CenturyLink
reviews and complaints

Prism TV is very poor. My TV kept having pixelation and constant freezing, and nobody know how to really fix it. I had been calling and calling and they kept telling that there is a programming error on their side but they cannot seem to fix it. The technician came to my house but still did not fix the problem. In the last 2 months, I spent more time on the phone with the technical support team than watching the television. I was going to cancel the services but I was told that there was a 1 year contract. Please do not get the Prism TV, they are not ready for the technological shift yet.
I've had Comcast and Direct TV prior to Prism, and I did not have this kind of problem.
If you want simpler life with the TV, do not get Prism.

We decided to try centurylink for our internet provider, we asked directly to the salesman that if the internet didn't work with our system in our home, if we could cancel, and he said absolutely, with no fee. He lied directly to our face, we then called to let Centurylink know that we couldn't get their product to work, and never even activated our account. We asked where to send the equipment a week later we get a harassing phone call from Centurylink telling us they are sending us to collection for not paying their early cancellation fees (over $200 dollars worth!), which was apparently buried in the paperwork. To say I am appauled at this, is an understatement. We had no beef with this company their internet just didn't interface with our system, so it couldn't work, however now, I would never ever consider doing business with this company ever again or any of their sister companies for that matter. I will make sure to tell everyone I know and leave every possible internet complaint I can warning consumers of this behavior of stealing from people, and charging hidden fees for a product I never even used for one second. Quite frankly all this company cared about was getting an early cancellation fee, they never even tried to get their service to work for us, pathetic, and corporate greed is about all I can now think of when I think of Centurylink. To say I am disappointment in this brash behavior is understatement, and I feel like sick to my stomach that I just paid over $200 dollars for something I never had because a salesman lied to me, and they buried a cancellation policy in their paperwork that no one can see. Its no wonder I am forced to stay with comcast, since Centurylink doesn't care about making their product work, they just care about making money from cancellation fees and threats of sending people to collection who won't pay it for a service they were never given. Hopefully someday a class action lawsuit will find its way to Centurylink for this type of behavior. Shame on you Centurylink for stealing from me!

We decided to try centurylink for our internet provider, we asked directly to the salesman that if the internet didn't work with our system in our home, if we could cancel, and he said absolutely, with no fee. He lied directly to our face, we then called to let Centurylink know that we couldn't get it to work, and never even activated our account. We asked where to send the equipment a week later we get a harassing phone call from Centurylink telling us they are sending us to collection for not paying their early cancellation fees, which was apparently buried in the paperwork. To say I am appauled at this, is an understatement. We had no beef with this company their internet just didn't interface with our system, so it couldn't work, however now, I would never ever consider doing business with this company ever again or any of their sister companies for that matter. I will make sure to tell everyone I know and leave every possible internet complaint I can warning consumers of this behavior of stealing from people. Quite frankly all this company cared about was getting an early cancellation fee, they never even tried to get their service to work for us, pathetic, and corporate greed is about all I can now think of when I think of Centurylink.

This is an automated call which I have been receiving for several months now. They call at least twice per week. The recording alledges that they can lower my credit card interest rates. Then states that if I want to speak to a representative, press "1". When I do a human voice comes on the phone and I ask to have my name removed from their calling database. It is always at this time that the caller hangs up. I continue to get calls. This happens on my landline phone and now this week is happening on my cell phone. I never give out my cell phone number to businesses in order to avoid just this type of nuisance. This number that calls me is listed as belong to Qwest out of Phoenix, AZ. I am trying to contact the CEO of Qwest to put a stop to this. I am also filing a police report for harrassment at my local police department to get it on record. This style of telemarketing practice must be stopped.

B. Deutsch
Belleville, IL

This company is the devil. They lie about everything and do nothing. I have been having issues with my Internet for a year and they have yet to help. On top of that I wanted to sign up for their Prism tv service. I was told on Tuesday it would be 135 plus tax for all of the services. I asked for an email to be sent with that info and he said ok. Next day, no email. Called again, they said after talking to a supervisor they will send it again and it was still 135 plus tax for everything. Called back today, two days later, and was told emails cant be sent so they transferred me to a supervisor. She says no way can they send emails, because how could they lie so much? She also says my bill will be 166 plus tax and I ask how the heck did that happen? She says there is no indication of th 135 plus tax on my account. So she calls me a liar all while not caring about the two other different people who found it on my account at 135. So they lied and hoped I wouldn't catch it before I entered my contract and then screw me. So I canceled that install and will now be going elsewhere. They are crooks and ###. I will be telling every customer at my work about them.

