rant will be directed against Apple.) I had to drive home, pick up the mouse, return to Starbucks, buy one of their wretched cups of bitter, scalding hot coffee, then send out loan documents to escrow. Meanwhile, I was surrounded by chatty, happy kids from the nearby high school. I figured Brave New World.

Okay. Comcast 5 Mbytes/sec upload speed sounded better and better. Leave aside the trauma of Comcast. We have two neighbor friends who relentlessly complain about their poor Comcast service. Leave aside the trauma of unbundling our DirectTV because we don't want cable TV. Leave aside the idea of a cable company providing me with phone service. (Comcast needs to bundle its internet service with something.) I am too old fashioned. I like telephone companies providing me with telephone service. And not wireless either. I like those skinny little telephone wires because they don't need electricity to operate. Comcast's cables do.

Even with all that, I was still anxious because I had no idea whether the old Comcast cable from the previous owners was still good.  I had torn off the orange cable that went up the side of the house and lay in coils on the roof. I feared I had torn too much out. I had images of having to dig up the asphalt driveway plus dig a ditch several hundred yards long through desert landscaping. The alternative was the visual blight of Comcast's orange cable draped over my agaves.

I took up a few paver bricks and unearthed the stub of the old Comcast cable. The Comcast guy came out, tested the connection to the Comcast box in the street, and it was still good.

Shari and I decided to make the switch, even though we had a sickening feeling that we were trading Godzilla for Gargantuan.

It turns out they use black cable now, not orange. We "ported" (that's the telephone-lingo) our existing telephone number from It-Takes-a-CenturyLink to Comcast/Xfinity, and my upload problems vanished. Emails disappeared into the worldwide web with astonishing speed.

All we had left to do was unbundle and get our final bill from It-Takes-a-CenturyLink. Which is the subject of this post.

We made several phone calls to It-Takes-a-CenturyLink to make sure DirectTV and our clamshell phone with Verizon were being unbundled and paid. Twice I was told matter-of-factly that I would have to return It-Takes-a-CenturyLink's modem. Twice I explained that I had already returned their modem the year before, on the same day I got it.

If you've read my previous It-Takes-a-CenturyLink post, you may remember they couldn't upgrade my internet service without sending me a modem to rent. I complained that I already had purchased the identical modem from Best Buy, but to no avail. They had to send me one to rent. But no problem.  I could send it back and there would be no monthly rental fee.

So I shared this bizarre It-Takes-a-CenturyLink modem-mailing story, but it was a waste of time. Sure enough, about the same time we got our final bill, we also got a letter with instructions how to return It-Takes-a-CenturyLink's "high-speed" VDSL modem.

I had to make more telephone calls to India and/or the Philippines. Exasperated, I learned that It-Takes-a-CenturyLink had been billing me a lease fee of  $6.99 a month.

Have you ever read your It-Takes-a-CenturyLink invoice? It's completely undecipherable, like Chinese characters to a click-speaking Bantu. I just counted the number of line entries on our typical CenturyLink monthly invoice. Ninety-four.

Thank God Shari is fastidious about record-keeping. We found the UPS receipt that I got when I returned CenturyLink's hi-speed modem on August 1, 2014. We went over a year's worth of CenturyLink invoices. Sure enough, no lease fee in August or September of last year. No wonder we were lulled into complacency. Then in October, a $6.99 monthly lease charge appeared. The charges continued each month. By February, they'd increased the lease fee to $7.99 a month. (I guess the price of modems went up, kinda like pork-belly futures.)

Armed with my UPS receipt and our $58.06 calculation for the overcharge, I began the cheery task of telephoning, listening to CenturyLink advertising of high speed internet interspersed with announcements of the estimated wait times (irony unintended), and sharing the last four digits of my Social Security Number with half the population of Boise, Manila and Bangalore. At one time, I was so excited when a human voice finally answered, I accidentally disconnected myself.

I had to complain that CenturyLink was stealing because (a) I returned their miserable modem the day I got it, and (b) they've made me pay rent for a modem I own. I told my story and provided the relevant UPS shipping number. The fellow checked the UPS number and confirmed receipt. Then I was transferred to another department where I had to start all over again.

Left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing.

My third go around was with Finance. I admit I was pretty testy when I repeated my story about corporate theft. Then the lady told me she had to put me on hold. I'd been disconnected often enough and feared having to start all over again. Several minutes passed. Finally she came on the line and brusquely but pleasantly said, "You have a $106.09 credit on your account." I was shocked. I immediately became the most compliant and grateful customer she could have imagined.

Of course, I didn't mention that by our calculation, the overcharge was only $58.06.

"So the records are corrected and you don't need me to mail you a modem?"

"Yes, sir.  That's all taken care of."

"Should we pay the $6.93 balance now or wait for a corrected final bill?"  She assured me it would better to wait for a corrected bill.

Okay. Today Shari returned from the post office with a delinquent payment notice from CenturyLink. We owed $113.02. No credit.

I cannot explain how the original $113.22 final bill lost twenty cents, but then I can't explain the $106.09 credit amount either. And, as I have suggested, I doubt if anyone alive can explain a CenturyLink invoice. Ninety-four line items.

I made a direct phone call to Finance armed with my confirmation number for the credit. Those direct numbers you get are precious. Although you still get the oprime el nueve recordings and have to recite the last four digits, the wait times are less and the people you reach are more knowledgeable. My question was simple. I'm supposed to get a corrected final bill showing a $106.09 credit. Why do I get a delinquent payment notice dunning me for $113.02?

"Our records show the $106.09 credit and only $6.93 is due."  Why the wrong bill? "Our records show the $106.09 credit and only $6.93 is due. Just send a check for $6.93." My complaints that I should get a written invoice for the correct amount fell on deaf ears. "This is Finance. That's a Billing problem. I'll forward you to Billing."

Left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing.

The fellow in Billing told me, "Our records show the $106.09 credit and only $6.93 is due. Just send a check for $6.93." I complained.  I should be able to get a corrected invoice for the correct amount. We went around and around, but all I could get out of him is that the accounting/billing system that It-Takes-A-CenturyLink uses is incapable of printing out a bill that shows the credit.

I hung up before he asked the inevitable question, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I called the telephone number on the back of the delinquent payment notice. After navigating through the computer-generated obstacle course, the pleasant computer-generated voice said that the amount owing was $6.93. Somewhat assured ("Third time is a charm.") I wrote out a check for that amount with the hope that it would be the end of it.

I made the mistake of going online to see what It-Takes-a-CenturyLink says is owing on my old account, the one under the telephone number that was "ported" to Comcast. When the phone number moved, I was assigned a new number for the purposes of CenturyLink's final billing. I found my old number on the CenturyLink website. They showed about a hundred and twenty dollars were past due.

Which is why I think CenturyLink is still using Bell Telephone's billing system.

Actually, that's a slight on Bell Telephone. I have very fond memories of the regulated phone company, its pleasingly short invoices, less than $20 a month for phone service, and a black phone so weighty that you could use the hand-set to knock out a giraffe.