temporarily offline

[technomage]

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here is a copuy of the letter I sent out postal delivery to
the Arizona State Attorney general's Office.

The names and other private information have been censored
here for privacy reasons.





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************************ letter to state attorney general
********************
<name deleted for privacy>
<address deleted for privacy>
Phoenix, Arizona 85033
account: 623-xxx-xxx-167R

16 July 2001

Arizona State Attorney General
Consumer Complaints Division
1275 W washington 
Phoenix, Az 85007

to whom it may concern,
I have had recent (and troubling) problems with QWEST, Inc and their
management of my account. 

I recently ordered DSL service during one of their specials (on 26
April) and was given an install date of 7 May. Well, the deadline 
came and went with no installed service and a really screwed up bill.

On 9 May, I contacted QWEST to determine why my services had not been
setup. I was told that my new due date was for sometime after the 
13th of the month. I ended up being passed from on person to another 
over the course of the day. The following is a list of people (and 
case numbers) that transpired of the course of that day.

The format is: date, time, person, ID# and case# (and comments in
parenthesis) 
9 May   09:15   Mark 20298      Case: 537-1316  (discussed the problems
with the instal. Nothing was done at this point. I was recommended to 
call the DSL sales office)

9 May 09:25     Dawn 665        Case: n/a  (Spent 3 minutes trying to
determine why my due date was changed. No resolution, was passed to 
supervisor)

9 May   09:27   Cyndi 22935     Case: 537-1476 (was informed that the
ticket was not submitted. I asked why and wasn't given an answer I 
could call coherent. After 20 minutes of waiting on hold, I was 
instructed to call back to the DSL sales office to resolve the matter)

9 May 10:45     Shannon 2520    Case: n/a (discussed solutions to this
problem. This person had nothing new to offer, save some additional 
phone numbers that were not previously included with the information 
packet sent along with the service order. It was suggested that I 
call back later that afternoon and speak with a tech support person 
about getting the modem device properly configured.)

9 May 15:44     Ramon 20630     Case: 537-6159  (as suggested earlier,
I called DSL Technical Support to get current information on 
configuring my device to interface with the system. The configuration 
went ok. This was also a service query to see if anything new had 
been done since this morning to correct the misorder <what they refer 
to as a "missed commitment">).

9 May 17:08     Brad 21000      Case: n/a  (I was connected here after
my previous call <having spent nearly 1 hour and 20 minutes on hold.> 
My account was still not properly operational. I discussed this with 
brad and he connected me to his supervisor <another long wait on hold>)

9 May 18:15     Greg 22813      Case: 537-8255  (spent a long time on
hold waiting for this person. Told him the problems and relayed to 
him all the other people I had spoken with this day. Told him that I 
was becoming concerned that nothing was being done to meet my original
deadline (which had passed 1 hour and 25 minutes before). I was 
informed at this point that my actual deadline was 11 May. I asked 
him why I was not informed of this previously. I was informed that it 
was not the responsibility of QWEST DSL to keep the customer notified 
of changes such as this... after nearly an hour of this type of 
go-around, I terminated the call)

10 May 10:15    Brain 5018      Case: n/a (called in again to see if
anything could be done to get my order installed expediently. I 
relayed to him what had transpired the day previously. Because of all 
the troubles, I was awarded 2 months free credit toward my phone 
bill. I was informed at this point that I would have to call the 
billing office to get them to credit my account when the new bill 
arrived.

11 May 15:00 DSL service wa finally turned on.

11 May to 11 July, intermittent problems with e-mail services and slow 
responses from other services included with the DSL package. Sent 1 
or 2 e-mails and made some calls to QWEST.net to resolve the problem..
Hold times were often longer than 1 hour (unacceptable lengths of 
time for customers to remain on hold!). Gave up and waited in most 
cases.

12 July 13:28 DSL service failure! Called into DSL service dept. spent
time on hold waiting....

12 July 14:40 Paul KN2156       Case: 5951364 (called about DSL service
failure. Spent the next 2 hours going through a complete rundown of 
the problem, including reprogramming the DSL router, collecting data 
and submitting a trouble ticket. It was determined to be a 
malfunction at the central office, however, due to a service order 
change <I discovered I was being overcharged by $30.00 a month for a 
service I did not need>, the repair would not be initiated until the 
service order was completed. I then requested that he attempt to have 
this changed as I was now losing my customer base <I offer the use of 
shell accounts and remote web hosting from my home/office>. We spent 
the next 4 hours talking with several individuals within the technical
support hierarchy. I was told that until the reprogramming of the 
line was completed, that nothing further could be done. I then 
requested that he contact a supervisor. He told me that he would do 
so. We disconnected. 40 minutes later, I heard from him again and was 
told that nothing else could be done. He was very apologetic about 
the problem. I thanked him and terminated the call and waited for my 
circuit to come back up)

15 July 01:00 DSL circuit came back up. All seemed to be working.

16 July 08:40 DSL circuit died 9again).

16 July 09:00 placed call with DSL support center. Was on hold for 1
hour and 26 minutes before I got a live person 

16 July 10:26   Forgot to record name of person here  Case: 597-5164
(called in to determine what the problem with the circuit was. We 
went through the reprogramming of the router to insure that all was 
working correctly Person was unable to determine where the fault 
was. Said it looked like the circuit was not installed. Suggested I 
call the Business office).

16 July 11:10 QWEST Residential (spent 22 minutes on hold waiting for a
live person. I was informed that on Friday, 13 July, the DSL package 
had been canceled. Was requested to hold while the DSL center was 
contacted to determine the problem. Call was interrupted <terminated 
on hold> and I have received no callback.)

As indicated above, the level of service I have received during the 
last 2 months is substandard. I have gotten the run-around with 
technical issues related to my circuit. Filed due dates change 
without notice and to top it all off, service is terminated without 
notification. Any customer base I may have had has now been completely
lost to me. I have not been given a time frame in which these 
problems will be corrected (if ever). 

All of the above data indicates the following:
lack of customer care, inability of the customer service 
representatives to interface in a timely manner with the actual 
technicians on duty, the inability of the respresentatives to 
provide relivant information, the use of "buck passing" as a tool 
to stifle customer resistance, the lack of authority with those who 
interface directly with the customer, and the problem of the "right 
hand not knowing what the left hand is doing" (lack of inter-office 
communication), failure to submit service orders and/or trouble 
tickets in a timely manner (or failing to submit out of irritation 
due to poor customer interface), The refusal of QWEST, Inc. to 
give priority in service to on-going (or re-acurring) problems, 
all goes to show a complete and utter incompetance.  

I request that you, (and the others to whom I have carbon copied this
letter of complaint) investigate and resolve these issues in a fair 
and equitable manner.

Thank you,

<name deleted to preserve privacy>.

_(signed in hardcopy)_____________________-
(signature)
cc: Arizona Corporation Commission
cc: Better Business Bureau
cc: various Arizona State Representatives and Congressmen
cc: local media outlets
********************* end letter *************************************


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