Complaint Review: Windstream yellowpages

I have advertised with Windstream for years. Every year we have advertised, we have turned in our own ads. They have taken it upon themselves to completely make them look bad. Example, they went in and blurred out parts of ads, lightened one ad and darkened another so you can't even see them. I have also had issues with wrong numbers being put in my ads. We kept a double truck, half page, a dollar bill and a business card in the escort section and a full page in entertainment. You would think that with us buying so much ads we would be treated decent. Every year, we have an issue with our ads. Every year we supposedly get some little deal to get us to shut up basically. We were told no one could get in front of our double truck because we had senoriority. Our competition upgraded to a double truck in front of us for not even half the cost. When we complained, we were told that we had bought two one page ads in that section so that is how our competition got in front. This was never the case and we wouldn't have spent as much over the years if it had been. Another one of my competitors called me to tell me that a Windstream representative called her. She told them that they had the wrong number but they proceeded to tell her exactly how much we owed them down to the penny. I figured this was a mistake but then I started recieving calls from Windstream saying we owed that exact amount from over the years. I came to figure that this bill of over 60,000 was from the three years of them telling us that the charges would be discounted because of our ad issues. We are still being harassed. I called the complaint line. That did not do any good. I spoke to a really rude phone operator that would not hear anything but tell me she was sending me to billing. I called back to complain since she kept sending me to billing and told her I was calling the right line because the reason I was calling was because I wanted to file a complaint. She said that she could not help me because my account was passed due with an attitude and send me right back to billing. Now, they are allowing my competitor that double trucked in front of me to use all my dba's. We were told that we could not advertise in their book this year unless we paid the full amount of our bill that we do not even owe! Our competition got in the phonebook and she told me that she owes over 15,000 from last year. Every time I have dealt with someone about problems we get pushed aside with attitude until it is time to advertise. Even then apparently they don't really offer discounts because they will go after you later for the money they supposedly took off your advertising.



I really feel taken by this company and there is no way I will pay them the money I supposedly own them. I will never use this company again and am pretty sure everything they have done to my company is straight illegal.