After years of no internet service other than dial up, CenturyLink (or it's predecessors) installed dsl in our neightborhood. It ran at 1.5Mb. Then they installed more stuff so we could get 3.0Mb which I have had for several years. Recently it was behaving badly and I called to complain and the solution was to reduce my speed back to 1.5Mb even though the equipment is still capable of 3Mb. Their explination was that the equipment was old ans they have mot maintained it and have no plans to replace or upgrade it. A mile away you can get 12 Mb form CenturyLink for the same price as I pay for 1.2 Mb down and o.2 download speeds. CenturyLink Sucks, they know and don't care.

I ordered Centurylink and talked it over with my DirectTV and they explained the cost would be $14.95 modem and 49.95 standard installation plus taxes. Then Centurylink called me to confirm my installation date and time and I again asked the cost for this and they told me $14.95 s&h for the modem and installation was free to which I replied then why is the installer coming out. I was told to bring the modem. When the person from Centurylink came out he brought the modem and proceeded to install the line to my house to which I asked is there a charge for this because I have cable to my house and he replied NO CHARGE. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a bill for $219.00 dollars from them. They charged me $5 for partial mo. internet one-time charge for internet of $19.95 plus $34.95 for 1st mo. internet and $49.95 for standard installation. Then $99.99 for the modem which was never explained to me I have to buy there modem.Then $10.67 in sales tax. Then when I called I was told those were the charges and I explained that is not what I was told the charges were to be even though I asked several different people. She explained I could go to their finance payment plan to pay it. At which time I told them I wish to disconnect service with them if this is the way they do business and the centurylink person said OK and sent me to disconnect. There I was greeted by a person who I tried to explain my situation and why I was disconnecting who thought it was terribly funny and proceeded to comply with disconnecting my service. Beleive me when I say this company is very shady in it’s business practices. In all my years with comcast I have never been treated with such disregard and humiliation as I was with Centurylink. Well I’m going back to Comcast where at least there I know what the cost is and will be on a regular monthly basis.

Centurylink fraud: I had Centurylink telephone and Internet service for over a year. Last August (2011) I canceled telephone service and kept Internet service. The new charge was $39.19 per month with the statement showing a $20.00 credit. I didn’t know what the credit was for but in January (2012) I discovered that it was a trap to defraud. In January (2012) I canceled Internet service and was told the I would have to pay $200.00 penalty for canceling Internet service. I was told that when I canceled the previous telephone service, that I had made a one year verbal contract for the Internet service. That was the reason for the $20.00 credit.

I didnot agree to any verbal one year contract. The so called verbal contract is totally fictitious and a scam to defraud the customers that are canceling service. The actual charge for the Internet service was $59.19, so the net fraudulent ripoff will be about $100.00. Beware of CenturyLink-”thieves and liars”…

I just had a chat with a Centurylink CSR. I am on a budget as a single mom of two and trying to make ends meet. In this economy I think this is something everyone understands. I am not looking for freebies. I am looking for concessions to work with my situation. As a company the practical concern is to secure customers. Long terms use of your services would bring more return than the trivial fees that make your product inaccessible to low income customers. I can afford the 40 a month but cannot afford the 40 dollars of feels on top of this nor the 50 dollars ON TOP OF THAT to get the product set up.

But from my chat with your Centurylink rep you have no desire or consideration whatsoever to work with your prospective customers to get around this in a way that could be affordable. This is really disappointing and I feel this will greatly hurt you in the long run. Even leases for homes allow high deposits to be spaced out over a period of months to accomodate these situations. But from the position of your company its pay up or get out. Ill be posting this conversation on facebook and my blog as this is something that I think others would like to address as well. I am sorry that we could not come to a workable situation but should you want to work this out feel free to contact me.

WARNING: Do Business With CenturyLink/Qwest At Your OWN Risk! As You’re Playing With a Very LARGE, dumb, and dirty company. Don’t be surprised if you LOSE.

Our small business was solicited by Qwest to switch from standard copper lines to their T1 service, which is phone and internet service. This service was to be billed at $517 per month. To my surprise for the first six months Qwest billed me $1, 500 per month. Simple mistake? I don’t think so. I was forced to spend countless resources and hours and hours of time to correct their billing errors. They’d never admit to the error but give the account a “credit”. Really? Why don’t they call it for what it is? It’s a “correction”!

