Complaint Review: CenturyLink - Select State/Province

The problem started with a return slip CenturyLink sent to return a modem.  A friend of mine was worried about boxing and dropping off a modem to return to a former ISP.  I've got the time and often ship things via UPS anyway, so I told her don't worry, it's no problem at all for me to drop it off.  I wrapped up the thing in mylar, packaged it in a box with bubble wrap, wrote the MRA# in large, friendly letters on the box, stickied the shipping label on it and went off to my local UPS store and dropped it off.  Everything on their instructions and more.

You know what I didn't do? I didn't keep the the UPS tracking number after verifying on UPS' website that it was delivered.  You know - the one on the shipping label they sent me - the one that they bought from UPS - that one.  Why would I keep it?  If they wanted to track the package, they could just look up their own shipping label's tracking number, right?  Wrong - or at least so I was told ALMOST FIVE MONTHS later after a collections notice showed up.

This was after my friend received ONE call from CenturyLink, asking her to pay the remaining balance.  What remaining balance?  For the unreturned modem.  After telling them the modem had already been sent back, the CenturyLink rep told her to nevermind, it will just update on the next billing cycle.

After the collections notice showed up, I was mad enough to fix this problem myself.  Afterall, I was the dolt who didn't keep CenturyLink's tracking number.  Everybody I talked to at CenturyLink spent SEVERAL MINUTES trying to find the modem in their 'modem tracker' system or whatever they call it.  Nobody could find it.  Everybody asked for the UPS tracking number (the one on the label they sent me) and seemed unable or unwilling to help me in any other way.  Either find the tracking number or pay the balance.  Also, each person I talked to provided me with a totally different experience.  Like they didn't work for the same company. 

The first person I talked to seemed like she wanted to help and took the longest time trying to track down the number but seemed totally helpless.  She told me she'd send me to the Finances Department to see if they had any more information.  I was on hold for several minutes, then asked by an automated system for a transfer number, asked again, then it hung up on me.  (This is what happened EVERY time somebody tried to transfer my call.)  After that I got pretty much every color of unhelpful, rude, and dispassionate you can imagine.  And that was just from five people.  86 minutes on the phone, one very long online chat with the slowest typist on the planet, and a fruitless venture to my local UPS store.

At this point, I was thinking that this was just a racket.  I was thinking they are keeping the modems, calling people back, asking for the tracking number, counting on the fact that a lot of peoeple probably wouldn't keep all their CLOSED ACCOUNT info for very long, saying 'Oh, well if you don't have this number that we should be able to look up ourselves - being a customer of UPS - you're going to have to pay us $100 for the modem,' and then figuring most people would rather pay the outstanding balance rather than put up with the major headache their employees are apparently trained to cause.  But I wasn't ready to give up yet.

During the course of all the calls I made, I learned two things.  The first was that Qwest and CenturyLink somewhat recently merged (2011), and it seems like a lot of complaints similar to mine have been filed against them since.  Maybe that's coincidence.  The second thing I learned came from some deeper digging.

One of the people I talked to told me I would have to talk to UPS to get the tracking number.  I knew this was bogus but I did try talking to them.  The manager at my UPS store seemed a bit flabbergasted and I had to repeat my question to him.  "If their our customer, they should be able to look up their own tracking number," he told me.  Anyway, I told the CenturyLink person that UPS is going to need the shipping address to have any hope of finding the tracking number, and I got it.  I looked up the address and found out what businesses were there.  I called one of them and got a hold of some very nice and helpful people.  They were a bit confused at first since they don't normally deal with end users.  They are CenturyLink's shipping and receiving contractors.  After I explained the situation, they were a terrific help.

And here's the second thing I learned, perhaps more specific to this particular case:  CenturyLink is a new customer of this company.  They used a different receiving company at the time I returned the modem.  Could the modem have been misplaced during all this transitioning?  That's what I've BEEN TOLD but haven't yet comfirmed with CenturyLink or seen reflected on a bill or otherwise.  So this matter should be resolved - hopefully.  Which brings me to my epilogue:

But first, let me reitterate that I am not the account holder.  I was calling for my friend since I dropped the ball and didn't retain valuable shipping information for longer than four months after it was delivered.  And let me tell you that I was straight forward with each person at CenturyLink about not being on the account and that I was calling on behalf of the account holder.

After hearing from CenturyLink's shipping/receiving provider that there should be a credit issued, I waited over the weekend and called CenturyLink just to confirm that this indeed was the case.  I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth.  (Again, I told them I wasn't on the account and that I was calling for a friend.)  NOBODY will talk to me now or even acknowledge that they talked to me before.  I take that as a sign that the account is out of collections.  But, who knows.  I wonder if CenturyLink even knows...

This was - by far - the worst I have ever been treated by any customer service or other company representative.  They don't send anything in the mail?  No bill?  They call only once before they just hand you over to collectors?  They don't care if somebody they talk to has the suspicion they've been scammed and lied to?  And I bet the modem isn't even worth a hundred bucks.