Complaint Review: Centurylink

CAUTION!
Don't use the offers of centurylink!!! If you think your current provider is bad - it only can get worse, believe me!
There are 2 issues:
1) service (actually this CANNOT be called "service")
2) wrong (much too high) bills

I was a roadrunner customer and because of several outages I searched for a new provider for High Speed Internet (cable or DSL). Centurylink had an offer, that sound really good: a bundle of High Speed Internet (slower than roadrunner but they explained that they are more reliable and the reasons sound logical to me) and UNLIMITED phone calls. The monthly fee was $49.95 - price was guaranteed for 5 years, no commitment (i.e. the client can leave at any time)

I signed up for this bundle and canceled my roadrunner-account and the REAL problems began to start.

If I was online and used the phone, my daughters lost their wireless connection - every time (nice, if you do some online work for college....). I had SEVERAL calls to the support. NO one had a clue what he was speaking about. All had the same stupid questions and came up with ... NO SOLUTION. This happened for several days. Finally (after app. 2 weeks) I had a lady on the line, who knew what she was speaking about and we were able to solve this problem.

then the internet worked for a few days. then I lost my connection to the internet. Another lady explained, that my phone cable is too long which would lead to interferences, so I replaced the phone cable with a short one, headed to walmart and purchased a long network-cable instead, but it didn't work either. I called again the support and this guy told me that he cannot help me, but he will send a technician (scheduled for app. 60 hrs. later). I didn't want to wait such a long time and in the evening I just unplugged everything, plugged it in again a couple of minutes later and it worked - for 3 days.. the it started again. I lost connection more than 20(!!!) times a day (on - off - on - off - on - off .... etc.) - no chance to write in blogs, to do anything online.

I called them and canceled the account and told them that I'll NOT pay for a not existing service (or at least not the full price)! They haven't delivered what I ordered - it's that simple.

Then they sent the bill.
You remember: $49.95 per month - all included, no additional fees.
The bill was $218.25!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Package price $83.25
several "subcriber charges" (FOR WHAT???)
etc.

Then: I had to made a deposit of $50 (no credit history, because we are in the US since less than 3 years and haven't had a chance to build one yet). They CHARGED this amount, i.e. this shows up as part of the bill and at the end they deducted the amount as already paid (hey, that's a DEPOSIT, not a payment).

In my eyes this is FRAUD!