As a small business owner nothing is more important and critical to me than my phone and internet system. We live and die by the performance of our phones. So it’s absolutely critical to me that we’re provided good phone service as my livelihood along with my employee’s live hood’s and clients depend on it. Because of this, I grew very tired and frustrated of their incorrect billing and the cost it created for our small business. So I did what any smart business owner would do, I switched carriers.
According to Qwest we switched 8 months early. Had we continued it’d been about 4k for the “service” but since I cancelled early, Qwest is demanding $12, 000. THREE times what it would have cost to continue! WOW. Now I could understand that someone could make a claim for an actual loss because of an early termination. But to charge three times as much? I believe this to be a punishment for quitting their “service” as they using the wrong start date to figure the termination charges.

Now I deal with a lot of faceless and dumb corporations every day but Qwest is by the worst company I have ever dealt with. Period. They are so unorganized it’s an absolute nightmare to work with them. I would warn any business thinking of or currently doing business with CenturyLink Qwest to have a HUGE team of attorneys because you’re gonna need them to figure out the contract and to hold them to their end of the deal. And it would help if you really enjoy getting transferred around through a huge mess of people that don’t want to help you and are confused as to why you’re interrupting them.

So let this be a warning to all businesses everywhere when you do business with Qwest that you’re playing with a VERY LARGE, DUMB, FACELESS, CORPORATION THAT WANTS YOU TO LOSE.

First only my husband's name is on the account. He is not reachable at this time. I have his Durable FULL Power of Attorney. I call Century Link and ask what they need from me to put me on the account and tell them I have his power of attorney. I get told "We need to talk to him" I explain I am HOLDING his power of attorney and ask again what they need from me to put me on the account. "We can't. We need to talk to him.' I then explain that the next person they will be talking to will be my Lawyer and a State representive for refusing to provide me with information about what they need [which should be a certified copy of the power of attorney and other documents attesting that I have it] because this makes me "Him" in business matters. I get told "We have to talk to him." Can you say LAW SUIT Century Link? I'm sure the state utilities commission won't be happy with you either and you can bet your bippy I am complaining to them.

DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THE COMPANY IF YOU CAN AVOID IT. They don't have a brain or a clue. No other business has such poorly educated staff that they do not understand POWER OF ATTORNEY. We are stuck with them. First chance I get, I'm gone.

I have had CenturyLink DSL in two of my rental homes for several years. I am an engineering director with expert level knowledge in networking. Over the past couple of years CenturyLink DSL with Static IP service has become ultra unreliable. I use the service to provide wireless internet service to guests in my rental homes but more importantly I use it to control HVAC, Swiming pool, Lawn Sprinklers, alarm system and security cameras remotly from Connecticut. The service has gone down 4 times in the past two years for periods exceeding a week and in one instance over two weeks. In every case it was a failure of CenturyLink equipment or programming errors at Century link office. Since I live 1500 miles from these two homes the script driven tech support is TOTALLY USELESS. I am currently experiencing an outtage at my home along with several surrounding homes with no end in sight. I am now exploring every possible option to get out of DSL hell. The support is in describably bad, on one (of many) occasion(s) after spending a week arguing with tech support i flew to Florida and met with them the Level 2 tech promised never showed up. Instead they sent a unqualified level 1 tech to investigate why my staticIP connection did not work. When he left he had disabled my phone service and reconfigured my DSL for dynamic IP, making the problem worse. I then had to call tech support AGAIN and beg to talk to a level 2 tech. After an hour on the phone the level 2 tech determined that the origional problem was that someone had accidentally deleted my account from the servers and switches. I had two more similar incidents over the past two years and I am currently enduring a fourth incident. I have totally had it with this company.

Century Link has got to be one of the worst Internet service providers that has, is, and will ever exist. I had wireless Internet service from Qwest, which Century Link bought out. Falling for Century Link's line of bull, I upped the speed of my Internet service. Three Century Link reps told me the monthly fee was the same as my current one. Ha! My fee increased by $11 a month, and when I inquired about the increase, the customer service rep told me, "That's just what it costs." She added that some of the fee was "taxes". I asked why the "taxes" weren't separated out on my bill. She sputtered. To add insult to injury, the "increased" speed on my Internet service is slower than it was with the lesser Qwest speed. This, a tech told me, is because of my router, which I had been told by 3 other reps would handle the new speed. Even the tech told me the router would handle the speed. Then, realizing what she'd admitted, switched to the problem being my phone jack, which, evidently, suddenly became defective once Century Link service took over. And, the router didn't work at first, so when I talked to the tech I asked her to solve that problem. She was too dim to instruct me to shut it off for 30 seconds, then turn it back on -- a standard fix, I've now been told by 4 friends who are better techs than the Century Link tech. (The router does work now.) But, I can no longer stream movies to my TV through my blue-ray as I used to be able to do with Qwest (at a lower speed, remember). I've heard lots of complaints about Century Link around here, especially about the company's very high, and apparently arbitrary fees. Horrible service, tech service is a joke, prices are outrageous, and service reps tell customers different stories. A bad company. I hope they sell out to a company with high professional and customer service standards.

