Frontier Communications review: fraud and cheating 51

Frontier appears to be the only game in rural Mohave County for High Speed Internet service. The other options in this town? Go to dial-up services and risk being ripped off when the rates are raised after a "Trial Period".

A 76-year old friend contracted with Frontier for the "Special High Speed Internet Package" at $29.99 per month. When the price of this service mysteriously climbed to $44 and change, he began sending a minimum payment to the company. His original contract began in mid-November, 2008. It would appear that his telephone service was bundled with the DSL as a package, because a couple of weeks ago Frontier cancelled both his internet AND telephone service.

Friend stops by to ask for help in solving the problem. He is looking at a bill in excess of $300 (!). As it is a Saturday, I telephone and am unable to get through to Tech Support. So instead, I go through the Repairs department. I speak with a very nice rep who informs me that my friend has indeed been overcharged a total of $159.19 -- he has been paying at least $15 per month too much for the High Speed Internet, which indeed should cost him just $29.99 per month. I am assured by the rep that if my friend pays the "current amount due" of $75.98, all his services will be turned on within 15 minutes. So I am given authorization and information to act on my friend's behalf and request they deduct this amount from his checking account. The same rep assures me that the $159.19 will be credited to this man's account...she just needs to speak with her Supervisor on Monday. Since then, my friend received a letter acknowledging the $75.98 payment AND a Past Due notice in the amount of $216.39. Ergo, his account has not been credited the $159.19 that the rep in Repairs stated the company overcharged for services (plus Federal, State and Local taxes on the magically increased monthly High Speed Service charges, as stated in the contract). So I must go higher up the food chain to get this problem resolved (or so it would appear).

Since service was restored, my friend's "High Speed 3MBps" internet service has slowed to a crawl. Intermittently, he achieves the sort of speeds one would expect from High Speed DSL. I have run utilities which check for every sort of Malware, without locating, isolating and destroying any such critter. The service (in XP Pro) is totally unacceptable. I've booted Linux from CD and gotten much better and consistently quick performance. Nothing changed on this man's PC between the time service was shut down until it was restored. He continues to assert that Frontier "has done something deliberate to sabotage his machine" and "they're deliberating screwing with me because they do not want to do the right thing." At first I thought my friend was speaking out of frustration and aggravation and a bit of paranoia. Now I'm seriously beginning to wonder about the ethics (such as they are) of Frontier.

I've also noted that his DSL modem rapidly heats up to the point of becoming a fire hazard. I will need to call Frontier on this problem, as this man has been paying the monthly Modem Rental fees and Frontier needs to fix or replace the Modem. And of course, there should be no costs involved, as Modem Rental is the price one pays not to be charged out the yazoo in the event of equipment failure. Would that I were a telephony expert and also knew how to take apart and repair problems in the related hardware: I could recommend that my friend simply go out and purchase his own third party modem, as it's a better deal in the long run and you own the equipment.

Frontier's sign up "deals" are rather shady. You opt in for one year at what is supposed to be a set rate for the Light or High Speed, or pay an extra $100 to have the DSL cable run for a dedicated line and an additional amount (neighborhood of $10, when you include all the taxes and various nickels and dimes for inexplicable charges) if you opt for month to month service. But wait! The rules of what installation costs are arbitrary. I was told it would cost $34.99 to installation of a cable for the DSL Light service. When the fellow arrives, he TELLS me there will be an additional twenty dollar charge to "run a second line." I have made it plain to Frontier that I wanted ONLY a dedicated data line, as there is already a telephone line in place and I did would not be using the data line for anything other than internet service. In the recent past, there was a second line that had been run into this place. So already, I'm questioning the integrity of "what I was told by a company rep" versus "what actually happened during the installation process."

I will say that the Technician who did the installation was polite and professional and did a very neat job of running cable and strategically running wires so they would not be hazardous and used a minimalist rather than an extreme approach to wiring. Everything looks very tidy. But where did this magic twenty dollar charge creep in?

You will also note that, with the exception of emailing tech support, it is extraordinarily difficult to find an email address for people working in a Supervisory capacity. As I learned long ago, "getting it in writing" is the ideal form of communication -- especially with companies that seem content with saying one thing and doing another. Frontier appears to prefer doing business in such a way that no proof of the conversation exists. So? Either record the conversation yourself (and by law you must warn whoever answers the call that you are recording this conversation "for quality purposes"... essentially feeding back the same message you receive when you phone into Frontier). And keep a notebook and pen handy, as well.

FYI: there are laws in the state of Arizona regarding consumer complaints about utilities overcharging. And if you do the research, you're likely to find a similar law in your state or county. I fully intend to get email addresses of those who function in a Supervisory capacity and quote Arizona law and, if necessary, keep going until I'm exchanges email with the Regional Manager, the VP (the VP always tends to be much more knowledgeable about the consumer than the CEO or President of a corporation ever is).

And one more item of note: you can test the speed of your connection's download and upload times using various free utilities. Simply google "test internet speed" (quotes unnecessary) and choose from a long list of sites. Do this test a couple of times per week just for jollies and keep a log, in the event that Frontier claims you got the "screamingly fast" 3 MBps rather than the "Light" service, which I must tell you is 14x faster than your best dial-up speeds. And back in the days of dial-up, I never once achieved a connection of 56kbps from *any* service provider. The absolute best it ever got in any location via any dial-up service was 44kbps, which (at the time) I considered a miracle of sorts. More typically, speeds ranged from 33kbps to 36kbps. And of course with dial-up, there is always the joyful experience of the dirty, noisy phone lines causing one's connection to drop with a fair amount of frequency. Thus I learned very quickly to copy text in an email message prior to clicking Send, as this was most typically when the connection would drop and result in data loss.

Actually, I found that logging in, copying text from a message that required a response, pasting the body of the message into a Text Editor, saving the text file, logging out of the connection and typing my reply to the message into the same document, saving again, then dialing up and logging in again with a copy of my response on the Clipboard ready to be pasted was the Best Practice when using any dial-up service. And this can also be the case with some DSL services, as well... if it bites you once, use the Text Editor method, as it almost certainly will clobber your data again.

I agree Frontier is a bad company. I had business class DSL with them. I had an inexcusable amount of billing problems. Rates being increased while rate locked in a contract. Thank goodness the small cable company started internet in my town.

Another thing. They scam customers into contracts and agreements. Local phone plans with unlimited long distance for $49.95 a month, or 100 minutes of long distance for $19.95 with a couple of calling features. It all works great until the day you want to change your plan.. You later find that your agreement auto renews, they give you a hassle to cancel. You call a month or two to change and they tell you its too early. "call back in another two weeks".. Two weeks comes and goes and they tell you the same thing when you call. If your a day or two too late then it already auto renewed. I changed my plan to go month to month, told the CSR I did not want ANY agreement to go month to month. I looked at my bill and I am under an 12 month agreement. Hopefully the cable company will get local telephone service soon and I will be able to cut all ties to Frontier.

Frontier is constantly pushing Dish Network for $9.99 a month, pushing people to bundle internet, phone, and TV. Then offer you $125.00 gift cards, free laptops, if you sign up for the deal. Buyer beware.. If the deal looks too good to be true.. It is.