I'm with CenturyLink in Tazewell, TN. I pay for 10 Mb. After getting the internet hooked up the first thing I did was check at speedtest.net. I was getting around .5 Mb. I called tech support and they had me do a speed test at speedtest.centurylink.net, which showed 8.7 Mb. the tech told me that means I am getting what I pay for. LOL. speakeasy shows .6 Mb. Netflix won't stream HD, online gaming is a joke. Youtube takes a long time to buffer. But the techs say this is because speedtest.net and speakeasy.net have high traffic. I said "so you're telling me that speedtest.centurylink.net is fine but the rest of the internet is broken?" Eventually they agreed that the symptoms indicated a problem between their servers and the rest of the web, but told me there was nothing they could do. My parents house in a different part of the same city has 3Mb and always tests 3Mb on every speedtest site. Is it just me or does this seem like a problem with the Central Office serving my address? Obviously the line is OK or i wouldn't get full speed on Century Link servers. This needs to be fixed ASAP. I don't know what else to do. The guy who said I was getting what I was paying for was tier 2 tech support, and he was speaking with an engineer on the matter. What a rip-off...

I called them about my bill, it was higher then normal after I called about somthing. The girl told me I was due an up grade on my dsl at no extra cost to me.I said, sure. Then the the Sept.2011 bill is 22.00 higher. I called and they said I had agreed to a more expensive package and also a 1 yr. contract. I never agreed to that or was ever told about it. I called and talked to a supervisior and she said I couldnt go back to my old package because they no longer had it.I asked if the calls were recorded and she said yes. I ask thaat the 2 calls I had made be reviewed and prove to me that I agreeded, she said that the reps.

Had made notes and I told her I was scammed and she said, Im sorry you feel that way. Now I cant even change to another company for home phone and dsl because I will have to pay that contract. I don't know how to start a class action suit but this company needs to be looked at about their deceptive practices.

I signed up for internet + TV for one year, but they couldn't install TV due to the location of my apartment. Now they won't let me cancel the internet unless I pay the early termination fee. Also, they told me I'll be getting download speed up to 40 Mbps but I keep getting less than 10 Mbps. I called customer service and they told me connect the laptop via the Ethernet cable, interestingly I got 19.7 Mbps then I ran the the test on my other laptop which was connected wirelessly and I got the same. Few hours later I ran the test again and I kept getting 7 Mbps. This is ridicules I'm stuck with them for 12 months.

We had a sales rep come to our home in October 2011 and after several hours we agreed to services. The "contract" had a guaranteed 5 year price lock but every month our bill is different. When we received our first bill my husband called customer service and was told they couldn't help him and he had to a store which he did. After 45 minutes in line he was told they couldn't help him and he would have to call customer service which he did, again. It has been a constant battle and we were told tonight that because their terms of service are posted on the website they can change prices whenever they like. We signed a contract, not the website and were not directed to the website to review the terms of service prior to signing up. Buyers' remorse doesn't apply because so much time lapses from signing up for service until you get your first bill. Basically you are at the mercy of this deceitful, unscrupulous, greedy company. BUYER BEWARE AND DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY. I only hope we can discontinue service without it costing us a "bundle".

I am in Loveland, Co. I pay for 20 MB speed with Century Link, formerly Quest. My problem is frequent Internet interruptions. Manually rebooting the modem usually solves the problem but it takes several minutes from rebooting till able to connect again. This can happen several times an hour sometimes. After a very unhelpful call to CL support, in which I was told I either had it hooked up wrong, didn't have the right router, my modem was bad, etc, I was rudely told that had I purchased a real Quest modem I wouldn't be having this problem. My modem says Quest right on it. I was told I would need to purchase another one and that should fix the problem. These modems are near $100 dollars on sale. I borrowed a friend's Quest modem and it does the same thing. The interruptions are causing severe problems for my online college classes. Any suggestions?

Centurylink/Prism is by far the worst service I have ever had. For months and months, I have had TV and internet problems. I've had to spend hours and hours on the phone while their Prism TV "technicians" try to find the problem from their office, usually in LA, when I'm in Floirda. After I get the "tier 1" technicians, its inevitable that they will pass me on to the "tier" 2 technicians, this, after being on hold for yet another interminable amount of time. The bulk of my monthly cell phone minutes goes to trying to solve the problems of the lousy Centurylink service I have. Also, the bill has now entered in to the equation, making for me, yet another problem to deal with. For the bill problems, I have to call Centurylink itself, and when doing so, I get a different story from each and every customer service rep that I am in contact with. I recently was sent to the "Retention" department, to help resolve my bill, and to keep me as a customer, I suppose. It is with this man, in LaCrosse, WS that my bill amount was determined, credits applied for all of the bad service and time down, etc. Well, lo and behold, the next month bill comes out, and BAM! Its 30 dollars MORE than what the retention person and I settled on! Back to the phones! I still have not received any satisfaction, and I now get the excuses of "well that service went up, the box rental went up, the internet went up", and on and on and on! This is the most maddening service I've ever had in my lifetime! And not one person has been able to find out the problem of my serivce, it continues til this day, and I've had technicians out to my house time and time again, to no avail. The most recent visit of a technician was today, as my son's tv would not "boot", although it was properly hooked up, etc., and we had totally gone over the options of fixing it the night before and yet another 1 hour phone conversation to get our TV service working, as mine was down too. So, the tech comes to my house today, I don't even know he's in the house, as my son let him in, apparently he went to my son's room to look at his TV, and what do you think happened next? This technician just barges in my room, no knock, no, "hello, are you decent", no NOTHING! I was at my computer working on something, in my nightgown, and I WAS MORTIFIED that this man had just blatantly entered my room! He went straight for my modem and started a restart, which, also booted me from my computer, on which I was in the middle of something! Oh, and it was the same tech that always has come to my house, and has yet to find anything wrong with my system. All he has done is replace equipment in the hopes that that would "do it". I am disgusted at best, I owe a past due balance that I am refusing to pay until they fix the current bill, and I'm also not going to pay a dime until they fix this broken system! I'm tired of the techs in LA that have done nothing, I'm tired of the techs in FL that have done nothing, and I'm tired of the customer service reps who are extremely rude and could care less if you're unhappy about your incorrect bill, and have no intention of resolving it, all they offer are excuses as to why I should pay it. ADIOS YOU TERRIBLE CENTURYLINK/PRISM SERVICE, YOU GET AN 'F'.

I signed up for internet service from Century Link and told them I needed my house connected to their lines outside. I had a modem and would take care of the rest. The sent me a 100 dollar modem and nobody came out to connect my house. When I called and complained, I was told someone would be out the next day. A serviceman showed up, took one look and told me my house was not connected to their lines (DUHHH). I told him that is why he was here. He left, saying that was my problem, not his. I called Century link, cancelled any service, sent back the unordered modem, and told them what I thought of them.
Today I get a bill for 88 dollars for the service that was never hooked up and was advertised at 35 dollars a month. I never had service with them, and I tell you now, I never will. BUYER BEWARE.

This whole fiasco started when I called Century Link to port/transfer my telephone number to a VOIP service. I swear, theey did everytheing possible to make theis easy transfer experience into a huge mess and hold thee whole process down. I told theem theat I would keep my broadband Internet withe theem, but not thee telephone. I asked theem to keep my telephone number active until thee new company ported it. Well, thee next day, no telephone, theey disconnected it, so thee new company could not transfer thee number. I had to call CL again several times to talk to someone theat understood my situation and was able to activate my number again. In thee mean time, theey could have assigned theis number to someone else and theat would have been really bad. Anyway, I had to ask my VOIP company to start thee porting process again, so anotheer wait. Today, I wake up to no Internet and no phone, so I called CL again. Their answer is "you disconnected thee services and we shut you down today". So, after explaining thee situation to theem for thee 11the time, I was transferred to a tech theat knew what he was doing. After several minutes back and forthe communications, theey were able to complete thee porting of thee number and get thee Internet working.
How can such an easy request become such a hassle? Century Link, theat's why!

At the moment I have to go through Century Link for my internet. They lied about how much my services would cost and bundled me into a contract. I'm paying twice as much as I was for internet before I bundled, and to be honest I didn't see this one coming at all. I've never done business with any entity that said here's your total cost, locks you into contract, and charges you something totally different they claim you agreed to. Shame on Century Link for their horrible ethics and morals. I hope the supreme court will hear out a case similar to mine against Century Link so that a class action lawsuit can be applied. They're not going to stop doing this without the help of the courts.